Joshua Overington

Early Years

The starting point is the market-town setting just outside York where Overington was raised, but the frame widens quickly. Summers in France and Europe gave him a broader culinary field of reference, along with an early exposure to French restaurant culture. Before any professional title arrived, the habits were already there: attention to meals, awareness of place, and a sense that food carried more than function. What comes through in that background is not a neat origin myth, but a practical one. Overington’s work reads from familiarity: a childhood and adolescence spent near food that mattered, near travel that broadened taste, and near the idea that a restaurant can express identity as clearly as it serves a plate. His own words put that into plain terms: "I always wanted to have a restaurant that represented me as a person." Taken directly, it explains the through-line in the record — upbringing, summers abroad, and a steady preference for food that feels personal rather than generic.

Making a Name

By 2024, the titles attached to Overington were specific: chef-owner of mýse in Hovingham, chef and owner of Restaurant Myse in Hovingham, and chef at Myse restaurant in Hovingham, North Yorkshire. The wording varies, but the center does not. Joshua Overington is the cook-owner tied to that Hovingham address, and the restaurant’s identity runs through his name and role. The clearest evidence is on the plate. In 2025, Woodland Pork was cooked over coals, with radicchio dressed in Earl Grey and a black pudding sauce carrying the depth of the dish. The construction is deliberate: smoke against bitterness, tea folded into the plate, and a rich savory element binding the parts together. Another 2025 dish, Jerusalem Artichoke Ice Cream, carried the same attention in a different register. Artichoke-skin crisps and local birch syrup turned by-products and sourcing into part of the final composition, not afterthoughts. The kitchen here appears to work by noticing the whole ingredient and giving the lesser-used parts a proper job.

The Present

The arc is short and legible: York-area roots, summers formed by French restaurant culture, and a restaurant in Hovingham that by 2024 carried Overington’s ownership and cooking. The 2025 dishes sharpen that picture further, with coals, radicchio, Earl Grey, black pudding sauce, artichoke skins, and birch syrup forming a kitchen vocabulary that is grounded, specific, and recognizably his.

Signature

Joshua's signature dishes include Woodland Pork and Jerusalem Artichoke Ice Cream.

In Their Words “I want people to come in to restaurant mi and forget their daily lives, their woes, their worries. Let their hair down, have really good fun.” “I always wanted to have a restaurant that represented me as a person.”