Is Jöro worth the hype?

It’s fitting that you have to travel some way to get to Jöro. True, it doesn’t compete with the sorts of treks that foodies undertake to get to the finest dining establishments in Cumbria and Cornwall. But the drive out into the quietening far reaches of the Don Valley, through Oughtibridge and beyond, makes you feel you’ve made a minor pilgrimage to the new shrine of Sheffield’s fine dining scene. The original builders of the paper mill it’s housed in could never have dreamed that one day tasting menus would be served here. It’s a very different feel to Jöro’s former Shalesmoor home in a shipping container, just off the ring road.

When Jöro arrived in Sheffield eight years ago, they were hoping that enough of a certain kind of diner lived here. They weren’t the first to bring fine dining to Sheffield (Rafters, The Old Vicarage). But unlike the others, they weren’t offering an elevation of the regular restaurant experience, but going for the take-it-or-leave-it tasting menu. They were also swerving refined surroundings and starched napkins, with an altogether more modern pitch. Had it any hope of success? 

“Lots of people were giving us stick, saying it’s going to be shit, it wouldn’t work here”, Luke French, the chef behind Jöro, tells me. Clearly, it stung. And, for a while, the detractors looked like they were right: the market just wasn’t there. “I could count on one hand the number of days we were fully booked,” French recalls.

Salvation came from an unlikely quarter: The Daily Mail. A review from food columnist Tom Parker Bowles arrived at the moment when hope seemed lost. Giving Jöro four stars out of five, he concluded: “Jöro would be lauded in London. In Sheffield, it’s a downright delight.” The phone started ringing off the hook.

After a few years, French and his wife Stacey Sherwood-French had seen enough to decide that making a major financial investment in bigger premises was worth it. They’ve opened an expansive new restaurant, plus a hotel option if you’d like to stay over after eating. But many Sheffielders will still be sceptical of Jöro’s pitch. Should you really be prepared to spend £125 for the experience?