It’s official; Hampton Manor can do no wrong, maybe except for the time they replaced the pool table with a billiards table, but that’s as much I can think of and is entirely down to me being useless at one and rather brilliant at the other. They could have stayed content with Peels, the Michelin starred restaurant full of grandeur and tradition inside of the main house, but they went out and not only built Smoke – originally a smokehouse within the vast lands, if you are wondering where the name came from – but also stuck a Masterchef The Professionals winner in the kitchen. For reasons unbeknown to sanity, they decided to add to a third restaurant, one more ambitious in design than the rest and, if the stories are true, one many many years in the making. A large glass-fronted restaurant situated in the heart of the walled garden with its own rooms at the rear. One that has nature at its very core. It’s called Grace & Savour.
I ate at Grace & Savour on one of the very first evenings it opened, a little over five weeks ago. It’s inevitably going to be a destination restaurant in its own right. I’d argue it is almost there. It feels like an extension to the garden, with clay walls and hard wooden flooring. To one side is a cookery school, to the other the dining area where I eat later in the evening. I can understand why some would want a table to themselves, but it’s the counter that is the real experience here, watching David Taylor and the team work surgeon-like on precise placements of herbs with tweezers. The ethos here may be natural, but the plating is anything but. It demands to be admired.
Given that I not long ago wrote about a preview evening here, I’ll spare you the same notes as before and concentrate on the new stuff. There is the beefy broth to start, this time utilising the carrot skins, and the carrot course is still there, which can best be described as the most carroty thing you’ll likely ever eat. It’s seriously good. There is a taco of white beetroot which they’ll likely hate me calling a taco, enclosing goats curd and punchy blobs of rhubarb, at once earthy, sweet, and sour. The artichoke with apple is still the best double mouthful in Birmingham; two, maybe three star worthy on its own. The sourdough starter fried to a puffy crisp has wild boar tartare. It’s a texture I’m not mad about. I’m not sure raw boar is for me.
And from here, well it’s simply outstanding. Deft and controlled, David’s time at three star Maemo is evident without dominating the plates with plagerism. Burnt leeks arrive on the counter in a surf of butter and beef garum, whilst discs of precisely overlapped radish hide raw prawns bound in an emulsion of its shell. It is stripped back and purposeful. Everything has a reason for being present. We get Min’s bread from the in-house bakery: simply the most interesting loaf in the B postcode with a butter infused with the grain. It’s needed to mop up the next course; scallop with swede and a chicken sauce made with fermented bread. It is another sensational dish; the scallop fresh and plump, the sauce meaty with light umami. Then monkfish and mussels; bags of acidity, the top notes of pumpkin balancing everything out. The final savoury course of beef shin slow cooked and rolled so that a nudge of the fork sends the lacquered meat sideways. The beef is king, both as the meat and sauce made from the bones, with a fresh salad of herbs and king cabbage. I take the leftovers home for a sandwich the following day; there is zero chance I’m letting a scrap go to waste.
We start the final stretch with that caramelised whey course, a nod to their time in Norway where it is eaten for breakfast most days, before the prettiest rhubarb and custard these eyes ever did see. Custard on the base of the bowl, with an Inca-like assembly of rhubarb atop, dressed in its own juices. Beautiful. Simple. An ode to letting the best of produce make its own conversation. The dairy returns for a rice pudding, I think with ginger but I’m deep into the wine pairings by now. I remember making noises and eating it in two, maybe three mouthfuls. The last course is the cake from leftover sourdough with cobnut ice cream that already feels iconic.
After dinner I take the twenty or so steps to the room, glass of wine in hand. Mine is a two room affair with a living room overlooking the kitchen and a bedroom with a huge bath cast out of natural resources. It’s calming, beautifully calming. Silence is underrated. For those who book the overnight package there is breakfast followed by a cookery school. It’s all very serene; orchestrated at a beat slower than elsewhere. They’ve done it again. Grace & Savour is unique, in fact it’s nigh on perfect. Just watch the accolades roll in.
10/10
