Break for the borders
WHILE it has several notable destinations for the serious foodie, the Lake District is not exactly awash with restaurants serving cutting-edge food.
However, the trend of playing safe on a menu has changed at Holbeck Ghyll. Earlier this year, when Stephen Smith was appointed head chef at the country house hotel overlooking Windermere and the Langdale Pikes, he was asked to devise a menu that would catch attention. His remit was to cook dishes that would challenge the kitchen and surprise the customer, and for the past six months, that is what Smith and his brigade of six have been striving to do.
Holbeck Ghyll is 26-year-old Smith's first head chef position, but he has a proven track record with some of the country's best known and talented chef-restaurateurs. He kicked off his culinary career in 1991 at Eastwell Manor in Kent and followed this up with stints (mostly of one year) at Gordleton Mill, Hampshire (working under Jean-Christophe Novelli), Gidleigh Park (under Shaun Hill), Paul Heathcote's in Lancashire, London's Four Seasons Hotel (with Novelli again), and at Simon Gueller's Leeds restaurant,Rascasse.
It's not unusual for chefs to change jobs so frequently - talent is always in demand - and Smith's attitude to his profession is typical. "I don't regret moving, that's how you get experience. You learn as much as you can from one kitchen, then you move on. That's why there are so many good head chefs under 30," he says.
Smith respects all the kitchens he has worked in, but the two chefs he singles out as seminal are Novelli and Gueller. "Novelli had so much energy; he was working from 8.30am to midnight. Nothing was ever perfect, every dish had to be better than the last. He told me you had to first understand, then love food before you could cook it properly."
Working with Simon Gueller when Rascasse was being set up taught Smith the whys and wherefores of running a restaurant, as well as continuing his culinary development. "We went from nothing to a Michelin star with a fresh team. I learned the grief of how staff can let you down, disappointment, the meaning of long hours and of coming through the other side with something that is a success. Simon taught me organisation and the business of running a kitchen and a restaurant."
To be given charge of the Holbeck Ghyll kitchen, where the set four-course dinner menu price is £44.50, is a food cost dream for any chef. No ingredient escapes the budget and the world is your supplier - Smith has a free rein to source from all over the world. Nevertheless, he has a high regard for local farmers' produce. Venison comes from Holker Hall in south Lakeland, lamb is off the north Cumbrian fells - supplied by Mansergh in Kirkby Lonsdale - and much of the hotel's vegetables and salad leaves are grown around Kendal. Among the few items that are sourced out of the county are beef (from Donald Russell in Aberdeenshire); fish (from Neve's in Fleetwood); shellfish (from Portland Shellfish, Dorset); squabs from Périgord; and fresh raspberries, needed all year round for Smith's best-selling raspberry feuillantine, which are bought in from whichever part of the globe can supply them.
Smith's menu at Holbeck Ghyll leans towards lightness, single flavours and clean saucing. He prefers bringing intensity of flavour to a sauce by packing in more ingredients at the beginning rather than by reduction. "It's better to make a langoustine broth by putting in twice as many bones as normal and just passing the juice. If you just reduce a light lango stock, you not only condense the liquid, but bitterness and odd tastes can creep in because you're condensing flavours you don't know about," he explains.
His aim is to change the Holbeck menu completely within his first 12 months, but his watchword is evolution, not revolution. The Lake District is a conservative area in food terms, but it's by no means a backwater. "The kind of people who can afford to eat here are used to eating in very good restaurants. They want challenging, but you can't do it overnight like you can in London, where there's such a huge customer base. That's the difference."
Thus, while game is on the menu this autumn, Smith also plans to tempt customers into trying offal by offering it in unusual ways, such as the braised ox-cheek ravioli he is currently experimenting with.
Compact is a word that springs to mind in describing the working space in the Holbeck kitchen, yet things are much better than they were when Smith arrived. After putting forward a case for investing in the kitchen, he was given a budget of £40,000 - a substantial amount for a small, privately-owned country hotel. The biggest chunk of that went on installing a Bonnet island suite. "You tend not to appreciate the investment in big places where there is lots of money splashing around. Here, it felt more like spending my own money. It's curious how much more careful you are when buying equipment for a small kitchen," he reflects.
Smith has guidebook ambitions for Holbeck Ghyll; he wants to gain the Michelin star he had at Gordleton Mill. "That was a big achievement. I was sous chef at the Mill when Toby Hill left. Toby recommended me for the job of head chef and I got it, but we all expected that the usual Michelin practice of taking away a star when the chef moved on would apply, but we kept it. In some ways it's harder to retain a star after the chef who first got it has left than it is to get one in the first place."
Having spent a good part of his career at the faster end of life, it has been a marked change of pace living and working in the Lake District, but while Smith misses the variety of eating-out opportunities in London, he doesn't miss getting up at 6.30am to go to work and getting the night bus home. "I've got a life up here," he says. n
