288. Cheal’s Of Henley Soon To Be Of Knowle.

   Old blokes often find change difficult. That is often because decades of experience teach us that change is not usually for the best. Of course sometimes it is and I hope that is the case with Cheal’s of Henley, considered by me to probably be the best restaurant in the West Midlands, which is to leave the home where it began its life and is now to move to Knowle. When I read the news I felt I must pay one last visit to Cheal’s in its present home which has always been a very simpatico sort of place to dine in.

  Getting there was not easy, a combination of another strike by our extremely well-paid but apparently impoverished  train drivers and the sheer incompetence of those who run West Midlands Trains ensured that there were no trains running and that a return taxi journey to Henley was necessary. I was also limited on time, having another appointment arranged for 4 o’clock back in Birmingham and so I was unable to indulge myself again in the excellent Tasting menu offered in the restaurant but chose to lunch from the three course lunch menu (with various trimmings included) exceptionally well priced at £40. After olives, enjoyable bread and butter and an amuse gueule, I had a starter of ponzu cured sea trout finely combined with cucumber, pink grapefruit, samphire, yuzu vinegar and tasty little crisps as light as a feather.

  The main course was also excellent - finely cooked hake with tasty brown crab risotto, shiso and a deeply delicious lobster reduction. This was an immaculate dish. With time speeding by I had my dessert of a lovely William pear choux with a splendidly crispy shell filled with vanilla crème diplomat and a sharply perfect blackcurrant sorbet.

  And so farewell to this Henley restaurant which was once home to a restaurant where Andy Waters was Head Chef and subsequently to the Thai restaurant, Thai Cottage. As Cheal’s moves out from there hopefully to success in its new home, one wonders what will next happen to this charming cottage on Henley’s main street. 

268. Qavali, Purnell’s, Cheal’s Of Henley, Hussain’s

   

  Last week was busy. Birmingham then Stratford with a trip to Henley in Arden in the middle. Train strikes did not make travelling any easier and the city centre was full of delegates to the Conservative Conference at the ICC and noisy, splendidly scruffy middle class Tarquins representing all sorts of causes protesting at the Conservatives’ presence in Birmingham. Dining out was easier than I expected since all the politicians were at evening meetings or noshing banquets in large groups.

  Dinner at Qavali on Monday evening. It was very quiet. There were a few Conference delegates there who obviously hadn’t received invitations to any group meals. I went straight to a main course which was excellent - Kassori lamb karahi - delicious, the meat tender and tasty, the sauce hitting the target on spiciness and flavour and the peshwari naans possibly the best I have had for a long time. There were problems - bar service was slow and my drink arrived in a glass with a chipped rim which could have been nasty. That should never have happened. I had a pleasing light dessert of two ice creams - rose flavour with Turkish delight pieces in it and pistachio. 

Rating - 0 (chipped glass indefensible).

   The following evening, to Purnell’s. No surprise that there were no chipped glasses there. No surprise too that I was unable to resist the Tasting menu especially as there were a number of new dishes on it which had to be tried.

  Firstly there was the sheer joy of Purnell’s Gifts from the kitchen. Sometimes I think that a restaurant that  served nothing but fine canapés might be just what I’m looking for. Purnell’s chip - now well-established as a panisse had undergone a further evolution and was now made, deliciously, from sweet spiced carrot; this was served along with a little disc of rye bread on which was mounted by splended tomato and bacon meringue - unfortunately the rye did not present a very nice texture - if this was to achieve what Purnell’s should be achieving then the base would have been far better if it had been pastry. Then more ‘gifts’ - the hilarious little truffle pig sable with blobs of cheese custard and balsamic gel - delicious - served with truffle potatoes and herb emulsion. Very good though I had little flashbacks of the longtime favourite edible charcoal with its gorgeous chorizo dip. I suppose I will get over the loss eventually.

  Then the old favourite of Emotions of soixante dix - Purnell’s ever-evolving play on the vintage cheese and pineapple and then Loch Duart salmon disastrously assaulted by excruciatingly sharp citrus - lime and ponzu - with undetectable ginger. This is a dish which needs a very rapid and drastic rethink.

