Hannah Bamford-Heron – Operations Manager

Hannah has been working in restaurants for over twelve years and has worked with Matt for the last seven, looking after his front of house operations. She spent her formative years training at boutique restaurants and hotels in rural Berkshire before moving to Sussex in 2016. She now runs both Heritage and Parlour as Operations Manager, overseeing both businesses and driving them to success.

Hannah’s greatest love is wine and she has taken great care in curating a unique and interesting wine list to pair perfectly with your meal. She is passionate about training and developing young professionals in the industry and showcasing how rewarding a career in hospitality can be for the younger generation.

Kitty-Morgan Smith – Deputy General Manager

Kit joined the Heritage team in August 2021 and quickly proved herself to be an exceptional bartender, passionate about creating drinks and providing excellent service. She has recently started training in wine, alongside Hannah and Georgie and can regularly be found showcasing some of our favourite bottles on our wine flights. In February 2022, Kit was promoted to Assistant Manager after proving herself as a key member of the Heritage team and she has recently taken the reins as Deputy General Manager.

Kit is a bit of an old soul – we often find her napping on the sofa on her break and is fondly referred to as Margaret by the team. She is wonderfully friendly and always up for a chat – so say hello on your next visit!

Shauna Clarke – Front of House Manager

Shauna has been part of team Heritage since the opening in August 2019, after impressing Hannah & Matt with the incredible amount of homework she’d done to prepare for her interview. Since then she has gone from strength to strength and having been promoted to head waitress, to reservations manager and now to Front of House Manager. She is responsible for managing reservations, group bookings and helps to look after and train our junior team members, to ensure everyone is working to her very high standards.

Alberto Diez Saez – Restaurant Manager

Alberto, or Berti, as he is known by the team has taken Heritage by storm since beginning with us back in 2022. He swiftly showcased his skill in providing the highest standard of service with a cheeky smile, so it was a no brainer to promote him to restaurant manager in September. Bertie has many years of experience under his belt, having run his own restaurant after training at a 2 Michelin starred restaurant in Madrid.

Since joining the team, Berti has taken all of our “little ones” under his wing, training them to his very high standards but he’s also our honorary Spanish teacher. You can see more of Berti looking extra suave over on the Heritage social media pages – he loves a flamboyant cocktail making video.

Asha Okang Phelps – Assistant Restaurant Manager

Asha joined the team this summer after working at some of Sussex’s best restaurants, such as the Little Fish Market and Flint House. She has also worked at Ridgeview winery, so she really knows her stuff when it comes to English Sparkling wine.

Asha is one of the warmest, friendliest people you’ll ever meet. You can often find her looking after all the wine flights in the restaurant and we love the passionate, yet relaxed way she talks about each bottle, making the experience a joy for our guests.

Asha is currently away on maternity leave looking after her baby boy, Grayson but will be back this winter!

Ben Meadows – Chef de Partie

Ben joined the Heritage team back in March having worked previously at South Lodge Hotel. He is a very talented chef and has quickly settled in with the rest of our brigade. He’s currently working on the pastry section in the kitchen, so he’s responsible for all the delicious desserts that finish your meal.

Jake Lawton – Restaurant Supervisor

Jake joined the team in March 2023 and has already proven himself to be a hospitality superstar in the making, being promoted to Supervisor after just 3 months. In just two weeks, Jake managed to master Heritage’s entire front of house service, including the wine flights! A very impressive achievement considering he has no formal wine training (yet!). We know he has a very bright future ahead here at Heritage and beyond so we are thrilled to have him on our team.

He loves rosé wine & sleeping through his breakfast shifts (sorry Jake, we won’t ever let you live that one down!). Make sure you say hello next time you visit!

Josh Frater – Chef de Partie

Josh, joined the kitchen brigade at the start of May as Chef de Partie. He’s worked at some local institutions including Gwyn’s bakery and Ockenden Manor. He’s extremely passionate and very creative, already coming up with ideas for our menus. He loves making bread and pastries and we’ve already been treated with some delicious cinnamon buns for staff breakfast.

You’ll probably see him out and about in the restaurant, so make sure you say hello!

Bobby Shepherd – Commis Chef

Bobby was meant to join us in 2020 for a work experience placement as part of his final year at school, a plan that was unfortunately thwarted by the pandemic. Instead he joined us as our apprentice before heading off to culinary college in September 2021. He’s learnt a lot since starting and is now our Commis Chef, working at the weekends whilst he undertakes his second year of college. During service Bobby, prepares all the snacks for the first course on our menus and its been amazing to watch how quickly he has improved over the last year. His least favourite job is peeling tomatoes, but other than that he is enjoying his time in the kitchen!

Niamh Spilling – Section Waitress

Niamh joined team Heritage back in 2022 and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Her older sister actually worked with us back when Heritage first opened, so it’s great to have the next generation of Spilling sisters! Niamh is positive, polite and always smiling with a love of fancy nail art to rival the rest of the girls.

She also has the inside scoop on all things Slaugham, as she lives just down the road. Niamh is currently away at university but will be back over Christmas!

Neroli & Elizabeth – Waitresses

Neroli & Elizabeth are our little dream team. They are pretty inseparable although these days Neroli spends her time up in Leicester studying at university, whilst Elizabeth teaches dance here in Sussex. Both are incredibly talented waitresses and can run the pass like true professionals, whipping those chefs into shape.

They have both worked at Heritage for well over a year now, both of them started out quite shy and quiet, not that you’d know it working with them now – full of sass and always looking suspiciously like they might be up to something. No idea where they’ve picked that up from…but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Josh Cheesmur – Waiter

Our Josh is the youngest member of our team but possibly one of the loudest. He started off strong by interviewing in a full tracksuit, but got the job anyway thanks to his charming personality which is very much reflected in his work. He works with us part-time so he’s often only found at Heritage over the weekends, but whenever he is around he brightens up everyone’s day. He has a genuine passion for looking after people and we get frequent feedback on how warm, welcoming and friendly he is.