Touch of Pink
Following a change of ownership at the Pink Geranium, general manager Lawrence Champion - who bought the Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, restaurant in March from celebrity chef Steven Saunders - believes the food is very much in the ascendancy.
"Having been given a free hand with the menus, Mark is producing some stunning dishes," he says, referring to head chef Mark Jordan, who has been at the 60-seat restaurant since 1996 and has just signed a contract to do another three years. Saunders, who had owned the Pink Geranium with his wife, Sally, since 1987, now runs the nearby Sheene Mill hotel and restaurant as well as fronting the restaurant at the Lowry in Manchester's Salford Quays.
Jordan and his brigade of four chefs cook dishes for the seasonal à la carte menu - available at both lunch and dinner - a tasting menu and weekly changing lunch and dinner menus. While the lunch menu is particularly popular - allowing customers to eat two courses for £12 or three courses for £16 within one hour - the à la carte assumes greater importance at dinner.
"Out of the 55 covers or so we do on a Saturday night, around 15 or 16 will select the tasting menu and the rest will go for the à la carte," says Jordan. The five-course tasting menu is only available to a complete table and costs £45 per head. Average spend on the à la carte is £50-£60 per head, including wine.
Among the big sellers on the current à la carte is a mosaic of guinea fowl and duck foie gras, globe artichoke, smoked bacon and lentil vinaigrette (£12, served as a starter). The foie gras and guinea fowl breasts are confited in goose fat, while the guinea fowl legs are made into rillettes and combined with sautéd carrots and shallots. The different components are layered into a terrine lined with leaves of Savoy cabbage and pressed overnight before being sliced to order.
Jordan particularly enjoys working with ingredients that are not widely used and serving them in unexpected ways. He has done this with hare, having adapted the dish from one he previously prepared using rabbit bought at great expense from France. The hare is cheaper - being shot by a local farmer - and gives more flavour.
Loins of hare are filled with chicken mousseline, flavoured with sage leaves and wrapped in pancetta and then tinfoil before being poached for nine minutes. At point of service the pancetta is sautéd to a golden colour and served with slices of the hare on a bed of sauerkraut with an individual pear tarte tatin, caramelised baby onions, deep-fried sage leaves and a cider and sage jus (£18).
Puddings, all priced at £7.50, include a hot raspberry ripple soufflé with raspberry sorbet.
The Pink Geranium, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire SG8 6DX. Tel: 01763 260215. Web site: www.pinkgeranium.co.uk
