428. Ludlow Food Festival 2024.

 Lucy The Labrador and I are back in Ludlow for the Food Festival - the original food festival in Britain. This is our tenth year (though of course we were not here in 2020 when a Festival of sorts was broadcast on line because of the pandemic we did not attend thr festival in body though we were in Ludlow physically.

  Once more we were staying at Fishmore Hall, as we always have, and the now old dog is familiar we the room we always have if not the staff who have largely departed after Laura Penman sold the hotel in January this year to a cost-cutting businessman who seems to be doing to Fishmore what Starmer is doing to the country. A lot of the joy seems to have disappeared from the place just as it has from Britain in general over the last two months or so. The kitchen staff all departed with the Head Chef Phil Kerry who had maintained the reputation of the hotel’s restaurant, Forelles, after his predecessor, Joe Gould, had moved on and matters culinary seem to have been very chaotic over the late spring and early summer. A new chef, Nicky Hull-Saldhana, who had worked for a long time in the Cayman Islands, was appointed in June and dining in Forelles seems to have improved with only an à la carte menu being on offer (three courses for a fairly stiff £55) but I am told that he will depart Forelles next week to be replaced by a Cayman Islands colleague, Alan Pressly, to whom I was introduced as he was arriving at the hotel.

  The dishes on offer generally have a veneer of fine dining but lack the finesse needed to see Forelles returned to The Good Food Guide or to maintain its presence in the Michelin Guide. We will have to see what chef Pressly brings to the party.

  My first dinner at Forelles brought with it an amuse bouche of a mushroom in a crispy batter on a rather rough looking pea purée, but who doesn’t like a piece of crispy batter?

   There then followed a starter of murky coloured but nicely textured leek and potato soup which was tasty and accompanied by well-flavoured smoked haddock and precisely poached egg. There was the inevitable garnish of the omnipresent pea shoot.

  A slice of sourdough with miso butter was served along with the soup. I was not too keen on the butter. Sometimes I would like to experience the pure taste of good quality English butter.

  The main was visually messy, wholly lacking in the finesse one would expect to be on display in a “fine dining restaurant”. But it tasted much better than it looked - blackened cod, nicely cooked and seasoned on a bed of mashed potato. Some sad pea shoots inevitably served as garnish and they did not add to rhe dish’s attractiveness.

  The dessert was very enjoyable and quite arty in its presentation though to be fair it was a passable strawberry cheesecake deconstructed with no very good reason.

  All in all Nicky Hull-Saldhana presents some pleasant and edible food but the presentation leaves something to be desired. It will be interesting to see if Alan Pressley brings more finesse to the dishes presented at Forelles.

Alan Pressley

  In my search started before the assault by the COVID-19 virus for great Ploughman’s lunches, I derived some pleasure for an example of the dish served at Fishmore especially as the plate included to be, aptly, Shropshire Blue, though one fully understands that Shropshire Blue is not made in Shropshire?

  And so, to the festival. I attended some of the food demonstrations including that by a Gareth Johns, ‘Slow Food Ambassador for Wales’. This was helpful especially as Johns gave an explanation of what ‘Slow food’ is exactly, particularly as the term seems to have become very trendy. Basically it is food that isn’t fast food and not slow cooked food.

  I should have liked to be present at the food demonstration given by Stuart Collins of Docket in Whitchurch but unfortunately his session clashed with an excellent tasting demonstration on cheese and drink given by Emma Young, author of The Cheese Wheel. Emma concentrated very appropriately on local cheeses which, because no cheeses are made in Shropshire other than Ludlow Blue from the Ludlow Food Centre, involved presenting Cheshire and Welsh cheeses.

  I was very impressed by the demonstration by Ivan Tisdall who earlier this year opened Native at Tenbury Wells at the location of the former Michelin starred Pensons. It was interesting to hear how pleased he was to have exchanged the pressures and costs of London for the quieter rural location of Worcestershire. It emphasised to me how fortunate to live here in the West Midlands rather than London which may have far more to offer but at a much greater price.

  Dinner again that evening at Forelles. After an amuse bouche the starter I chose of trout gravlax came with little blobs of beetroot relish dotted all over plus, I think, a saffron cream. It was quite enjoyable but, goodness, what a fussy presentation.

  The main was made up of three very nicely cooked slices of lamb served with pickled walnut and another rendition of beetroot. This was a very enjoyable dish and the lamb was just as I should have liked it. I chose not to have dessert.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

414. The French Pantry, Ludlow

 

  The French Pantry in Ludlow is very well loved by those who dine or lunch there and I think it must be one of my favourite restaurants in which to eat of all the places I have visited in the West Midlands. I have described it before and will not go over old ground but I have to say it is one of those restaurants which I truly look forward to dining at with great anticipation. Lacking in any pretention, it serves delicious, rustic French food which takes into account British tastes - it is not extreme Français but, having a French Chef Patron its authenticity can hardly be questioned. The helpings are generous, the presentation is rustic, the food is delicious and the overall delivery gives great pleasure.

