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| Mushroom panna cotta |
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| Textures of Onion |
29 June 2011: Dinner at the Whatley Manor (http://www.whatleymanor.com/), set in 12 acres of enchanting English gardens, in the Cotswolds. A 2-Michelin star restaurant. Modern design and charming dining room, not too cramped, and tastefully decorated. Excellent service. I went for the vegetarian options for both starter and main course. Full marks for presentation – both plates looked like a garden come alive. While the individual items for each dish were skilfully prepared and full of good flavours, I found the creation a little far-fetched and the ingredients not necessarily complementing each other, at least for me. So the parmesan ice cream was tasty on its own, but not really a great partner for the mushroom panna cotta, which was rather rich in flavour and light in texture. The dish named Textures of Onion was even more far-fetched as I had expected a lot more onion…..what ended up was a small parcel of fried onion delicately balanced inside a parmesan ring, with some onion panna cotta, and accompanied by a lot of asparagus, mushrooms, bread-crumbed quail eggs and foam.......all the ingredients very tasty on their own but the combination lacked harmony…….so again the chef’s interpretation lost me a bit. Richard had better luck with his langoustine starter, which seemed like a classic dish beautifully executed and his poussin breast was very moist and tasty. We finished off with a platter of cheese to share – great trolley – we tried an English cheese called Win Green and the best way to describe it was an English brie, well-matured and tasted slightly more mineral than a French camembert……We also had a cheese called “buffon” – must look it up….a bit like Ossau Iraty……plus one called “Lough Ewe??” – from the same farm that makes Stinking Bishop!
As for wines, we started with a 2007 Ramonet Puligny Montrachet – racy acidity, mineral, a good sample of village Puligny, with some complexity of lemon, exotic fruit, floral and some spice. Good finish. 15.5/20 For the red, we had brought with us a bottle of 1989 Vosne Romanée Cros Parantous, Henri Jayer. A beautiful ruby colour, with hardly any garnet at the rim. Behind the glorious nose of sous-bois, hoi-sin sauce, cherry clafoutis, vanilla spice and some toasty oak, I detected a slight whiff of corkedness, which Richard referred to as over-oakedness (and put it down to my over-enthusiastic imagination). I had thought the corkedness was even more apparent on the palate, which seemed much less interesting compared to the nose and offered very little of the fruit character that was still detectable on the nose. With a little bit more swirling and the overpowering Stinking Bishop and “Lovewe”, it was not too difficult for me to dismiss the corkedness (and to end our disagreement on this particular subject) and to continue enjoying the wine. I decided not to score this wine because of the circumstances. Richard would have scored it 18.5/20.
Other features of the Whatley Manor: very nicely situated bedrooms, contemporary design (I’m very much in favour of contemporary design as the mustiness and damp from the upholstery and curtains of some charmingly old-style bedrooms tend to set off my allergies), uninterrupted wifi in every room, powerful shower and luxurious Asprey bathroom products, well-equipped gym – the aerobic equipment could do with a bit of upgrade…..pool and spa. Beautifully manicured grounds. Plenty of indoor and outdoor areas to take your breakfast, tea or coffee or a pre-prandial cocktail. Breakfast was not a particular highlight here but everything else very well organised and thoughtfully designed. All the staff seemed very friendly and helpful. We will definitely like to come back to this place!
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