offcentre
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Well done to David and Helen on another cracking review - this time from Marina in the Guardian.
This is top of my list of places to go in the UK and has been for some considerable time.
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thanks for the tip Ianpb
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Gravetye Manor is a magnificent country house hotel that has been tucked away just south of East Grinstead in Sussex for over 400 years. William Robinson, who bought the property in the late 19th century, created the magnificent gardens, including the walled vegetable garden that used to supply much of the restaurants fruit and vegetables in times gone by when we actually used to have a summer.
Peter Herbert bought the house in 1958 and created one of the first and still considered amongst the best country house hotels in England. It is still privately owned, now by retired fund manager Jeremy Hosking - a founder of Marathon AM, a $46bn investment fund, who bought the hotel out of administration in 2010. Perhaps its proximity to the Bluebell Railway was a deciding factor. Mr Hosking has what might be described as a healthy love of trains, owning a not insignificant amount of steam locomotives which are loaned out to various heritage railways throughout the UK.
The house itself is in the middle of the rolling sussex hills, down a mile-long driveway which takes you through some of the 1000 acres of gardens. Inside its just what one would expect and want to find in such an establishment...faultless classical English upper-class style.
A very friendly welcome from the maitre-d introduced us to our surroundings and swaddled us in the inglenook luxury of one of the 3 drawing rooms, where we took an aperitif. Some canape's were brought along with the drinks - a perfect cylinder of duck pate with little spheres of orange balanced atop; a smoked salmon and cream cheese lasagne and a very rich camembert with some brittle pastry dippers. All very nice.
Three menu's were presented - a set 4-course table d'hote menu at £40; the a la carte and a 7-course tasting menu priced at £85.
It was my birthday.
We had the tasting menu.
Provenance and and locality are obviously very important to the chef. The 5 or 6 main suppliers are listed on a front page of the menu and all were within a 25 mile radius of the hotel.
Bread was a choice between sweet onion rolls, sourdough and focaccia, all homemade. I took rather a liking to the sweet onion rolls and took slight advantage of the generosity of the bread waitress who seemed to appear every few minutes offering more.
I thought the room itself very attractive. Perhaps 10 tables, well-spaced in the main room, and a smaller room with 4 tables adjoins this.we ate
Longhorn Beef, jerusalen artichoke and spring truffle. Upon completing the dish I asked how the beef had been prepared and was told by a rather too enthusiastic waiter that the chef dusts the beef in icing sugar before searing. There was a slight sweetness that I had put down to the wonderful tender beef itself, and I was a little disappointed to be told the chef dusts it in bloody sugar first. Anyway, a pleasing start to the meal, the artichoke and slivers of truffle being very happy bedfellows to the beef.
Hebridean Langoustine, Carpaccio of Middle White pork brawn and parsnip. This came as a thin rectangle of brawn upon which sat a single langoustine cut in half with a frothed shellfish sauce with parsnip crisps and slivers of parsnip that had been poached in butter. The sauce was extremely rich and strikingly pink, the buttered parsnips having fantastic sweet flavour.
Spiced Rougie Fois Gras, pain d'epice and prune. A thumb-sized cycliner of fois gras parfait with some bread crisps, prune emulsion and prunes. Nice fois gras and combination of flavours. Simple dish, nicely constructed but did little to show me what they can do in the kitchen.
Ash Cured Line Caught Haddock, slow poached Gravetye egg and granola. A fantastic dish of very strong flavours. Now, I have never had a slow-cooked egg before so am not sure if the white was in fact just egg white, or had been replaced by something. It had a wonderful texture of fluffy yoghurt. The granola gave a nice crunch and sweetness to the dish, which was required to counter the incredibly strong, salty flavours of the fish, presented again as as a cyliner. Taken together, this was a fabulous plate of food.
Milk Fed Lamb, tomato, polenta and garlic. A waitress brought a gleaming miniature copper pan of fantastic...I'm going to call it gravy. Another great dish, the lamb came with a small twist of kidney, a rich and sticky garlic clove and a breadcrumbed cheesey-potato thing (is there a name for these?). Rich and satisfying, this was up there with the haddock for pure eating pleasure.
Artisan cheeses in miniature, frozen grapes and walnuts. Very nicely presented on a slate with a small glass cloche, the four cheeses were tiny slivers. I could definitely have eaten more. The frozen grapes were a nice touch. despite the punctuation on the menu, the walnuts were not frozen!
White Chocolate and Green Olives, lemon curd. A cracking desert. Another cylinder, this time of white chocolate ice cream, was held off the plate by two pyramid wafers with bits of green olive and drops of lemon curd. Another first for me, the slightly salty olives with the sweet ice cream was a great flavour combination.