  On this occasion, it being one of those rare hot, bakingly sunny, English summer days where you feel a thunderstorm can only be a few hours away, despite lusting after the magnificent French onion soup and perhaps the signature Olivier’s coq au vin, I opted for the two rather more summery sounding specials as starter and main course.

  The opening quiche Lorraine was lovely and highlighted just how awful supermarket quiches, which I am apt to buy, really are. The custard was tasty and nestled in a pleasingly textured pastry and the ham inside was full of flavour and the cheese, which I assume was Gruyère, had a bite to it that made this quiche a thing of gustatory beauty.

  Then the special main course on offer - salmon almondine - a beautifully cooked and generously sized piece of salmon, again tasty beyond the normal, with a beurre blanc. The sliced almonds gave a soothing texture to complement the meat of the salmon - dishes have not become classics for no reason one thinks - and the accompanying broccoli was cooked to be nice and tender though broccoli aficionados might have judged it overcooked, and they would be entitled to their opinion I suppose. This was a very enjoyable, seasonal dish and brought me great happiness but also rendered me too full to feel capable of managing a dessert though the tarte tatin was alluringly beckoning to me. 

  I love the French Pantry. Au revoir but I’ll be back!

  Rating:- 🌞.

  Meanwhile, I see that sadly, the Good Food Guide has removed Forelles from its online list of recommended Ludlow restaurants. Let us hope that the new owner sees sense and takes action to enable the restaurant to return to its former glory and its place in the Guide.

10.10PM, 26 June. Night falls over Clee Hill as viewed from Forelles.

412. Pleasure At Mortimers.

 

  Still in Ludlow, while Forelles seems to be in something of an existential crisis at present, the great joy of dining at Mortimers remains. The welcome is nicely judged, the preprandial drinks in the panelled bar (livened up on this visit by a remarkable pair of octogenarians elegantly dressed like something out of PG Wodehouse, she whose 87th birthday it was, giggling away charmingly like a schoolgirl being chatted up by a first boyfriend, and wearing a summery, sweet straw hat) so absolutely right with the only hors d‘oeuvres of which Ambrose Heath would have approved nuts and crisps (though I failed to follow his rules on the only aperitif which should be acceptable - dry sherry - opting instead for a cooling, relaxing Hendricks and tonic).

  And so, to the exquisite panelled dining room, where I was comfortably seated, watered, wined and delivered of the signature plate of three breads and three butters. I had opted for the extremely well priced 3 course lunch (£45 for three course plus bread) and was very happy with my choice of perfectly pan fried sea trout nicely balanced with pickled cucumber, soothed by herb crème fraiche and tickled by dill. 

  The main was an exciting prospect - pork tenderloin served as a generously sized portion. It was tasty but sadly much too dry - it really did need to have had a shorter cooking time. The accompanying herb mash and finely shredded, acidic cabbage were fine balances for the pork but perhaps more sauce would have helped to counter the dryness of the meat.

  I thoroughly enjoyed my dessert - a lovely light strawberry cheesecake with deliciously sweet strawberries, a nice base to it, delightful little meringues, red berry gel and good vanilla ice cream. The meal concluded with three mignardise just as it had started with three breads and three butters. An intentional symmetry I suspect and one I rather like.

  I do like Mortimers and now look forward to my visits there with considerable anticipation.

Rating:- 🌞

411. All Change At Forelles.

 

  After about three months away from Fishmore Hall, I had a grave foreboding as my driver pulled up in front of Fishmore Hall. A new owner, based in West Bromwich of all places, lusting seemingly after a chain of hotels to add to his nursing homes and other properties, had obtained Fishmore from the hotel’s founder, the remarkable Laura Penman, and appeared to be in the mood to cut costs at Fishmore whether or not the service suffered. Most of the excellent staff who were present at the beginning of the year had departed, the garden is looking disorderly and the couple of staff who have worked there for years soldier on providing reassuring, friendly, recognisable faces that the hotel dearly needs.

  Head Chef Phil Kerry departed from his post in May 2024 and the hotel has had problems recruiting a successor. It seems that most of the kitchen and restaurant staff departed at the same time. Hotel and restaurant owners must realise that we are in a new era - the hospitality industry is desperately short of staff and if you don’t pay staff enough money then they can easily find a job elsewhere..Fishmore would seem to be at the sharp end of this staffing market crisis.

