Chocolate cake and sympathy
Above: Castle Combe's Manor House Hotel
Readers, there is no end to the dedication and courage of your Cotswold Life team. And I feel you should know this.
I’m sitting here with a crutch in one hand and Ibuprofen in the other, and am rapidly becoming addicted to the crutch.
The sad tale started when I lithely ran across a field to try to catch my youngest who’d forgotten a vital school book, when something in my leg went ‘ping’. Unable to walk, I crawled back, surviving off wild berries, insects and rainwater. It was the longest 10 minutes of my life.
In casualty, all were delightful, including the doctor who examined my painful left leg while I lay on the bed. “You’ll have to turn over so I can examine the back of it,” he explained. When I did as he requested, he continued to examine the leg closest to him – now my other leg. I’m not great at physics, but even I understood the principles of this.
“Does it hurt when I do this?” he asked.
“No,” I explained tentatively, “but that’s because I haven’t hurt that leg.”
Reassure me you’ve just done a 70-hour shift, I wanted to beg. Instead I made a mental note to change hospital if ever amputation were on the cards.
Despite this trauma, I managed to do a delicious, relaxing meal review for you. No, really…
And sick with worry, Ian nevertheless came along. Honestly, that’s OK too.
And so it was we limped to The Manor House Hotel in Castle Combe for a bit of TLC.
There are many obvious differences between the Jarvis household and this hotel. Firstly, there’s the glorious setting in Castle Combe, where the last phase of new housing was in 1617. In 1962, it was nominated the prettiest village in England. And, let’s face it, that was just the other day by Castle Combe standards.
Then there’s the fact that everything in this hotel is done with exquisite taste. It is breathtakingly lovely. Dark polished woods, heavy drapes, oil paintings, deep, comfy chairs. The many lounges include the Shakespeare Room with its 18th century frieze commemorating Falstaff, who’s generally believed to have been based on Sir John Fastolf, lord of the manor. That cunning change of name wouldn’t save you from litigation nowadays, but Will seems to have got away with it. Finally, the most obvious difference between the manor and my home is that you don’t need to clutch your leg and scream to get even a modicum of attention at the former. The generous service is beautifully automatic and, for us, begins with Davida offering peach bellinis. Harry’s Bar in Venice stand aside: You couldn’t better the manor’s version, made with juice squeezed from fresh Italian peaches – succulent, sweet, fresh… Where was I?
Ah yes. When the head chef is of David Campbell’s calibre, then, quite honestly, everything has to be right. This guy is one of the most switched-on chefs I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. He bucks the normal trend in several ways. Firstly, he believes in achieving a balance between work and home, “You get burned out otherwise.” And the wisdom of that shines through in the menu. You can see it’s designed by a man who loves his life – in the attention to detail, the lovingly put-together extras, the dignified fun of the flavour combinations.
Next, most shocking of all, he doesn’t live off Pot Noodles. “A fresh Caesar salad,” he says firmly. “That’s the sort of thing I eat at home.”
Blimey.
Most importantly of all, the manor gives him a pretty free hand, particularly when it comes to sourcing suppliers. So it is that he gets veg from Eades, the greengrocer’s in Crescent Lane, Bath (“If I want baby fennel, I know they’ll have picked it at five o’clock that morning”) and his meat from Walter Rose in Devizes. His cheeses hail from North Cerney and Charles Martell. The beauty of this hotel is that it’s small and exclusive enough to go to suppliers of this quality.
So it’s time to put David to the test. Before our starters proper comes a smidgeon of pumpkin and sweet potato soup with coriander. It’s sealed closed when cooking, which means not a quark of flavour is lost.
In fact, the maximising of flavours is the theme for the evening. David has got it to a fine art. Ian has the poached foie gras, which is rich, sweet and creamy – even better than the dish I had in Franche-Comté a while back, though the ingredients are just as fine in both cases. I have the Cerney goat’s cheese with its detailed touches of poached grapes, hints of walnut, chutney and salad leaves. Mains are roast canon of sweet Cornish lamb (where the animals relax on gentle non-taxing slopes), perfectly cooked; and I try the pot-roasted spring chicken with its sherry-soaked sultanas and cumin carrots.
Desserts are a pinenut baklava – consisting poached fig, panna cotta made from gentle Greek yogurt and a fig and port sorbet – and Tastes of Mandarin, which encompasses cheesecake, crêpes suzette, sorbet and soufflé.
Lucky manor to have David. But lucky David too. From Jenni, our German waitress, to Vivek the banqueting manager, there isn’t a wrong note to the evening.
“I hear,” I say to David, “that you’ve transformed afternoon teas, too.”
“We do great scones with clotted cream. And chocolate cake. And carrot and ginger…” he starts to reel off. “You should come back and try them.”
Ian looks pointedly at my leg. When you’ve been married as long as we have, you can interpret a glance like a sentence. “If you put on any more weight,” his raised right eyebrow says, “the other leg will go as well.”
“But it’s chocolate cake,” replies my left eyebrow, narkily. “And besides, it’s a very strong metal crutch.”
Manor House Hotel and Golf Club is at
Castle Combe, near Bath on tel: 01249 782206, www.exclusivehotels.co.uk