354. Bower House And Salt.

 

  I have reported already this year on the Michelin listed The Bower House in Shipston on Stour and the Michelin starred Salt in Stratford upon Avon. This summer and early autumn I have enjoyed a few stays in Stratford and on each occasion I have taken the bus to Shipston, enjoying the scenery of south Warwickshire as the vehicle cruised calmly and peacefully through it and then delighted to be ambling around this pleasingly understated town, where everyone wears body warmers, now I think to be known as gilets, and generally look comfortably off and pleased with their lot, as I suppose they should. A bankrupt Birmingham seems a continent away and though there are no Michelin stars twinkling in the town the Bower House does give the place a spot in the firmament. The owners of The Bower House have identified their market - they oversee the serving of good, sensibly priced food in a comfortable, attractive setting with a relaxed atmosphere.

  I love the opening - a fine bread with good salted butter and tasty miso butter - a clever and more harmonious version of the ubiquitous Marmite butter. For starter, I thoroughly enjoyed my choice of heritage beetroot and the main course of pork loin with ratte potatoes and chicory salad was equally pleasurable and interesting. This is a restaurant where the chef is forever working to keep his diners on the edge of their seats to see what delights he’s going to send out to them from the kitchen.

  The dessert admittedly did not work quite as well for me - the compressed pineapple was tasty and pleasing and the accompanying pineapple sorbet equally fascinated the tastebuds but the coconut espuma was no substitute for something with a bit of real texture - the dish would have been elevated by substituting it with some coconut sponge or something with a bit of body.

  Still, all in all, another visit to the Bower House is a future prospect I view with pleasurable anticipation.

  The previous evening I had experienced the great pleasure of dining again at Paul Foster’s Salt in Stratford’s Church Street where Laura Kimber is doing such a fine job in her role of Head Chef and on the Wednesday evening I dined there, where Aurélian Molliere, was accomplishing a brilliant one man performance front of house. 

  I opted again for the fine five course menu which was well priced, superbly realised and eaten with relish (by me).

  After the excellent amuses bouches of fine cheesy tartlet and the splendidly crispy and generously sized ‘pork scratching’ and the equally excellent nut brown loaf with Ampersand butter which is one of God’s finer gifts to Man, the starter of Charlotte potatoes with dill emulsion delivered the continuing pleasure promised by the amuses gueules. The next dish, centred on Burford Brown egg, did not lower my expectations either and the main course of Cornish plaice cooked impeccably and enhanced with a happy medley of sea herbs and vegetables and naughty little brown shrimps showed that in the hands of a fine chef a truly admirable fish dish can be brought to the diner’s table even in these landlocked Middle Lands.

  For dessert I was happy to be served chocolate crémeux nicely complemented by blackberry sorbet, plump autumnal blackberries and pistachio crumbs.

  This was a very satisfactory meal. Just as I have learned to expect from this fine Head Chef and this restaurant.

  A quick mention of another bus journey from Stratford, this time in the company of the indomitable Lucy  The Labrador, to Moreton in Marsh to visit the town on market day. The traffic flow through the town was awful - a fine utterly Cotswold town being smothered by the vast amount of vehicles that pass through it. Moreton really needs a bypass. 

  The market is unremarkable with less personality to it than you might expect given the glorious Cotswold buildings which surround it. But Lucy and I headed for the Black Bear to find it crowded mainly with raucous and unappealing ladies who lunch but we found a table and gained much pleasure from an excellent beef and ale pie (the both being from local sources) served with big fat crispy chips which fell at the hurdle of being somewhat undercooked internally though the accompanying vegetables were accurately cooked. Though there was plenty of gravy in the pie (with very adequate amounts of meat), I think a little jug of additional gravy to pour over the pastry would have helped. The pudding I chose was rather more bulky than I should have liked being a ‘ginger cake’ which turned out to be, for me at least, a too generously sized, rather dense sponge when I had been expecting a light cake.

