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Mike Shaw at the Freemasons at Wiswell: ‘We could make things easier, but we don’t’
Doing everything properly means home butchery, classical sauces and a menu created by a chef with a star-studded background
Few chefs arrive in a country village pub with a CV that reads like a roll-call of haute cuisine, but Mike Shaw is one of them. His career spans a list of prestigious culinary names, including Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, Hambleton Hall in Rutland, Gordon Ramsay’s Aubergine in London, Richard Neat’s eponymous restaurant in Cannes, Gilpin in Windermere and Musu in Manchester. And in winter 2025 the chef became chef-patron of the award-winning Lancashire gastropub with rooms, the Freemasons at Wiswell.
Shaw has been quick to put his own touches on the menu while respecting the Ribble Valley inn’s connection with its local surroundings and clientele. “You’ve got to remember what your customers want, and then the data tells you which way to go,” he says. “We’re still getting all the information we need – obviously December isn’t a typical month for restaurants – but I do feel like I’m back in an environment now that I’m meant to be in, given my background and experience.”
Mike Shaw
While Shaw uses ingredients that celebrate the region, he’s also happy to incorporate some items from further afield. “If I source ingredients that are very high quality, I’m treating my guests to them, wherever they come from,” he says. “Ingredients don’t necessarily have to be from the back garden, but I’m classically trained and we’re in the countryside, so of course we’re going to use a lot of game.” That includes venison, partridge and, when The Caterer visited, a foie gras ballotine 30 hours in the making to kick off the six-course evening set menu.
“We cure the duck liver with pepper and pink salt to help with the colour,” says Shaw. He and the team de-vein the liver (“an art in itself”) before adding seasoning and alcohol and vac-packing it for 24 hours. “We use good Madeira and red wine; I always remember Raymond [Blanc] using good wine for cooking – if you use a good wine, you’ll get a good sauce – so I marinate my duck liver in good red wine, because you get a better product at the end of it.” The liver is then rolled, gently poached at 48ºC, tied in a muslin cloth and hung. The thinly sliced meat is served with a sweet-sharp rhubarb compote, golden raisins and buttery brioche toast.
“Everything we do is labour-intensive – I start work at 7am and don’t finish until midnight”
The rest of the Creedy Carver duck, dried in a Himalayan salt chamber, goes on to become a main dish. The whole duck is seared on the crown and de-boned before the breasts are poached, finished on the plancha and glazed with honey and spices. “I don’t render the fat too much because it’s just amazing and full of flavour,” Shaw says. The 14-hour braised leg meat is turned into tender little meatballs wrapped in a thin layer of blanched Savoy cabbage.
An ostensibly simple hand-dived Scottish scallop dish, meanwhile, demonstrates both classic and modern touches. “We score the tops and then cook the scallops on the plancha, then serve them with cauliflower purée, an umami oyster broth and salty Oscietra caviar,” says Shaw. “It’s like a taste of the ocean and it’s a dish that really lets the ingredients speak for themselves.”
It’s not surprising to see that Shaw, who originally trained as a pastry chef, takes desserts seriously. A sablé biscuit base is topped with a just-set salted caramel custard “cooked at 100ºC until it’s wibbly-wobbly”. The elegant tart is glazed with pastry sugar and served with touches of goats’ milk and coffee and a banana ice-cream. “It’s almost like a flat white with caramel in dessert form,” he says.
Shaw is fastidious when it comes to detail, and that means not taking any shortcuts. Whole or half carcasses are butchered on-site, which is hard work but helps keep costs down, and every part of the animal is used. Focaccia is baked twice a day so it’s still warm from the oven during each service. “Everything we do is labour-intensive – I start work at 7am and don’t finish until midnight,” he says. “We could make things easier, but we don’t.”
These lengthy processes and complex techniques don’t result in fussy or overly extravagant plates of food, however. “What you see on the plate is simple,” says Shaw. “That’s the way Gordon [Ramsay] always taught me.”
While the chef’s classical training and wealth of experience is evident, his own personality shines through. “I just want everyone who comes to the Freemasons to be able to relax and to enjoy the experience,” he says. With food like this coming out of the kitchen, that’s pretty much guaranteed.
8 Vicarage Fold, Wiswell, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7 9DF
On the menu
- Duck liver, rhubarb, raisin, brioche
- Hand-dived scallop, cauliflower, Oscietra caviar, oyster
- Fillet of wild sea bass, white beans, mussels, chorizo, bouillabaisse
- Honey-glazed duck, duck leg meatball, beetroot, salsify
- Sablé biscuit, almond sorbet, almond crumble
- Selection of cheeses from the British Isles
Six-course set menu, £85, available Friday and Saturday evenings
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