Impeccable Manoir
More than 300 Caterer & Hotelkeeper readers applied for the chance to be included in the latest Chef Eats Out lunch, held at Raymond Blanc's celebrated Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons on 26 February in association with British Meat.
Only 62 chefs, however, were lucky enough to attend the event to discover how the two-Michelin-starred country house hotel in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, maintains its pre-eminence among the country's destination restaurants.
Typical of the reaction from those who made the journey to Oxford was that voiced by Kathryn Stinson, a commis at Mosimann's in London, at the end of her visit. "It was an experience of a lifetime and filled me with inspiration as a chef," she said.
Fellow guest Duncan Rae, pastry chef at Heston Blumenthal's Bray restaurant, the Fat Duck, was more specific. He was impressed in particular by one dish in the seven-course meal - the cannelloni of langoustines, roasted scallops, purée of herbs. "Le Manoir's been doing this dish for so long, but it's still so good," he enthused.
Stinson and Rae had travelled from the London area, but some guests hailed from as far afield as Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Guernsey, a testament to the esteem in which Blanc and Le Manoir are held.
As they arrived for a pre-prandial glass of Champagne and a tour of the hotel's 32 bedrooms and gardens, guests were greeted by Blanc and senior members of his brigade, including chef de cuisine Gary Jones, who had taken a day out of his holiday to return to the hotel and oversee the lunch for Chef Eats Out.
In addition to cannelloni of langoustines (the third course), diners were treated to two other hallmark Le Manoir dishes - pan-fried squid and red mullet fillet, salted cod brandade, served with sea urchin jus; and a unique dessert inspired by classical still-life paintings comprising chestnut and coffee parfaits on a pistachio meringue base, shaped to create the illusion of mushrooms. "That's something else," commented Phil Burt, head chef of Bistro on the Bridge, Christchurch, Dorset.
After lunch, the guest chefs were given personal tours of the hotel's kitchens by Blanc, Jones and members of the brigade, including senior sous chef David Goodridge (with seven years behind him, the longest-serving member of the Le Manoir kitchen team), junior sous chef Chris Horridge and senior pâtisserie sous chef Simon Jenkins.
Guests learnt that the kitchens had just undergone the final, £310,000 stage of a £5.5m refurbishment programme begun in 1998. "We all got a chance to design the kitchen, then the best bits from everyone's plans got incorporated in the redesign," revealed Horridge. But it was the sheer number of chefs in the brigade, 40 in total, that drew the most envious sighs - for many, to have the capacity to butcher all meat on site, or bake bread three times a day, was their idea of heaven.