  The Forelles kitchen crisis seems to have been particularly serious in the late May/early June and hotel residents were not served meals except at breakfast time. An attempt to provide a Tasting menu (without an à la carte alternative) over the weekend when the latest Head chef took up his post was not successful and so a two or three course à la carte menu is now in play for dinner with a limited à la carte available at lunchtime. Reducing costs was very much at the forefront of the new approach to dining at Forelles. Out goes Fine Dining and in comes Bistro. The Guidebooks need to change their references to Forelles if they decide to include the restaurant at all.

  To start, a slice of very ordinary bread paired with some very ordinary butter was served. Right from the word go, cost cutting seemed to be the new theme. At the same time an ‘amuse bouche’ was presented. Apart from being oily there was little taste to this bowl of emulsion despite four little crispy bits being present in the dish - no attempt was made by the polite but clearly brand new young waitress to explain what it was. I deduced that it must be a bowl of mayonnaise with nothing to go with it. It was flavourless and vaguely unpleasant.

I failed to photograph my starter because of a degree of pallaver associated with it. I had ordered confit tomato bruschetta. It was a long time coming though one feels the time to prepare it might not have been lengthy. Some discord arose at the table next to mine when an elderly lady was surprised by the appearance of her main course which had been delivered by one of the very inexperienced waitresses. Both the diner and her husband were of the opinion that she had not been served the dish she had ordered which should have been scallops with fried black pudding and ‘pea pot fricassee’. The gentleman pointed out to the waitress that there were no scallops present on the plate while the young woman insisted that the confit tomatoes actually sitting there were indeed ‘scallops’. My suspicions were aroused and I stood up to claim what very likely was my starter which it indeed proved to be. The elderly couple were correct - there certainly were no scallops on the plate. Most of the tomatoes were flavourless though the dish was rendered a little more interesting by heat coming from some added spice but the bruschetta was somewhat soggy and the dish, as a whole, was gloriously mediocre.

Fresh drama arose next door to me when the gentleman who had correctly identified that the supposed scallops were really tomatoes drew the waitress’s attention to the fact that he had requested rare steak and that which was served to him was anything but. To be fair, the overcooked meat was swiftly whisked away and replaced with a specimen more in line with what had been ordered which is fair enough.

And so my very own plate of three plump, nicely seared scallops arrived at the table with the accompaniments already mentioned above. The scallops were satisfactorily cooked for my tastes though I could see that one or two scallop aficionados might have expressed the opinion that they were a few seconds over. In contrast the black pudding was probably a few seconds over but more moist than some I have been served but two of the pieces came complete with the wrapping paper around them. The pea pot fricassee was unremarkable. There seemed to be something missing perhaps because this is a dish usually served as a starter.

  There were just two desserts - lime posset and brownie with vanilla ice cream - which failed to excite me and so I called it a day reflecting on how things change and usually not for the better. 

  I later learned that the newly appointed Head Chef who is faced with the mammoth task of sorting out the Forelles kitchen is Joshua (Nicky) Hull-Saldanha who was born in Portugal and raised in England where he undertook his training as a chef. In 2007 he moved to the Cayman Islands where he first worked at the Ritz Carlton Hotel moving three years later to work at Cracked Conch for the next ten years and where he was Chef de Cuisine, then Outpost Bar and Grill in San Pedro and in December 2021 as Head Chef at U’NIQUE in Georgetown.

Caymangoodtaste.com reported that Hull-Saldanha was, “…at the Outpost cooking the food he loved, ceviche, any form of salted cod, sushi and fish stew such as bouillabaisse”. Perhaps that will give us an idea of what is to come at Forelles once the kitchen becomes more stable from the point of view of staffing.

Nicky Hull-Saldanha -

  I dined again at Forelles the succeeding evening. It had been a hot day and it was a fine evening and, if nothing else, the restaurant is a lovely place, a gorgeous, spacious conservatory with a distant view of Titterstone Clee Hill rising above the surrounding countryside looking never better than it does on a beautiful summer evening. I liked the look of the menu and I liked the way it had changed since the previous evening. An amuse guele was presented which was rather good - spicy steak tartare served on a circle of toast - in the past we might have expected it to be served as a croustade or tartlet - the cost cutting was showing already but the appetiser was tasty enough.

   Then, perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, my main course of lemon sole arrived, switching places it seemed with my chosen starter of smoked haddock rillette. The main was swiftly whisked away when I pointed out the error and it was not long before the pleasingly presented haddock rillette showed its face nicely complemented with little balls of apple and some trout roe. The smoked haddock gave it a punchy flavour and it was very nicely balanced with citrus but pthe dish was lacking in physical substance with nothing binding it together. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it - it was light and summery and made good use of the remnants of the smoked haddock which must have been in the kitchen after I had ordered it for what had been a substantial breakfast.

  I also enjoyed my main course - two small pieces of nicely cooked lemon sole fillets on a particularly enjoyable, very rustic bed of crushed potatoes and under two magnificent stalks of broccoli whose texture was very much to my taste. There was sweetness and citrus which perfectly complemented the sole.

