WATCH: Discover the delicious home-cooked food on offer at Speke Hall

With winter on the way, you can’t beat a warming bowl of fresh, hearty soup after a walk in the fresh air.

But Terry Redman, head chef at Home Farm Restaurant at Speke Hall, promises you more than that.

“Of course, we’ll have lovely, home-cooked food – a bowl of honey-roasted swede soup or our one-pot Scouse with red cabbage and a chunk of bread,” he says.

“But we’ll also be ready with a wonderful welcome and a great big smile – and let’s face it, that’s what we all need right now.”

After training at Colquitt Street and The City of Liverpool College in Duke Street, Terry, 33, has created culinary masterpieces for some of Merseyside’s top restaurants – The Riverhill in Oxton, The London Carriage Works in Hope Street, Double Tree at Hilton, and, even, the restaurant at the much-missed Tyrer’s department store in St Helens.

He joined Home Farm Restaurant three months ago, and he’s loving being part of the local team: “Speke Hall has a really homely feel. There’s a friendly bunch of people here, we all get on, and anyone who visits sees that,” smiles Terry, who’s especially delighted to be creating fabulous dishes with produce grown on site in the National Trust favourite’s kitchen garden.

“The volunteers come to tend to the kitchen garden on a Wednesday and it’s great to see a wheelbarrow full of seasonal produce coming through the door and wondering what we can make with it,” Terry says.

“We have a National Trust Cookbook and the properties make many of the same dishes for continuity – and you can’t beat a National Trust scone or a piece of cake – but we also have our local dishes, like traditional Scouse or Wet Nelly pudding, which everyone loves.

“And with the locally-grown produce we can get creative – we’ve done a roasted onion soup and a parsnip and apple soup, for instance.

“It’s getting back to the Hall’s roots, when the owner would have had a garden kitchen; it’s the history of everything and how we work with that, that I really love.”

Terry adds: “We’re already coming up with ideas for the spring and summer menus but, before that, we’ve got some Christmas events, maybe even a breakfast with Santa.

“So we’d love people to come and see us.”

The restaurant at Speke Hall is open every of the day week, 10.30am-3.30pm. Entry to the property is free for National Trust members and under 5s, admission fees apply to non-members.