VOL 26 ISSUE 40, Oct. 6, 2025
Delaware North U.K. is partnering with Michelin-starred chef Tommy Banks, a lifelong Sunderland Association Football Club fan, to bring new culinary concepts to the Stadium of Light in Wearside, England.
Delaware North U.K. – the official foodservice and hospitality partner for Sunderland Association Football Club (SAFC) at the Stadium of Light in England – debuted new hospitality places with Tommy Banks, a Michelin-starred chef and lifelong Sunderland fan, for the 2025-26 season, which sees SAFC promoted back into the Premier League.
Award-winning chef Tommy Banks was the youngest British chef to be awarded a Michelin star – he currently holds two, one each for his fine-dining restaurants, The Black Swan at Oldstead and Roots in York, both of which are supplied with produce from his family farm.
The vision of Banks on the Wear, a new premium hospitality experience at the venue in the James Herriot Lounge, has arguably become the best restaurant in Sunderland. A new farm-to-fork concept menu is designed for every game, featuring homegrown meat, fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices. The menu is a celebration of British provenance and the culmination of five generations of the Banks’ family farm in North Yorkshire.
For the opening match against West Ham United on Aug. 16, the menu featured Oldstead Farm beef and lamb, local line-caught fish, mushrooms foraged from Yorkshrie woodlands and herbs grown in the kitchen garden. Banks also experiments with less conventional ingredients, including Douglas fir and fennel pollen. Some of his ingredients are featured in the restaurant’s decor, including mason jars of pickling ingredients resting on shelves.
The new restaurant is an ode to SAFC’s history on and off the pitch. The walls feature framed illustrations of Wearside and tributes to James Herriot, life president of SAFC. Guests also receive a ‘motty’ token marked with the date and competing teams every matchday – a callback to the industrial, mining past of the city. An old pit wheel painted in Sunderland red stands proud outside the stadium, salvaged from the Monkwearmoth Colliery on which the stadium was built.
Delaware North U.K. has also brought Tommy’s Pie Shop to the Stadium of Light through his street-food inspired concept 76 Yards, where fans can enjoy handmade pies, panoramic views of the pitch and two new long bars serving a variety of draught lagers and ciders. Adorned with murals celebrating the shipbuilders of Wearside, this space honors Sunderland’s remarkable legacy as a shipbuilding powerhouse.
At the height of England’s Industrial Revolution, 76 shipyards lined the Wear, forging vessels from iron and steel and shaping the city’s proud industrial identity. As the only hospitality space in the stadium with pitch views and with the new concept, 76 Yards has quickly become a fan favorite and a sellout for major Premier League matches.
Delaware North and SAFC announced a landmark 15-year partnership in July 2025. These new hospitality experiences are part of the masterplan for refurbishment at the Stadium of Light, which has seen little-to-no investment since opening in 1997.
