Back in May, I was judging coffee in Bournemouth, surrounded by the usual collection of over-caffeinated, over-excited people, when Steve Ashworth mentioned Grace and Savour over lunch. Steve is one of those people whose opinions about food you listen to, partly because he knows an enormous amount about it and partly because he has the irritating habit of being right. Grace and Savour is his favourite restaurant in the country. He visits more often than I do, which sounds reasonable until you discover that I am thirty-five minutes away and Steve is roughly five times that. Some around the table had heard of it; others hadn’t. We all sat and listened as Steve, with genuine enthusiasm and the sort of detail that comes from repeated experience rather than a press release, explained why he loved the place.
And it got me thinking. Not about Steve – not in that way anyhow – but about the fact that I hadn’t been to eat at Grace and Savour for three years. Three years. In restaurant terms, that’s practically an archaeological gap. The more Steve talked, the more ridiculous that three-year absence seemed. Here was a restaurant I had enjoyed, recommended by someone whose judgement I trust, sitting barely half an hour down the road, while I’d somehow managed to spend three years not going. So we booked it for my birthday rather than going away like we usually do. Thanks Steve for the reminder and thanks Sophie for paying. It was glorious.
Hampton Manor never feels trapped in its own history. There is warmth rather than grandeur to it, and a sense that this is a country house designed for eating rather than merely looking expensive. At the top of the garden sits Grace and Savour. Step into the restaurant and the country-house cosiness gives way to light, oak, glass and clean lines. The room is beautifully restrained: natural materials, pale tones, vaulted ceilings and huge windows looking straight into the walled garden. The open kitchen sits at the heart of it all, and the cooking happens in full view. Everything is calm, precise and quietly busy.
My martini arrives exactly as requested; ice cold, with gin and a whisper of vermouth washed around the edge of the glass. Sophie has a glass of champagne. Then food; first a duck broth, the very essence of the bird, tucked into place with fennel, lavender and duck garam, served with a little brioche topped with duck liver and barbecued duck hearts. It’s a great opening. A really great opening. Then a tartlet of all things allium; a puree of sweet onion, some leek, wild garlic, and black garlic, that starts off slow and builds into something far bigger. With these is one of my favourite pairings this year; a perry made using champagne methods which is more yeasty than fruity, with bright acidity and a gorgeous brioche finish.
Sophie thinks the mushroom dish is up there with the best things she has eaten this year. Lions mane and hen of the woods, again cooked on the barbecue, with crispy bits of lamb and one of those frothy, meaty sauces with notes of coffee and douglas fir. Then bread with butter infused with the grains from the bread which is all very clever but mostly untouched because I’m on bowl number two of the chicken fat, fava bean, and miso dip that’s so explicit it should come with age verification. And then my favourite course and one that pitches the restaurant higher than the one star it currently holds; scallop with a chicken fat and rhubarb sauce. The combination you never knew you needed, slightly fatty with loads of rhubarb acidity. It’s a proper serious plate of food, connecting the soil and sea with absolute clarity.
Duck returns for main as a ballsy, big and unrelenting plate of food. The cook on the bird is perfect; crisp skin, beautifully pink flesh cooked to the medium duck should always be. It feels scandi, which is an easy cop-out given that David worked at Maemo and his wonderful wife Anette is Norwegian, but it’s that earthy and sharp combination of ingredients that work so well with duck. Lurking underneath a beetroot leaf is a mixture of more of the veg and confit duck, with a purée of cherry, and a sauce that speaks of carcass and earthy root vegetable. You have to search for the nuanced bits but they are there in the undergrowth. There are three local cheeses in impeccable condition with crackers and plum chutney, before a dessert of rhubarb, cherry, and rose that is up there with the best desserts of the last twelve months. We finish on a barbecued basque cheesecake using dairy from a farm that is very dear to their hearts, served simply with an apricot ice cream and brown butter. It’s a gorgeous way to finish the meal, even if I splash brown butter down my new blazer. It’ll come out. Probably.
Oh and there’s an ice cream sandwich of sorts, which I think has a filling of blackcurrant but I’m probably wrong given this is five hours since the bloody mary’s, negroni, martini, and many many wines started in celebration. Service was brilliant, being warm and charming, matching the food, with everyone clearly in sync as to the ethos of the restaurant. Sophie pays the bill which I don’t see, though the lunch is £110 per person and I seem to remember the pairing is another £85 each and there is the cocktails and a glass of something amazing which incredibly my friend Clare later gives me a bottle of as a present. I leave feeling full and tipsy and most importantly full of love, which is all a man can ever ask for. I won’t be leaving it for three years again.
10/10
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