Lunch with Trenchermen's, And what a team.

It’s been a while.  A fantastic summer has passed and so much happened.

But the highlight was earlier this month.  On Monday, the fifth, with MC, the master of ceremonies, we hosted The Trencherman’s Autumn Lunch.  The Bath Priory kitchen was a buzzing hub of focused activity.  Twenty five chefs worked heads down with great determination and prepared a seven course lunch for the eighty five guests who were en route from all over the South-West of England to celebrate the launch of

‘The Trencherman’s Guide 2011-2012’.

In our kitchen there were four teams of chefs:

Nick Brodie

                                                   

Simon Hulstone 

Simon Hulstone and his team from the Elephant restaurant, Torquay, Devon, took charge of the starter: Textures of Occombe beetroot, With Vulscombe goats cheese and elderflower curd.

Nick Brodie from The Queensbury Hotel, Bath, Somerset, with help from his sous, took care of the main course:  Roast mallard duck, crown prince squash puree, bilberries and game jus.

Paul Ainsworth & John Walton

Paul Ainsworth, Number 6 restaurant, Padstow, Cornwall, finished the lunch with his Head Chef,  John.  Pre-dessert; ‘Kid in a Sweetshop’ (Strawberry sorbet ~ refreshers ~ bubblegum, followed by Cheese cake ravioli, raspberries, white chocolate mousse.

Me & the squid in the background

Myself and the Bath Priory brigade took care of the intermediate fish course: Truffle poached Turbot; braised ox cheek, cepe sauce.  Team BP filled in the gaps.  Canapés were organised  by Juaca, Niall and Romaine.  Allister took care of the amuse bouche: roasted sweetcorn veloute and saffron onions.  And, of course, Jon and Emma made all the breads and produced some wonderful petits fours.

Chicken wing and Foie sandwich

The busy morning quickly turned into the start of service.  Plates of canapés were laid up.  Anca and her team moved in.  Pick up! Pick up! Then swiftly passed the kitchen doors, down the corridor to our bustling lounges, and ready in place to greet the arriving guests.

    

Jauca & Allister 

Plate 1. Braised chicken wing, confit lemon puree.  Foie gras & apple sandwich. Confit Tamworth rillette, apricot chutney.

Plate 2. Fish and chips, tartar sauce. Tempura chillli squid;  Smoked haddock brandade.

Plate 3. Quail egg & onion confit tartlet; Sun blushed tomato risotto, basil oil; Cauliflower pakora, lemon mayonnaise.

Jon and his rolls 

The last plates of canapés rolled out, the guests moved from the lounges to the restaurant and were seated.

Tomato and olive bread was sliced and baguettes and pain de morvan, piping hot, filled the bread baskets, which quickly landed on the tables, followed shortly after by the amuse.  The meal had started.

Simon and his team finished their gargantuan task of plating the beautiful beetroot dish with a delicate dusting of beetroot powder and the starter was ready.  What a fantastic way to start!

Turbot on the line 

Turbot up next.  Gently poached at 60o C and with 2 minutes left on the timer I was in the restaurant introducing the course and a quick thank you to Phil for providing the Turbot.  Back in the kitchen the line was in full swing.  I took my place and sauced and the plates headed to guests.  Well chuffed.

Mallard on the line 

Nick and his sous chef worked on the last bits of the main course.  They quickly carved the mallard breasts and crisped-up the confit leg pancakes.  Then in a line led by Nick, we pushed out plate after plate of handsome looking food.

Pre desserts 

The cheeky grin that Paul wore all morning then disappeared for a moment as he focused on bringing together his playful pre-dessert.  John piped the sorbet while Paul added the espuma and we topped it with the Candy and crackles.  Then it was grins all round as we all tucked into a shot glass of his pre-dessert.  It was impossible not to smile as you ate it!

Ravioli

Ravioli filled on each plate, crumble added and the final touches to the plate were complete.  The dessert was served and the menu finished.  What a lunch!

Jon and Emma laid up the petits fours as the restaurant team prepared the coffee to finish.

In the restaurant, handshakes and congratulations aplenty confirmed that a fantastic day had been had by all.

The West Country is the best country.

Top of Form

The New Boys Are In and The Festivals of Fun

Well! 

What’s been happening?  Where has the time flown?

A hard couple of months have passed.  It has been all heads-down and getting.
So now with the new team members settling in and the core pushing harder than ever, I’ve finally the time to realize in words, just what we’ve been up to.  Where to start?

Niall and the morel

Food.