  The desserts were the same as those on offer the previous evening and again I could not work up sufficient enthusiasm to order one of them but I left the dining room feeling generally happy with the food I had been served though fully aware that the Food Guides were going to have to change their description of Forelles if they decided to continue to recommend it all. I was told that the restaurant will soon have a new manager with more staff which is vital to keep this once excellent restaurant on its feet but the change in style of the food I think will see Ludlow lose another representative in the Michelin Guide, Good Food Guide and so on.

  Restaurant owners must decide if they want to cut costs or maintain a good reputation - there seems no doubt which of the two the present hotel owner has chosen and I mourn the likely passing of a fine gem.

Rating:- 🌛.

Post scriptum - shortly after posting this Blog, I discovered that Hull-Saldanha was to be moved to work at the hotel group’s restaurant in Droitwich and two new chefs from Romania had been appointed to work in the kitchens of Fishmore. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

387. Forelles.

 

  And so back to Shropshire for my first visit of the year to Ludlow and a shock on arrival at Fishmore Hall to find that the remarkable Laura Penman had sold the lovely, peaceful small hotel with its gorgeous view of Clee Hill and a distant glimpse of Ludlow castle in the less than three months since the dog and I had last stayed there over Christmas. Change. So much change in this post-COVID era. Some old familiar friendly faces had left the hotel’s employment, plans are afoot for renovation and new buildings. Old blokes find it hard to see change as necessarily a good thing but we must see what comes to pass.

  For the moment at least the kitchen of Forelles remains unchanged and I was pleased to be choosing from the à la carte dining menu. I started with a dish based on Flower Marie cheese, a tasty soft and creamy ewe’s cheese from East Sussex. The flavour was enhanced with fig and pear and the texture with crushed walnut.

  

  The main course was nicely cooked breast of poussin nicely complemented with pancetta little cubes of apple and thin slices of pickled cauliflower and a cauliflower purée. This was very satisfactory. After a well judged inermediate dish there was a dessert of choux au craqualin with a pistachio creme patisserie, pink peppercorn ice cream and delightful segments of blood orange. The pastry chef had provided an enjoyable choux and the ice cream was very pleasurable and it made a very pretty dish.

  The meal had the style now familiar at Forelles under the stewardship of chef Phil Kerry with his careful, fine cooking techniques on show coupled with some originality of approach to devising the dishes; the combinations of the ingredients are sometimes challenging but usually interesting and always beautifully presented.

  Fishmore invariably delivers a fine breakfast but I rarely go the Full Monty and indulge in the Full Breakfast, rather I frequently order the little rectangle of excellent smoked haddock sans Hollandaise and poached egg which the menu pairs it with but instead I eat it peppered and heavily buttered and accompanied by white bread and butter. One of my own private little pleasures.

  A couple of evenings later I enjoyed a second dinner at Forelles and chose the six course tasting menu substituting the vegetarian option for the omnivore option in the main course - the vegetarian choice being root vegetable Wellington - the mere sight of the word ‘Wellington’ sends me into paroxysms of culinary lust.

  The amuses gueules were delightful - I loved the presentation on a gilded spoon of a deeply delicious gougère and the crab apple croustade was wonderful, paired as it was with a cube of tasty ham hock.

 

  There followed a cup of deeply flavoured onion consommé with a Gruyère crisp and then, after a serving of fresh focaccia with cultured butter on to an accurately cooked and tasty scallop paired with fennel and 

Sweet passion fruit. This was very good.

  Then, perhaps my least favourite dish - a generous quantity of celeriac with mushroom and lovage. The powerful flavours proved a little challenging for me.

  And so to the Wellington. The puff pastry was very acceptable and the vegetables were well cooked but I couldn’t help thinking what a gem this would have been with beef inside instead of vegetables. Here much work had gone in to producing a worthy dish for those who do not eat meat but, no matter what you say, vegetables are rarely exhilarating as substitutes for meat or even fish. A vegetarian should have appreciated the Wellington but someone who would normally being expecting the flavour and texture of meat could not help feeling that there was something missing which could never be truly substituted for. Still, nice try.

Two good desserts rounded off the meal. Firstly, seasonal rhubarb - always a welcome element though perhaps in this case it was a little too al dente for my taste but the dessert was finely paired with some lovely rose ice cream and refreshing lychee.

  Afterwards, there was a chocolate dessert which incorporated salsify in it which left me a little ambivalent about the dish. 

  It’s spring. The weather is characterised, as it has been for months, by frequent and sometimes heavy rain. But I took the opportunity to photograph the blossom on the forelle pear trees in the garden at Fishmore. I hope the Forelles survive the change of management at Fishmore and all the ambitious plans which include extending the garden. After all, what would Fishmore, and for that Forelles, be without their forelles?

Rating:- 🌞