  Though I had my niggles, I do like the Black Bear and think its food is a good example of what one might hope to find in an English pub in the 2020s. The Ladies Who Lunch there certainly seemed to have a grand time scoffing all that was laid before them as well as knocking back a couple of bottles of wine between them.

  The area has a number of dining establishments of note which I hope to visit at some time in the not too distant future - on the bus journey to Shipston for instance we passed the Michelin-listed Howard Arms at Ilmington and The Fuzzy Duck at nearby Armscote.

345. Salt. The Bower House.

 

  I have already waxed lyrical about Salt this year (Blog 298) and was sufficiently enthused by my evening there, wallowing in the pleasure of the tasting menu, that I rated it 🌞🌞🌞. Since those early days, back long before the pandemic lockdowns it has matured into a provider of very fine food. The present Head Chef there is Laura Kimber and she has a very firm hand on the tiller. Likewise, Salt’s exceptional restaurant manager, the splendidly named Aurélian Molliere, who was appointed there in November 2022 having previously been restaurant manager at Buckland Manor, has the front of house running at tip top level, embracing the intention to be relaxed but at the same time to serve the diners with perfect poise and style.

  An autumn 4 course menu has been introduced there at a very reasonable price of £65 (sans gratuity) and  as my reservation was relatively late, and having visited Libertine Burger earlier in the day (see previous Blog), I opted to have this lighter menu if only to address the issue of my overnight gastrointestinal comfort.

  Though a menu of limited size, all the extras were pleasingly presented to make this feel like the full monty - hors d’oeuvres of fine olives and toasted almonds, 2 delightful amuses gueules made up of a crispy, flavoursome cheesy little tartlet and a splendid piece of pork ‘scratching’, some excellent bread with cultured butter and then a delicate heritage tomato starter, and afterwards a second starter of tasty Roscoff onion, very nicely cooked with pickled onion to bring sweetness and bite and crispy onion for texture. 

  The main was a beautifully and accurately cooked piece of Gigha halibut with sea herbs and for dessert a very pretty dish centred on plump blackcurrants, delightfully seasonal, with a soothing yoghurt sorbet. Two pleasing petits fours - a fudge and a jelly - were served with coffee. A well rounded fine meal.

   This four course supper was an excellent illustration of how multiple courses are not necessary for enable a chef to highlight their abilities and are kinder not only on the digestive system but also, of course, the pocket. The absence of meat was of little concern to me - I very often prefer fish for my main course but it may be a sign of things to come. This was a great pleasure and reminded me of just how good a restaurant Salt is.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

  The following day, back to Shipston on Stour by bus through the quiet and beautiful south Warwickshire countryside for another lunch at the Bower House. Unlike my previous visit which had taken place on a miserable wet day, I arrived in bright sunshine set in a blue sky, and the town was looking very appealing. 

  Just as the previous evening had reinforced my very positive opinions about Salt, so this lunch had the same effects on me regarding the Bower House. The welcome and service is very good and the interior is very atmospheric, in one part stone flagged floors, in another a spacious dining room with large windows on two sides letting in the bright light.

  Here too I chose the set three course lunch, finding it appealing because of its highlighting of Japanese ingredients which I did not really expect to see being offered as a theme running through the meal. It represented exceptionally good value bringing with it a glass of house wine, bread with two types of tasty butter and petits fours to accompany the coffee (at an additional price). I indulged myself in a delicious Bower Sour to kick things off.

  

    The starter was a dish of tasty aubergine gyozas, very nicely cooked, with a mushroom and soy dip giving a real zing to the dish.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the main of stir fried roast breast of duck and vegetables and udon noodles. It was delicious and I felt very happy with my meal. The dessert of ‘Japanese crème caramel’ - a very good crème with slices of mandarin orange - was enjoyable though I suspected that the dish was more a playful invention of the chef rather than something whose origins can be pinpointed to the vicinity of Tokyo!

