A CHEF who has worked with the likes of Heston Blumenthal is looking to put the Ribble Valley on the map for sushi after the success of his business during the pandemic.

Adam Hitchen runs Hitchen’s Kitchen from his home in Ribchester with his fiancee Sarah Farrimond.

They started to do pies and puddings at the start of the lockdown but wanted to bring something different to the market.

Adam wanted to use his skills as a sushi chef to offer dishes on social media and online and they have been amazed by the response.

Sarah said: “With pies and puddings you can get them everywhere so Adam started to look at sushi but we could not cope with the demand.

“We have had lots of of people saying you could not get sushi around here.

“You would have to venture to Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester to get good sushi. Some have also said it was comparable to the food in Japan.

“We live on a country lane and it is not what you expect in Ribchester as we can get people from Blackburn, Ribble Valley and Preston so it is quite good and we want to expand to other areas.”

The business is growing with 1,200 followers on Instagram and another two or three thousand people on Facebook.

He said: “We started selling the sushi in October and we had sushi masterclasses for people to learn how to make sushi.

“We would like to run it again in the future but I was finding that I was working all week and then doing more cooking at the weekend on the classes.

“We have had people saying that they don’t want to eat sushi as they think it is just raw fish but there are so many different things you can do and it is not just fish.

“You have to be creative with the way you make things and try different things with twists.”

“Sushi is such an attractive dish to try.”

The couple are now employing an extra sushi chef and are planning a new website launch this week.