Nine's company
Simon Hulstone is enjoying the challenge of working with a larger brigade. Having spent three years at the Bacchanalian restaurant at the Inn on the Park in Cheltenham, where he was supported in the kitchen by just one chef, he now heads a brigade of nine at the privately owned Cotswold House hotel in Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire.
"It used to get quite lonely, as I would be on my own in the kitchen on the days when my colleague wasn't working," says 27-year-old Hulstone. "Now, I'm enjoying the input I get from having a larger team working around me."
Owners Ian and Christine Taylor have just put the 15-bedroom hotel through a £500,000 refurbishment, and Hulstone, who took over in the kitchen in May, is responsible for a 40-seat fine-dining venue, the Garden Room, and Hicks' Brasserie, which has 50 seats. The food in the Garden Room is an extension of what he was doing at the Bacchanalian, while Hicks' is giving him the opportunity to experiment for the first time with brasserie food.
New dishes with classics
"The brasserie used to be a lot more traditional," says Hulstone. "I've tried to take it forward by introducing a mix of Asian, Australasian and French dishes, alongside some classics such as Caesar salad and calves' liver with mash." New dishes for Hicks' include starters such as tarte tatin of smoked chicken and mango, basil salad, Thai chilli dressing (£5.75) and tempura of salmon and sole, five-spice mayonnaise, soy vinaigrette (£5.75).
Average spend per head, including drinks, is £30 in Hicks', while in the Garden Room it runs to £60.
The menu in the Garden Room offers a choice of five starters, six main courses and six desserts or cheese. Three courses cost £38, with coffee and petits fours at £2.95.
Starters include some favourites from the Bacchanalian such as oxtail ravioli, seared scallops, braising liquor and shallot pur‚e, alongside some newer dishes like seared sea bream, mussel and tomato cream and saffron oil. Popular main courses include fillet of sea bass, tortellini of langoustine, pumpkin purée, black pudding and red wine jus, and loin of venison, sweet potato mash, pheasant and sage sausage, beetroot marmalade and Savoy cabbage.
Another game dish of roast squab pigeon makes use of the whole bird. The legs are braised and their meat combined with creamed Savoy cabbage, fresh peas and girolles as a filling for a samosa, while the roasted breasts sit on a celeriac purée and are served with braised flageolot beans and pigeon jus that is split with a drizzle of truffle oil.
Puddings include the dessert that Hulstone prepared when he was in the finals of the Chef of the Year competition two years ago - passion fruit crème, carpaccio of apples, warm banana pudding and apple syrup.
It vies for attention with an impressive-looking tian of raspberry and mango, tuile biscuits and raspberry coulis. "It stands about 10 inches tall and has a real ‘wow' factor when taken into the restaurant," Hulstone says. n
Garden Room Restaurant, Cotswold House hotel, The Square, Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire. Tel: 01386 840330. Web site: www.cotswoldhouse.com
A selection of dishes from the Garden Room restaurant
Three courses: £38
Terrine of smoked chicken, foie gras and baby leeks, prune compote, truffle mayonnaise
Citrus-cured salmon, confit plum tomatoes, fennel ceviche
Tart of fennel and chicory with Crottin de Chavignol, apple salad, balsamic syrup
Risotto of butternut and girolle, chive mascarpone, coriander emulsion
John Dory, parsnip purée, roasted scallops and salsify, wilted spinach, verjus
Supreme of Bresse chicken, roasted sweetbreads, spring onions, artichokes, sugar snaps, cèpe foam
Hot chocolate fondant, vanilla crème brûlée with griottine sorbet
Tart of tangerine, bitter chocolate sorbet, lemon verbena crème fraîche
Assiette of summer sorbets