Coffee & Petit Fours. Top quality coffee. A huge box of chocolates was brought to the table with a selection of truffles, white and dark chocolates.
Overall a very good meal in beautiful surroundings. Service was very good throughout. A bottle of £35 wine (as you can imagine very much at the cheaper end of the list) and the bill was £250 for the two of us.
I would return. I am not sure I would opt for the tasting menu again though. This was my first tasting menu and I do like the format. My only reservations are that for £85 I am not convinced these dishes offer great value for money. There was not a great deal of luxury ingredients included nor was I wowed by the effort involved in most of these dishes. That said, it was a very enjoyable meal.
I'm still pondering on this. I feel that I need another tasting menu or two, perhaps at the Ledbury, for comparison. Purely for educational purposes, of course.
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Its back, and with Michel Roux Jnr to boot!
I have very fond memories of watching this program as a kid with my parents and was very happy to see it return and even happier to see M. Roux Jr presenting.
I missed last weeks but have smiled my way through this weeks with Mary Berry - what a lovely program! This week we saw madelaines and creme patissiere tarts for an afternoon tea with Prosecco and English sparkling wine (and tea!), pieces on real bread and french patisserie and Michel making an apple tart.
And baking marge won a blind taste test over butter with a victoria sponge.
Welcome back.
Anyone else enjoying this?
Long may it continue.
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I will try and complete this post without expletives, although I am already finding it difficult. This type of thing really annoys me. I first encountered this about 6 months ago in GBK. They used to serve me a rare burger, but the food police had told them they need to be cooked all the way through. I actually thought GBK had made up the bit about the food police at the time as it sounded a bit ridiculous.
Who wants to eat lambs liver that is cooked well done? Thats what put me off liver in the first place. It wasn't until someone served it to me rare, I'd decided to take my life in my owns hands and actually eat some of it rather than offend, that I realised what I was missing!
bastards.
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I like this idea mjx - like poker players getting together to discuss bad beats. They would have a great time I'm sure. In fact they'll probably televise it and stick it on BBC2.
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I really enjoy Professional Masterchef - I am surprised there is not more discussion about it on here. And yes, I agree with your comments regarding the striking difference in approach...I would have much rather been in the Hand and Flower's kitchen than MH or MW.
And I was very happy to see both chefs get through to the final in that episode, I think they are the two strongest all-round chef's and was a little disappointed to see them placed in a semi together. Although Michel obviously has a bit of a liking for the kid (who's name escapes me).
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So I have been a regular - pretty much daily, reader of egullet for *checks profile* 8 years. This is definitely the period of fewest new posts and reviews in UK Dining I can remember.
I get the impression that those people who used to regularly post reviews and comments of meals aren't perhaps as affected by these austere times as your average joe, although that may be way off the mark. Some people have disappeared completely, some new ones have taken their place. Some of the oldies post very infrequently these data but still do form time to time.
What's happened...is it purely down to the rise of the blog in these 8 years, is everyone working harder with less time to eat and post, or have sites other than egullet taken their custom.
The only blog I ever read is David's - and thats because I feel I've got to know him a bit on here and like his photo's.
I'm not so interested in a single person's view of a restaurant. Its the discsussion, conflicting opinions and concensus that always attracted me to egullet.
What's happened?
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I popped in last week. The food's unbelievable considering the price and I wish them well, apparently they have a massive hill to climb each day; am sure I read somewhere they've got to turn every table three times before they cover costs.
This is interesting...I didn't get the impression we were crammed in at all...it still felt like there was plenty of space in that room.
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Very nice lunch here on Sunday with the family.
Surely more of you have been here. David has reviewed it on his blog far better than I could, and it was this that prompted me to try it.
I had been to the Atlantic Bar & Grill many years ago - maybe 20 - and remember being charged 15 quid for a whisky and ameretto and bottle of beer. That price would have got me the three course prix fixe and a glass of house red in its new guise.
Some of the dishes I thought were fantastic - the soupe de poisson, the soup of the day (which was a delicously creamy and sweet white onion), and the steak hache on the prix fixe. But everything was full of flavour and enjoyed by all.
In all we had a couple of bowls of the soup of the day - which must have been good if my kids finished them off - a couple of baskets of decent baguette and unsalted butter, the three course prix fixe, a soupe de poisson, confit du canard, profiteroles and the chocolate liegois a bottle of water and a glass of house red. The two deserts having their hot-chocolate sauce poured over at the table, which I am sure my 8 year old will remember for the rest of her life.
Service was informal but prompt and friendly and we were all very happy there for a couple of hours.
£49 including service....what a bargain. £2.25 for that white onion soup! I mean...really!