  

  The petits fours rounded off the meal very happily. The Bower House is such a pleasing restaurant to visit and its unpretentious but enjoyable food together with the excellent service and comfortable atmosphere make a trip out to Shipston to dine there very worthwhile.

Rating:- 🌞.

153. Stratford Resurgens But No. 9 Closes.

 

  Lucy The Labrador and I were back in town and reinstalled after half a year’s absence at the Shakespeare Hotel in Chapel Street which over the years has become one of our second homes - old, atmospheric, friendly, comfortable, historic (like we two). The pandemic had taken its toll, many members of the previous staff whom we liked very much had moved on and there was still an air of palpable dismay about the place.

  One of the worst things about the hotel had been its restaurant - a Marco Pierre White New York-style concept which never looked happy in the surroundings of hoary panelling and low ceiling beams and honoured White more than it ever did Shakespeare. The food was edible but far too expensive for what it was and large photographs of White were scattered all around which was not to any degree tasteful. It never seemed right to be eating Italian-American cuisine in a place as English as the Shakespeare. What the hotel needed was a good modern English restaurant and - now that the pandemic has led to the Marco Pierre White restaurant closing which saddens because of the lovely staff who worked there but otherwise brings me relief knowing that the hotel could receive a great boost if the right sort of establishment takes over - that opportunity has arrived. There was a certain satisfaction to be experienced to see the photographs of White having been removed in the restaurant and in their place a bust of William Shakespeare restored to his rightful place, God bless him.

  But dinner must be had and so, off across the road to the Indigo Hotel where the Michelin Plated restaurant, The Woodsman is located.

  I have written reports about this excellent restaurant before and I was impatient to return there to see what was on offer to make my digestive juices flow. Here are the choices available for the starter and main courses:-

   I could not miss the opportunity of ordering the combination of seasonal English asparagus and Dorset crab as starter and after a little consideration opted for Berkshire pork chop as the main course. Unfortunately another starter was served to me which was a disappointment but I found it easier to have the unordered dish than to send it back as it looked interesting and proved to be very tasty - it was the Globe artichoke velouté with cuttlefish ragu and hazelnuts. To me this was highly innovative, I loved the texture of the nuts and the velouté itself, an attractive green, was pleasurable with the whole dish being visually impressive.

  On to the vast pork chop served with fennel choucroute, roast apricots and black pudding. The accompaniments matched the beautifully cooked chop very well and this made for a magnificent dish. The pork was tasty and tender as it could be and the apricot was pleasing but, for me at least, nothing really beats the humble apple as a sweet-acid companion with grilled or roast pork, call me old-fashioned if you will.

  The desserts were tempting but the chop had been so generously sized that I knew that it would be unwise to proceed further. This was a grand meal and a fine setting. I would be happy to visit The Woodsman whenever I may.

  The following fine spring evening, I set off to walk the 200 yards from The Shakespeare to Paul Foster’s Michelin-starred Salt and as I approached the restaurant I was shocked to find that its Michelin-listed next door neighbour No 9 Church Street, one of the most notable dining places in Stratford, had been closed permanently. Chef Patron Wayne Thomson who had run and cooked at No. 9 since 2010 left messages on a number of social media sites on 12 May 2021 announcing the charming little restaurant’s departure from the scene. For those who have enjoyed eating there over the years we can only feel that Parting is such sweet sorrow .... It appears that a Thai restaurant will open in the building “soon”.

  And so to dinner at Salt. The internal decor is unchanged and did not need to be. What had changed from my last visit three or four years ago was the welcome. I was greeted by an excellent waiter and the new Maître d’Hôtel and instantly felt pleased to be at Salt. I was a little disappointed to have only one choice of menu available to me - the £85 eight course Tasting menu (I should have read the information on the restaurant’s internet site and I would have known) - sometimes less is more particularly for an old bloke whose stomach tends to protest if he places too much food in it in too short a time space. But the menu was intriguing and so the evening got underway with olives and toasted almonds and tasty bread and butter.

