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.
Next up: The Ledbury
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