A restaurant owner has said he thought he was being pranked when someone called to book a table for rock star Bruce Springsteen and actor Stephen Graham
Oliver Roberts, who runs Norman’s in Kirkburton, Huddersfield, said he was left even more stunned when the stars then turned up for lunch on Friday.
He said the duo shared ten small plates, including crab tarts and Isle of Wight tomatoes with wild garlic ice cream, which he said Graham described as “mad Merlin stuff”.
Reflecting on the “surreal” experience, he said their surprise visit — coming just days after the restaurant was awarded two AA Rosettes — had felt like “some sort of fever dream”.
Graham, who recently made headlines with Netflix drama Adolescence, is due to play Springsteen’s father in the upcoming biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere.
The pair met at Norman’s two days after Springsteen’s first of three shows at Manchester’s Co-op Live, following a recommendation from a friend of Graham’s wife.
When the call for the booking came, staff at Norman’s thought it was “too random to not be true”, but Mr Roberts said he could not “get my head around it”.
“I was absolutely adamant that it was either a wind up or clearly wasn’t going to be those two,” the 31-year-old from Halifax said.
“This doesn’t happen, ever. This isn’t the norm.”
He said their visit left everyone’s mind “fried”, with other guests eyeing them curiously from across the room but leaving them to enjoy their meal.
“I think everyone was in this surreal ‘it can’t really be them’ [state],” he said.
Both celebrities showered staff in compliments and made sure to tip before leaving.
“Stephen Graham said [chef] Louis was a wizard and that the tomato dish was some ‘mad Merlin stuff’,” said Mr Roberts, who opened Norman’s 18 months ago.
“Louis, who invented that dish, was on cloud nine for the rest of the weekend and I genuinely think he will end up getting that tattooed somewhere on him.”