  I substituted the very familiar Haddock and eggs with a lovely heritage tomato dish served with a shiso leaf fritter. How could anyone not love a dish with a fritter as one of its ingredients. Then a fine piece of Cornish monkfish with tallegio and a delightful ragu of octopus and cuttlefish and squid.

Next, an irreproachable piece of roast sirloin cooked beautifully and presented in the company of equally nicely cooked salsify with the additional pleasures of hazelnut and leek. Then a startling intermediate dish made up of duck liver and sweet raisins and the pastry from which the tomato and bacon meringue amuse gueule may have benefitted. The meal drew to a close with the immortal 10 10 10 Burnt English egg surprise with the accompanying cherry lollipops as I had to recognise that I was replete and the mint choccy chip was a dessert too far.

Despite the unfortunate Loch Duart salmon dish, rating:- 🌞🌞.

  The following day, the dog and I battled the travel impediments put in our way by striking train drivers, through a raging rainstorm to get to Stratford (by taxi as a last resort) so that I could see the present production of Richard III at the RSC for my third and final time. We stayed as usual at the Shakespeare Hotel, a minute or so from the theatre. Dating back to the early 17th century, it has seen better days and is always waiting for its long expected refurbishment but to my pleasure, the management reopened the atmospheric Quill Bar during this visit and I sipped Cotswold Gin, in the absence of Monkey 47, while the dog lounged around appealingly waiting for other guests to admire and stroke her.

  I travelled to Henley in Arden the next day to renew my romance with Cheal’s of Henley which remains one of the West Midlands’ most outstanding restaurants. The place remains faultless starting with the excellent, informed service which is delivered supremely professionally. The food served remains exemplary. There was a lunch menu which was very appealing but Cheal’s is just too good to miss the remarkable gems which feature in its tasting menu. And so the tasting menu it was.

  Along with an excellent and colourful amuse gueule, bread was served with butter and beef fat (what, I suppose we used to call ‘dripping’ though rather more refined I expect). 

  The first dish led the way in confirming that this meal was going to be another Cheal’s great success. No skimping on the luxuries either. Along came a very pretty little bowl containing pieces of lobster with delightful heritage tomato and tomato consommé. Who would have thought it? - a tomato dish raised to new heights by the pleasure of lobster. Well, obviously Matt Cheal thought of it.

  And then one of my all-time favourite dishes sidled up to me and made me laugh out loud with pleasurable surprise and to purr with happiness. This was the Crispy Duck Yolk dish, previously wonderful, but now in a class of its home. The egg was certainly admirably cooked and nicely crispy and with it were little pieces of crispy bacon and tiny sweet tomatoes and perfectly cooked black pudding (so often cooked elsewhere to a dry mouth-clagging inedibility) but pushing all of it aside, underneath lurked cheeky, shocking, sweet baked beans completing this hilarious and delicious Full English breakfast pastiche. A great, delightful, witty, naughty dish for a fine dining restaurant - I loved it.

  Conventionality was restored, probably wisely by another dish with a luxury ingredient - lovely turbot with baby artichoke and a delicious lobster sauce.

  The main course was perfectly cooked new season venison with girolles, mischievous pieces of sweetcorn, nice potato gnocchi and an excellent Pedro Ximenez sauce. The excellence of this was matched by the excellence of the dessert - an irreproachable apple crumble soufflé with blackcurrant half plunged into it. For good measure, a selection of good English cheeses was served to complete the meal. The total price (excluding drinks and service) was £85. This is exceptionally good value in these present times particularly as the superlative meal included some fine luxury ingredients.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

  With another day in Stratford, I was able to take myself to dinner at a restaurant I have been intending to visit for some time - Hussain’s, which held a Michelin recommendation for longer than anywhere else in Stratford upon Avon, from 1989 to 2001. Those days are long over, true, but I was curious to see how this place measured up in this era of South Asian food being served in restaurants such as Opheem.

  This was good old fashioned ‘Indian’ food, barely any different from that being served in the 1970s. The restaurant was busy - it was a Friday evening - and the service was polite and brisk. The decor is very old fashioned, not necessarily a disadvantage, and very pink which it was, I remember distinctly, when I last visited there some years ago. Hussain’s clearly is not a slave to fashion; presumably it does not need to be.

