Menuwatch: Eckington Manor

t was in 2015, after just six months in the kitchen at Eckington, that Mark applied for and went on to win BBC Two's MasterChef: The Professionals, when he was just 28.

In June this year the manor celebrated its 10th anniversary with a party and a special 10-course tasting menu. Gardner invited 140 guests, including many of the manor's suppliers and supporters from the past 10 years.

"This coincided with us winning the Best Hotel for Food at the Luxury Lifestyle Awards in August," says Mark. "So our anniversary tasting menu went down a storm."

e menu included dishes such as chilled tomato consommé; Eckington Manor garden salad, fresh ricotta and courgette; short rib and fillet of beef, heritage carrots, parsley and charcoal; and apple and blackberry meringue. The menu is still available for diners at £90 a head.

Mark says his favourite dish was the first course salad: pickled vegetables selected from Eckington farm and served with fresh ricotta. The dessert was made with apples from Gardner's orchard, chosen for their creamy flavour and used in an apple sorbet served with a crumbly granola, tart blackberries and crème pÁ¢tissière.

The restaurant's dishes use produce grown on the 260-acre farm, the orchards and herb garden, with 60%-70% of the menu using home-grown produce on a daily basis. The manor also breeds Aberdeen Angus and Hereford cattle, which are used in popular dishes such as the Eckington beef tartare, corned beef, marmite mayo and pickled onions. Also on the menu are Evesham tomatoes, lobster, seaweed cracker and tomato consommé; and fillet of sea trout with celeriac linguine, mussels, apple and samphire.

side of the ingredients offered by Eckington, the chef has his pick from hundreds of suppliers in the Vale of Evesham, including microgreens and tomatoes from Westlands and cheeses from Simon Weaver's organic dairy.

The restaurant serves a dinner menu for£48 per person for three courses, a lunch menu at £32 for three courses, as well as Sunday lunch and afternoon tea for £19 per person.

Although the dishes on the menu are classics with a twist - "that's my background," Mark says - the restaurant is relaxed rather than stuffy. "Our customers come from all over the world and they feel comfortable here," he says. The chef even teaches courses in the cookery school. They also get a lot of families on repeat stays, locals in the bar, shooting parties and year-round wedding bookings in the barn.

Even though Eckington has been thrust into the limelight by its many awards and it has a MasterChef winner heading the brigade, Mark prefers to stay in the background, even though "he does get recognised and dragged out of the kitchen for photographs," says Gardner.

From the menuStarters

Olive oil-poached cod, fennel, saffron potatoes, garlic

Fresh ricotta, garden salad, courgette and basil, buckwheat

Mains

Short rib of beef, braised shin, red onion, parsley, yeast flakes

Leg of lamb, sweetbread, heritage carrots, yogurt, chervil

Parmesan gnocchi, three-cornered garlic, baby leeks, roasted salsify

Desserts

Coconut parfait, mango, rum-poached pineapple, lime leaf

Dark chocolate, caramel mousse, mascarpone, coffee ice-cream

Seven-course tasting menu, £75

Hammock Road, Eckington, Worcestershire WR10 3BJ

www.eckingtonmanor.co.uk

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