Le Manoir aux Quat' Saison - 11th September

A great Chef is an artist. I totally agree with that.

Some are also fantastic entrepreneurs, who have build restaurant empires out of nothing and have themselves become brands.

Nigela Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, a few of them could be considered stars, or at least celebrities.

Raymond Blanc seems to believe he is all of that and more. At least that is the impression I got after everything he had to say during our visit to Le Manoir.

No. I did not meet him. But I had the feeling that I had met him and he was a rather pompous, unpleasant, arrogant man.

There were signs, leaflets or cards everywhere, telling us what Raymond Blanc thinks, why he does things a certain way or just to point out that he owns and runs the place. What could or probably was meant to be a nice personal touch, came across as pretentious and slightly obnoxious.

One of the leaflets on our table told us that Raymond found that “constant interruptions” by the staff can be a bit annoying, which is why they will not be explaining every course unless you ask them to. 

Outside, he explains that he discovered some issue with the algae in the pond, which is why he decided to do some maintenance work to it.

The rather cheaply printed and poorly designed menu also came with a comment from Raymond, telling me that I was allowed to take it away as a memento. Thanks Raymond.

Raymond seems to have a bit of an urge to mark his territory, making sure that his name is on every sign around the place and making sure that you know that he is the one who decides and does everything around the Manoir.

Generally there was a bit too much branding and merchandising around the place. Just the fact that there were three leaflets and flyers on the table. One with Raymond's explanations about what he feels and doesn't feel is annoying, another one selling his latest book and one more promoting some other event. Not very classy. Pamphlets are for tourist information centres, not for expensive restaurants. Put something on the way out, where people can take it with them if they had a nice meal and want a “memento”. But don't leave flyers on the table.

OK. Rant over.

The Manoir is actually gorgeous and definitely worth a detour if you are in the Oxford area. A beautiful old building with stunning gardens.

Ferraris in the parking lot and petite women wearing sunglasses and hoodies and having hunky boyfriends carrying their Louis Vuitton travel bags to the car, make you think that Kylie or Madonna surely stay here once in while.

Two friends had decided to come along and we kicked the afternoon off with a nice glass of Rose in the gardens which we had to finish in the lounge as it started raining a bit. The lounge though was very cosy and I could well see myself spending an afternoon on the couch with a bottle of nice wine.

The selection of amuse bouches was lovely, apart from a little "curry ball" that tasted like samosa from the M&S party selection.

We then got taken to our table. And sorry, here I'll need to do another rant-interlude.

First off all, the dining area in the conservatory once again suffered from the slightly off design we already had experienced in some of the previous restaurants. The nice countryside manor made way for a bit of a Casablanca theme. Palm trees and ceiling fans in a rather awful 80s conservatory structure.

We opted for the tasting menu, which at £120 for 7 courses was one of the more expensive ones we've had so far. And on top they pointed out that coffee and petit fours are not included. I'm sorry, but if you're charging £120 for 7 courses, a coffee and a couple of truffles are not going to damage your profit margins. Or charge an extra £5. But it just seems a bit cheap to have big paragraph under the menu, saying that the coffee will be extra. Strangely this was not explained and signed by Raymond.

OK. Now definitely rant over.

The food was fantastic.

Ravioli of Butternut squash. Lovely.

Grilled Cornish Mackerel, apple, soy, honey and ginger. Very Nice.

Risotto of tomato and fresh garden vegetables, mascarpone cream. Sounded a bit boring, tasted divine. Quite a big portion though.

Roasted duck breast, garden Swiss chard, blackberry jus. This was really nice. Blackberries go extremely well with duck.

Somerset goats milk Cardo cheese, flat peach, cumin and celery. I honestly can’t remember eating this dish, so it couldn’t have been that great.

Williams pear almondine, caramel croustillant and ginger sauce. I could happily have had a family sized portion of this. So good.

Manjari chocolate and raspberry crumble. There wasn’t much crumble, but it came with an absolutely amazing raspberry sorbet on the side and the chocolate tart was rich and creamy. A very nice ending to the meal.

The service was good, but the people at the hotel reception seemed nicer and friendlier than the actual restaurant staff.

The sommelier pulled a bit of face when my friend Emyr asked for a new wine glass, because there was sediment in it after the first bottle. 

Not on.

But they didn’t even blink when by mistake I left only a 55 pence tip. (Just in case you wondered, I realised this as I was putting the bill away and still left a proper tip.)

A nice walk around the grounds and a game of croquet on the lawn made this a really nice afternoon and we left very happy.

The bill came to £661 (plus tip) for 4 people. Not exactly a bargain.

Would I go back? Not sure. I loved the manor and the gardens and the croquet and the food was mostly excellent. But the merchandising and Raymond’s ubiquity were really a bit off-putting.

http://www.manoir.com

Next up: The Ledbury

L'Enclume - 29.08.11

Waverex peas, onion ashes, lovage and wood sorrel. Minidor yellow, summer savory, pickled nasturtium, white Vienna, Yew tree Herdwick Hogget. Chenopodiums? Sea buckthorn?

I have no idea what half of the things on the menu are.