  Given the atmosphere of decades gone by, I thought I would order a meal of times gone by starting off with onion pakora (which I think could well have been the ‘onion bhajis’ of former times) served with a traditional but nicely fresh salad garnish. There were four little onion bhajis, distinctive by their intense redness but nice and crispy and generally quite enjoyable. Then I chose chicken tikka dhansak with Peshwari naan. The chicken was far too dry and gave little pleasure but the sauce was edible enough bringing the combination of heat and sweetness and dryness that makes dhansak my favourite curry shop dish. The naan was satisfactory though a little flabby particularly in comparison with the naan I had eaten at Qavali earlier in the week

  I concluded with another ancient favourite - a mango khulfi, a flavourless and not very pleasant, highly  phallic erection standing not very proud on the plate. To be avoided in the future.

  Hussain’s seems to attract plenty of punters so for some the old ways are still acceptable. But not for me, though never say never.

  Rating:- 0.

Recent developments - 

It was announced on 7 October that 670 Grams will be enlarged after Chef patron Kray Tredwell acquired the shop next door to the present restaurant. It is planned that the kitchen will double in size and that the number of covers will increase from 16 to 26. There will also be a private dining room accommodating 10 to 12 guests. In pictures the decor looks more chic than the present very bohemian look which I think is something to be welcomed.

On 11 September Simpsons announced that a new general manager, Jamie Halcrow, had been appointed there.

230. The Mount.

 

  Amid much publicity and general food-loving public anticipation, Glynn Purnell’s first ‘pub’, The Mount, (see Blog 223) has finally opened across the road from the excellent Cheal’s of Henley on the main street of Henley-In-Arden. And so, on a bright, warm spring day here I am. And I love the place.

  As I walked down the road from the station the restaurant came into view. There was a flashy car parked outside and a minor madding crowd sitting outside drinking in the sunshine as well as drinking materials rather more liquid. There was a vaguely thrilling atmosphere before I even entered the building. Great stuff - it had the sort of excitement about the place that Glynn Purnell is so clever at conjuring up.

  A good welcome and I was guided to the dining room at the rear of the pub - the place was definitely bigger on the inside than on the outside. The first person to greet me was Chef himself and it was delightful to have a few words with him and shake his hand. He was clearly delighted with his new venture and, from what I could see, quite rightly too. The dining room was bright and modern with a lot of  pleasing art on the walls including some splendid flamingo pictures which could only find a place in a Purnell restaurant - quirky and playful with a twinkle in the eye humour. 

  And what a relief, the joy of Purnell’s former Gingers Bar was restored to me. The cocktail list had some  Gingers Bar classics on it and I enjoyed my scorched lemon and vanilla margarita so much that I lost all control and ordered a second. O, what pleasure.

    And so to the food.  My starter was fabulous - excruciatingly tasty Cheddar custard with equally excruciatingly tasty ‘sweet and sour tomatoes’ and pickled shallots and rocket (which of course I loathe but which fitted in perfectly with this dish). There’s no doubt - new kitchen but Glynn Purnell has not lost his touch.

  Then the main course of Wiltshire pork cutlet, tasty, tender, satisfying, perfectly cooked to my taste and served with delicious mash and charcutière sauce. What real pleasure. Then a pleasingly light dessert of mango parfait with grilled pineapple. All in all, a highly enjoyable lunch. This is a great addition to Glynn Purnell’s list of achievements. As I departed, Chef said farewell and it was a pleasure to have another short chat and hear how pleased he is with the new location which has attracted a scramble for reservations and to hear that he is opening a tapas bar in Edmund Street in a couple of months. That’s another interesting and exciting place to line up to visit.in the near future 

  

Chef and front of house? Why not?

223. Cheal’s of Henley.

 

  I visited Cheal’s Of Henley in 2016 quite soon after it was first opened by Matt Cheal. Regrettably, getting to Henley in Arden by public transport from my home, though not too difficult, is still not an enterprise I take on too lightly. But as I was staying in Stratford Upon Avon it occurred to me that a journey from that town might be an altogether more attractive prospect so that I was finally able to travel there for a long overdue second visit.