Our Spring menu is in full stride.  It is almost impossible to keep up with the ever-changing ingredients that Spring brings us.  From the first garlic leaf and morels to the last of the St Enodoc asparagus, the new sun’s energy has created some really amazing flavours and spectacular growth.

Fingers crossed 

Douglas, the veg man, has grown us some fantastic young cauliflowers.  We’ve turned them into cous cous, seasoned with cumin, sesame and olive oil.  On the menu as Seared Brixham scallops, cauliflower cous cous and cumin veloute,

Steve, Chef Direct, came up trumps when he delivered a carcass of big and beautiful Berkshire pork which had been reared in Bath.  Niall made short work of baking it down, slow-cooking the loins and confitting the belly and serving it with hispi cabbage and calvados sauce.  The shoulder was turned into crispy rillettes and served with apple compote, sorrel and bitters salad.  The head was brined and turned into brawn.  The legs sat in a whole lot of salt and now are hanging in our cellar...to be continued.

Roasted veal sweet bread, lemon confit
Apple & Hazelnut salad 

Steve has also been sending us some fantastic local veal sweetbread which we roast: roasted veal sweetbreads, confit lemon, apple and hazelnut salad.

We also have grelot onions and smoked bacon with Turbot and slow roasted crown of squab pigeon, wild garlic puree, morel and asparagus fricassee and madeira jus..  And, on our lunch menus, lamb rump with fennel, caper and anchovies, tapenade jus.

Rhubarb! Rhubarb! Rhubarb for dessert!  Then, if you’re rhubarbed out, we pay homage to the greatness of sticky toffee, with salted caramel fondant, apple parfait: pure heaven, sweet and rich!

The first soft stone fruit has arrived.  Our box of apricots was turned into an apricot and caraway chutney to be served with the Berkshire pork. With strawberries ready any day summer must nearly here.


Our eloquent friend, Dave the Butcher swears (trooper-like) that his British white beef will be the best we’ve ever seen.  Dave’s new shop opens this month… at last!  Our first delivery arrives on Monday evening.  The fillets and hind quarter should keep us busy for a while.

We’ve also been busy away from the Bath Priory.  The Exeter food festival has been and gone.  It kicked off on the Sunday with the first of my demos for this year. What a way to start, Head-to-Head versus Gidleigh Park’s head chef, Ian ‘Asparagus’ Webber.  We had a fantastic time and, of course, the score is now Gidleigh 0 Bath Priory 2.  Victory was ours as I had shown off our scallops with cauliflower and the sweetbread with lemon confit from the current carte, along with the plate of rabbit, smoked ham, pease pudding from our recent menu.

Ian and I do Battle

The Exeter festival is a wonderful celebration of the West Country’s magical produce and the collection of the people that make it the Best Country.  Cornish oysters and Somerset cider; Devon hog roast baps and Teignworthy Bitter!  What more could you ask for?  What more do you need?

The good stuff 

My family had come along to enjoy the festival.  We all had a great day, wandering around for hours, eating far too much and chatting to a few of the many characters that help create the wonderful and friendly atmosphere.  It’s a shame that I only got to be there on the last day.  I could happily spend all 3 days exploring the food tents and to be fair there are just too many beers and cider on offer to taste in 1 day. 

2 Nil BP 

From Exeter I was Horley-homeward bound for a demo next day at The Foodies Festival in Hove Lawns in Brighton.  Niall and Craig ‘the Squid’ Lunn got the train from Bath and we picked them up at Gatwick and headed for the pier and beyond.

     The Foodies Festival was not exactly a celebration of local food like Exeter, which is a shame, but it was still enjoyable nevertheless.  We arrived early and with an hour or so before Niall‘s and my demo we had time to pick up some ingredients and mingle and of course grab a cheeky cider. 

food at foodies

Our search for produce took us to Sam’s of Brighton, where we borrowed some asparagus.  We also grabbed a loaf of local rye bread.  I had earlier picked up some eggs from Simon’s Free Range Eggs in Hookwood, Surrey.  

The plate of local food  to wrap off our demo was sorted so we went back to Sam’s tent.  The smell from the spiced sticky braised belly pork were too good to miss, as was his asparagus with wild garlic butter.  Great food on paper plates.  

The demo went well but with Mr E.H.O. forbidding anyone a taste of anything it seemed a bit pointless!  Anyway, a good afternoon was had by all and it was great to see more family and friends there.  Niall and I tried to introduce Craig the Squid back to his natural environment but a wave got the better of us, so with our now wet Birkenstocks it was time to say goodbye to Brighton and make dinner arrangements.