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heehee...I like that Gareth
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Thanks for the review David - always appreciate reading your reviews and the lovely pictures. There's a distinct lack of reports of your quality and substance on the UK Dining board these days...please don't be put off as I for one would miss them, and egullet would be the poorer without them.
In my opinion there is nothing wrong at all in posting a report that may or may not include an emotional response to any aspect of the restaurant visit. Blogging is not inspecting.
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Just caught your Harvey's Best being new to you comment. If you ever make it further south than London an afternoon tour of the brewery, on the river in Lewes, is an extremely interesting, fun and boozy way to spend a few hours.
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Looks like an All Bar One. Apart from the lobster of course.
Still, sure it'll be very successful but I am definitely not their demographic!
Thanks again David.
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spent a lovely week in St IVes last week. I intended to eat out a lot but, mainly due issues with looking after small children, only made it to the Porthminster Beach Cafe for dinner.
There were a few restaurants I wanted to try -
Alba, which has been mentioned above, looked like a very pleasant place to spend a few hours.
Seagrass had a nice menu and tempting daily specials (head chef'd by 2010 Masterchef Pro's semi-finalist Lee Groves)
Black Rock has a basic menu but was busy every time I passed.
and Blas Burgerworks was always heaving with a cool crowd.
Anyway, I will definitely be going back to St Ives before too long. despite the long trip there are few better places for a beach holiday in the UK IMO.
Stand out dish at Porthminster was a Blow-torched Mackerel Fillet:
from the list of starters:
I regretted not having the Monkfish Curry for main, as, when it turned up at a neighbours table looked lovely, but instead had a pretty good fillet of local beef from the mains:
Also had a half dozen local oysters which went well with a glass of bubbly.
I had a version of the River Cafe's chocolate nemesis for pud which was as good as the original.
Be silly not to go there if you're in St Ives - especially with a view from the table like this:
I hadn't booked a window seat, but as I was there at 7 and they were free they appeared to be allocated on a firt come basis that night - maybe they hadn't been reserved.
View up to the restaurant from the shore:
It really is a very nice spot.
Service was okay. I just downed my final oyster and finished the bubbly when the starter arrived, and I had to wait 5 minutes before my glass of wine for the starter got to me, but all very friendly.
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I'm no perfectionist but I find weighing the eggs then adding the same weight of butter, sugar, flour makes the best sponge for me. I saw this in a Hugh Firmly Whippingbottom recipe which he credited to Mrs Beeton.
Cooked in an Aga it gives a nice crust - which I like on a sponge.
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well I've never watched it so definitely not bored of the format. I don't own a telly but watched much of the last series of masterchef the pro's on iplayer and really enjoyed it (had bever watched this either).
I imagine GBM is far more informative for the eager home cook so I'll definitely try and watch it - altho a day or so behind most of you I guess.
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Jay Rayner wasn't too impressed when presented with one at Viajante recently...
"The problem with surprises is that not all of them are nice. A pink macaroon flavoured with Iberico ham served as a petit four is a complete surprise. It's definitely not a nice one. When you are left thinking: "I wish that had been lemon or raspberry or anything other than this", something is up. Sure, I can admire the technique by which all that hammy flavour is slipped into one of those sweet crisp meringue almond confections. That doesn't make it more pleasant to eat. Equally a tiny chocolate roulade with a sweet cream flavoured with ceps served as a dessert is eye-achingly clever. But that doesn't make either one pleasant to eat. When you find yourself reaching for the word "challenging" to describe your dinner and wanting to shout: "Who put all the bloody mushrooms in my pudding?", it's time to get your coat."
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Just read this on the Gurniad.
A strip containing 'clay and other minerals' that absorbs ethylene. M&S to add the strip to the inside base of strawberry punnets.
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The pastry was a definite improvement on my usual - which is how my grandma used to make it (no egg or sugar, and 50/50 butter/lard - roux's recipe is all butter).
Not enough seasoning in the finished pie and, despite 30% longer cooking time for the pie and at least treble the cooking time of the potatoes and onion in the pan (about 20 minutes instead of the recipe's suggested 5-6 minutes), the pots were ever so slightly undercooked.
It was okay - a little bland from lack of seasoning but, even with the addition of a bit of salt on the plate, it's not something I would rush to make again. Nowhere near as nice as a classic french onion tart for example.
I made it primarily because I had all the ingredients to hand and wanted to try making pastry to Michel Roux's recipe. In that regard, it was a success...
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I have absolutely no idea what any of that means
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She looks good. I now need to pour 200ml of double cream through the chimney.
I think this may take longer than the advertised 20 minutes.
London - Pre Theatre and Celebratory Meal
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
Posted
Brasserie Zedel for either occasions.