The newly-opened Norfolk restaurant aims to impress with its showstopping dishes. Meet the main man to find out where he hopes to go with this project
Mark Poynton is not coy about the ambition for his new restaurant at Caistor Hall in Norfolk, stating he wants it to be "the best it can be".
The chef, who held a Michelin star for five years at Alimentum in Cambridge and continues to run MJP@TheShepherds in Fen Ditton with his business partner Matthew Adams, was enticed to the project by Nick Mills, Chris Busby and Sain De Waal who purchased the hall in 2021. Collectively they have set about creating a destination restaurant and hotel in a building that has been in great need of attention.
A new induction kitchen has been added and in the fine dining restaurant tailor-made furnishings have been designed with guest experience at the forefront. This fastidious eye for detail extends to the tasting menus developed by Poynton with head chef Byron Franklin.
The first bite is an ‘oyster pearl' – a dish that underwent six months in development to be devoured in just seconds. The fastidious testing, which Poynton says started with his "poor wife spitting out the first ones", is indicative of his desire to serve the best food of his career.
He says: "We wanted it to be a showstopper that would make people go ‘wow. What is that?' It's basically a pearl, which is liquid inside, served in an oyster shell topped with Oscietra caviar. We make a savoury custard of oyster and oyster leaf for a bit of punch. We're using Colchester oysters at the moment, but we'll use Brancaster oysters when they're in season. We dip the custard in a pearlised cocoa butter, so it looks like a pearl, and when you pop it in your mouth it's a saline explosion, without that oyster texture that puts a lot of people off."
A nine-course tasting menu, priced at £100 with an optional £75 accompanying wine flight, sees the oyster pearl followed by a selection of snacks, at time of writing a goats' cheese tart, crab puri, and a Comté and black truffle gougère. This is followed by a bread course of treacle and ale sourdough (still made using Poynton's starter from Alimentum), served alongside a silky smooth mushroom parfait and Bungay butter from nearby Fen Farm Dairy.
As the menu continues, a halibut and mussel dish (the mussels soon to be swapped for brown shrimp) sees the chef source the best wild halibut he can get, topping it with a mousse made from the trimmings, chopped mussels, shallots, parsley and garlic. A shallot purée with squid ink adds punch and umami, and a roasted mussel sauce is added at the table. The result is a beautifully light and elegantly presented dish that showcases the classic techniques honed by Poynton through a career that has seen him work with the likes of Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House in Cambridge and Paul Kitching at Juniper in Greater Manchester.
Poynton adds: "It's those flavours of moules marinière – the flavours of the seaside. It's visually stunning and beautiful to eat, perfectly-cooked, soft, translucent fish. It's just amazing."
A dish of Anjou squab pigeon, fois gras and cabbage follows. A ballotine of pigeon, stuffed with a foie gras and truffle chicken mousse, is served alongside a savoy cabbage purée, potato gnocchi and the barbecued pigeon leg glazed in Madeira vinegar, all finished with a foie gras and truffle sauce.
A cheese course, which currently has the chef pairing Binham Blue with a mini apple tarte tatin, provides an interlude before dessert, which is another showstopper: a rhubarb baked Alaska, which has been in development since November 2022 and which has undergone refinement during a series of supper clubs held in Poynton's Cambridgeshire pub.
The inspiration for the dish comes from a peer he holds in particularly high regard. Poynton says: "I look up to Mickael Viljanen at Chapter One in Dublin massively, I think his food is amazing – he's another level. He does this chocolate dessert, which I've probably eaten five or six times, where he pipes chocolate mousse on to a record player as it spirals round. I've always thought I'd love to do that, so we have done with the meringue on our baked Alaska."
The chef builds the dish on an almond biscuit on to which he layers a cultured cream mousse infused with rosemary, followed by a centre of rhubarb sorbet. The meringue is piped on using the record player before being blow-torched and served with a fresh rhubarb coulis and poached rhubarb.
This latest opening is giving Poynton the chance to flex his classical muscles and present a menu that contrasts the small plates offering of his Cambridgeshire pub. While he is clear that both venues are equally important to him, his ambitions for the menu he's serving in Norfolk are high, and in Caistor Hall he's found a venue to showcase his skills.
Stoke Road, Caistor St Edmund, Norwich NR14 8QN
From the menu
- Chilled apple and wild garlic velouté
- Celeriac, walnut, truffle
- Halibut and mussel
- Pigeon, fois gras, cabbage
- Binham Blue, Granny Smith
- Chocolate, miso, sesame
- Rhubarb baked Alaska
Tasting menu, £100
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