Freeing the squid 

To Ockenden Manor, where the welcome is always warm, the food fantastic and your glass always full!

to good to take a before
photo

We checked in and regrouped in the their beautiful oak-panelled bar. Vinny cooked us a wonderful tasting menu.  We all agreed that the sole with potato gallette and tartar sauce was simple perfection.  The guinea fowl and boudin blanc was seriously flavoursome.  Vinny's menu then finished with the best lemon tart I’ve ever had.  A great meal!
Back to the bar, for cheese.  We chatted and drank far too much into the early hours of the morning.  A brilliant evening!  Then with bacon sandwiches in hand.  Five sorry looking campers pretended to read the morning papers as we planned our journey back west.



And what great time we had…

Next time 

New Growth and Are There Eggs in That?

I have a fantastic team of chefs around me  They rise to our daily challenges and they always overcome them.  They expand their knowledge in many ways, like reading and eating-out and they take new team members under their wings and they are pushing forwards with great focus, ensuring we can always deliver that wonderful experience that all our guests receive at The Bath Priory.  And, it’s all done with a smile... (most of the time!)

The New Year sees Winkie (aka Thomas Hine) heading back to Gidleigh Park as one of their sous chefs.
A strange silence has now fallen into our kitchens at BP.  It may be peace and quiet.  Winkie goes to learn in a kitchen that taught me much.  We all wish him the best of luck.

The best thing about hospitality has to be opportunity.  There’s always something new to learn, new challenges to conquer or obstacles to overcome.  These are incredibly exciting times. This year sees me become a chef mentor and start my Springboard Hospitality Ambassador training.   Asking someone to help to inspire the next generation of chefs is a great compliment and I’m incredibly grateful to Sue for putting me forward for it.

So, the first mentor-day with the young Jack and yours truly.  He needed help to prepare for the Future Chef comp.  But to be honest Jack already had most of it covered.  We had a play.  The main was pheasant and then a tiramisu style dessert. 

We made a lovely celeriac confit with a little garlic and wrapped the pheasant breast in a bit of smoked bacon.  We then had a go at boning out the thighs.  All went to plan.  Jack made a lovely sauce with white wine.  A very tasty main course!!  We then realised that we didn’t have then ingredients for the pudding. Damn you sponge fingers!  So dessert was an improvised and rushed together tiramisu-style dessert: amazing!

Jack was a pleasure to have in the kitchen.  He cooks with real style and confidence.  He'll be back soon for a week’s work experience with us.  Although he is still at school, he already knows the most important ingredients in the kitchen.  TOP LAD!

Talking of top lads... Young Squid (aka Craig Lunn) has been out and about flying BP’s flag high and doing us all very proud.  He entered himself into Bath’s under-23 Chef v Chef competition.  At 16, that shows some serious balls.  We worked on some dish ideas and Craig produced us some lovely plates of food, including a new and rather interesting method of making crème caramels, but we won’t talk about that now.

Young Squid didn’t win but with some fine tuning, he’ll be in with a great shout next year.  It did show his amazing drive and self belief.  Keep up that spirit and he’ll go all the way to the top.  And Gary Jones had some very nice thing to say about him, which was great to hear.

On Friday, I eventually had the call I’d been waiting ages for.  The veg grower that is Douglas has finally got something worth picking and can hopefully restart our twice weekly deliveries of freshly picked and freshly dug vegetables.  All that snow and sub-zero cold had killed all the beautiful black baby leaf kale, so it was a happy day on Saturday when fresh leaves arrived in our kitchen once more.

We are also very excited about working with Buttervilla, a Cornish company, who will also provide us with some great little micro salads.  Our first delivery looked great and was all very tasty.  There are some really interesting products here, so will keep you posted.

Creedy Carver ducks have gone from strength to strength.  They now sit proudly on our a la carte dinner menu.  It really is an incredible product.  Every one that eats it absolutely loves it.  What’s more we confit the legs and use them on the lunch menus.  Our guests love it, so much so, we need to change the menu tomorrow.

Slow cooked breast of Creedy Carver duckling, orange puree, anise jus, & then, crisp confit Creedy Carver duck leg, spiced cabbage, Puy lentils, anise jus.

A fun and fast start to the New Year was had and with Alistair coming up from Gidleigh Park to take on the sous chef role here, the future looks exciting!

Time short.  It’s the 14^th.   The ladies need to be wooed and Niall and Vike (aka Ben) can’t do it alone!!! even if the Vike has had himself a nice new hair cut!!

Onwards!