  How pleased am I that I did. Sitting on Henley’s High Street, opposite where work is underway on Glynn Purnell’s soon-to-open, much publicised pub, The Mount, Cheal’s is traditional on the outside and calm, modern and smart on the inside. The front of house staff lead by Liam Roe go about their business unimpeachably and it takes a matter of moments to feel perfectly comfortable at one’s table.

  But in the end it’s all about the food. Cheal has achieved what few other chefs manage to do - a multi-course (very satisfactorily priced) tasting menu (I was there for lunch) with not a single element as a cause for disappointment. This was quite simply the best tasting menu I have had for a long time. Out in Henley, Cheal’s may be slightly overlooked but if the cooking in this establishment does not deserve a higher grade of recognition from the dining guides, particularly that published by the French tyre people, then I’m Vladimir Putin’s uncle and I’m not.

  The simple amuse gueule in the form of a little beignet, topped with a nipple of Worcestershire sauce,  erupts with explosive cheesiness and lights the way to course after course of delight. A second amuse full of celestial espuma, so light only angels could have sat on it, was rapidly followed by 2 excellent breads including a pleasingly crisply coated  sourdough. And with the informalities out of the way, on came the starter. This was well flavoured gin and citrus-cured salmon perfectly complemented by pieces of various beetroots and almost glowing lime green wasabi forming a protective ring around the edge of the plate. An excellent dish and very pretty; I was not even annoyed, unusually, by the pansy flowers.

 Next, crispy duck yolk. One of those dishes I would never choose if it were not part of a tasting menu. But there it was and so I would have to force myself to eat it. And the light burst through the clouds on the road to Damascus. This was a remarkably delicious dish. The egg coating really was crispy, the crumbs cooked to a pretty light gold and the egg just the right consistency for me. Served, as it was, with pieces of highly flavoured chicken wing and leeks and winter truffle, I felt that this was by far and a way, the best serving of an egg a chef has ever cooked for me. A great food memory. 

  The fish course arrived. Perfectly cooked turbot, its lovely flesh glistening and its flavour delightful. And crispy fried mussels - I’ve had some great mussels recently, dishes at The Wilderness and Peel’s come to mind - but what great fun these mussels were and so tasty. The dish was served with salsify and apt spinach and a fabulous mussel and saffron sauce. 

  And then the centre piece - two pieces of finely cooked Gloucestershire venison, not quite the tastiest I’ve had this year but not far off, served with ‘humble pie’ (a lovely gem made from excellent pastry packed with delicious slow cooked meat), celeriac, pieces of cooked celery and everything punctuated brilliantly by sweet red grapes with a Madeira and black garlic sauce. This was proving to be a masterly meal.

    How then could it be rounded off with a dessert as memorable as the previous courses? Answer:- a wondrous, towering, cloud-light banana soufflé opened up by the Maître d’ on serving and filled with rum caramel and a generous serving of chocolate ice cream. Many otherwise fine chefs fail to round off their tasting menus with a dessert, technically at least, that matches their savoury dishes. Not so at Cheal’s. Clearly the dessert is as important there as that which has gone before. French tyre people, you really need to think about this.

  The tasting menu so pleasingly includes just one dessert. How wise. How could you top the soufflé? I am a confirmed one pudding man and Matt Cheal seems to have really grasped what so few others have realised - serve up one magnificent dessert and your job is done. Apart - that is - from choosing some fine, interesting and enjoyable cheeses for your guests and serving them sensibly, all as part of the tasting menu. 

  This was an outstanding meal. I do not intend that it will be another six years before I return.

  I crossed the road to catch the bus back to Stratford.and looked at the tourist information notice board which outlined the attractions of Henley in Arden including the Mount, an ancient monument including the earthwork remains of Beaudesert Castle (of course Cheal’s soufflé had been a very beau dessert), after which Purnell has named his pub. I had a snoop at the preparations going on there and congratulated myself on having a reservation there for the first day that it will becopen to the public. But I also congratulated myself on having the good sense at last to come back to dine at Cheal’s.