  At last, seasonal English asparagus cooked perfectly served with little blobs of egg yolk, nicely cooked peas and asparagus salad.  An excellent start.

  And then a real gem, a fabulously delicious celebration of scallop. Slices of scallop, one optimally fried in butter, the other two served ceviche with the most wondrously flavoured sweet and sour dill purée, little pieces of grape, thin slices of cucumber and the necessary texture provided by crumble of rye cracker. A truly great dish.

  Then an altogether different kettle of fish - carrot cooked in chicken fat, crispy chicken skin (I could not identify any on my plate) and pickled carrot. There really seemed no point in having this dish on the menu. This was not a vegetarian menu so what is the point of a few bits of carrot in a bowl and not much else? This reminded me of a large dish of brassicas unaccompanied by anything else served to me at Joro in Sheffield some time ago or being served a starter of nothing more than a large mound of mashed potato once at Carter’s of Moseley - there really was no pleasure in it, eating it was a matter of just going through the motions. In a large non-vegetarian menu there really is no place for this eccentric voyage into isolated vegetable eating - Chefs please note - vegetables are best served as accompaniments of  protein. I did not finish the course nor did I photograph it. On to a dish of mushrooms - roasted hen of the woods, shimeji, goats curd and smoked bone marrow sauce. This was a very tasty dish as you might expect from the list of ingredients.

  On to an original and tasty dish full of clever flavours - a Coronation chicken with the poultry substituted by lamb sweetbreads. Contrary to the sentiments of many modern food lovers, having been brought up in the era after rationing ended when people wanted to eat real meat having been forced by first the War and then Attlee’s government to eat all sorts of innards of other species which they would not necessarily have chosen to do, I do not seek out sweetbreads. However here some were prepared to a fine standard which made the texture bearable and more importantly rendered very tasty by the sublime upmarket version of Coronation sauce with its pretty little golden sultanas and the gentle surf of curry washing on to its shores.

  And to the centrepiece - immaculately cooked and seasoned sirloin (how lovely it is to go back to restaurants now and find that a dish of beef is not a daube or an ox cheek but high quality cuts of meat - has the pandemic brought chefs to their senses wherein they realise that diners enjoy high quality cuts particularly if they are paying a lot of money for it? - the 2020s, it seems, may offer hope of a fine new direction for chefs and diners). With it, what joy, shockingly enjoyable minted new potatoes, totally apt pickled onion slices and a memorable, unctuous black garlic sauce. This dish identifies just why the Michelin inspectors handed Salt one of its macarons.

  The darling pinkness of the beef was matched by that of the exquisite, dainty strawberry and thyme tartlet, the pastry of which was as fine as one could hope for and its contents a fairyland of pure pleasure. And it came with a devastatingly inspired ice cream, lovage-flavoured, which could not have been improved on as a match for the dish. A high was reached and I was full of delights. I had to send my apologies to Chef Laura Kimber and her excellent assistant for not being able to move on to the final dessert course - “Chocolate, miso, tonka bean and peanut toffee”, which leaves the reader with watering mouth and needing to imagine how pleasurable it would have probably been but I was too full and that was the end of it. A five course meal would have sufficed and I would certainly have felt no less fortunate for having missed the carrot course but that was the menu and I have described it as I ate it with all its glories and one or two weaker points. 

  Back to The Shakespeare. There the expensive and poor Marco Pierre White restaurant has, like the dinosaurs, achieved extinction. Missed by few. A little way along the road No 9 Church Street has passed into West Midlands gastronomic history. Genuinely mourned. But Stratford seems resurgent. The Woodsman and Salt are there. Now if only The Shakespeare Hotel could set its heart (being in the town’s very heart) on giving space to an apt and relevant restaurant of quality and make its contribution to Stratford Resurgens.

Farewell, for now, Chef Wayne Thomson