Can I blame it on not being a native speaker? I just will.

Then there are some things that I would not necessarily choose. Duck sweetbread? No thanks. Stout ice cream with liquorice? Doesn’t sound very appealing to me.

But hey, it’s all about trying new things, experiencing new flavours, taste sensations, isn’t it? And besides, there’s not much choice at L’Enclume. There is no à la carte. You can choose between 3 Menus: 8 courses, 12 courses or 12 vegeterian courses. So 12 courses of mostly unknown ingredients it is then.

L’Enclume is in the Lake District, in a cute little village called Cartmel. Cartmel is probably most famous for the horse races that take place here once a year, but it is becoming more and more of a food destination. To cater for the crowd that L’Enclume attracts, the other local pubs seem to have brushed up a bit and a few fancy food shops have opened. A lovely baker, a wine shop, a great cheese shop, the Cartmel sticky toffee pudding company. All really nice.

The restaurant is pretty much right in the village centre, in what looks like an old farmhouse.

Inside we encountered the slightly off design that seems to be common for Michelin starred restaurants.

It’s a nice old space with crooked, white walls and some old wooden beams. But they tried a bit too hard to make it “modern and elegant”, with some awful art and rather random table decorations made of sticks and stones, that looked more like they belonged in a cheap spa. Maybe a design consultancy for posh restaurants would be a good business idea.

We waited for our table in the lounge with a nice glass of rosé Champagne and were presented with some duck scratchings and cheese crackers – a bit random and not really worthy of being ceremoniously presented and described by the waitress.

We then got taken into the dining room. The amuse bouche was a cheesy biscuit with broccoli puree and freeze-dried raspberries. Sounds interesting, but the biscuit was so cheesy, that you couldn’t really taste anything else.

First course, Waverex peas with crab and calamint. It came in what looked like a little bag made of porcelain and I was expecting a cold soup. It turned out to be a nice, creamy mousse though with big chunks of crab and fresh peas at the bottom. Really lovely.

Cod ‘yolks’ and rocket, garlic, salt and vinegar. A bit Heston Blumethal. Something that looked like a small egg yolks but actually was cod mousse and came with a garlic foam. Nice, soft flavours.

Vegetable dumplings in beef broth wispy leeks and fennel sounded great but were rather disappointing. Three ravioli with different fillings that got covered in a watery gravy. Not very exciting.

Raw squid and black bulgur, artichoke and radish was fantastic. A bit like a ceviche.

Heritage potatoes in onion ashes, lovage and wood sorrel sounded a bit strange but tasted amazing. A little portion of comfort food.

The next dish I had been dreading. Minidor yellow with duck sweetbread, corn cream, summer savoury.

I eat pretty much everything, but am not a fan of sweetbread. And the thought of duck sweetbread does not sound appealing at all. Little bits of duck thymus gland? Not so sure about that. But it actually tasted fantastic. The sweetbread was crispy fried, the minidor yellow (a kind of runner bean) nice and crunchy and a rich sauce to go with it.

The grilled crystal lemon with prawns from Gairloch, fresh yogurt and pickled nasturtium I can barely remember.

A plaice fillet and white Vienna baked in salt, kale greens and razor clams was much more memorable. And the Yew tree Herdwick Hogget, turnips, cider and chenopodiums was even better. Incredibly soft and tender meat.

And now the deserts. Damson cake, honeycomb, mint and sweet cicely. Quite enjoyed that.

The Coniston oatmeal stout ice cream, liquorice and sea buckthorn though was just plain awful. A round patty that looked like a defrosted piece of breaded chicken breast and tasted like that too. We really wondered what the chef was thinking when he put this one together and if no one had ever dared to tell him that it was just wrong. I finished it, expecting that I would eventually get some interesting taste or texture, but it really didn’t work.

The sweet cheese with walnut, gooseberry and Douglas fir made up for it again. Nice and tart gooseberry cutting through the sweet cheese. Lovely.

As a final treat we got an aniseed milkshake with an apple meringue. I really enjoyed it. Dewi though thinks that aniseed and milkshake should stay away from each other. Well, if it was up to him, aniseed should probably stay away from everything.

Some of the dishes were excellent. Interesting and creative, local ingredients, fantastic presentation. But overall the style of the dishes was somehow a bit too similar. A lot of them came with what almost felt like the same foamy, creamy sauce.

The service was very good. They only had 3 people looking after about 15 tables, but still managed to be incredibly attentive and made it feel more personal than at other places where there is always an army of people milling about.

But rather than just reading out the long list of unknown ingredients in each course, they could have explained a bit more what they actually are.

I wouldn’t mind knowing what a pickled nasturtium is before I put it in my mouth.

Would I go again? Probably not.

There are plenty of other good places in the Lake District.

The next evening we went to a pub / restaurant / hotel called The Drunken Duck. Imagine very posh gastro-pub meets hunting lodge. Really cosy, excellent food, fair prices and overall a much more satisfying experience.

Next week though it’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saison. Quite looking forward to that.

http://www.lenclume.co.uk/

http://www.drunkenduckinn.co.uk/restaurant.htm