The FINANCIAL -- Celebrity chef James Martin is to launch a restaurant at the Talbot hotel in his home town of Malton, North Yorkshire.

Owned by the Fitzwilliam Estate for more than 200 years, the Talbot is currently closed while it undergoes a £4m restoration. It will reopen in the spring with 26 bedrooms, a 70-seat restaurant, a lounge bar, a public bar and a private function room. According to Caterer and Hotelkeeper, the hotel was previously managed by English Rose Hotels, but last year was brought back under the management of the Fitzwilliam Estate.

Tom Naylor-Leyland of the Talbot hotel, who is also responsible for Malton's Food Festival, said Martin's involvement would set the tone of what the new hotel would be all about.

Last year Martin, who cut his culinary teeth in Yorkshire helping his father in the kitchens of stately home Castle Howard, opened the Leeds Kitchen, a restaurant within Alea Casino at Clarence Dock in Leeds.

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