Gidleigh Park

Yumchia, the Pretty Lady and I did something crazy for Easter. We drove 250 miles from London to Devon for lunch, and then drove back again. The reason was Gidleigh Park, the hotel in the middle of Dartmoor, with a 2 Michelin star restaurant attached. The executive chef is Michael Caines, who grew up in nearby Exeter. He's a remarkable person who lost his right arm in a car accident, yet went on to gain his stars at Gidleigh Park as head chef. He's now branched out, as the Gidleigh Park group has expanded, planning and cooking for other hotels in the chain, now called ABode.

Gidleigh Park is located in Dartmoor, near the North Teign river, and between the villages of Gidleigh and Chagford. It's a small country house hotel, with 24 rooms (costing a fair amount of dosh, but after we saw the surroundings, and after discovering that the rack rate includes dinner, I decided it was worthwhile). It also has a 2 star Michelin restaurant, which allows diners to eat in the dining room and relax in the drawing room after that, for coffee and petit fours. The dining experience was great fun, and is extremely relaxing.

Gidleigh Park Hotel
Chagford
Devon TQ13 8HH
01647 432 367

We pitched up at about half past twelve, nearly half an hour early. No problem at all - we were shown into the drawing room, where we relaxed after the long drive with some drinks and some hor d'oeuvres. We were served a little spoon of stewed venison (I think with soy), as well as fried "chips" of cod with home made tartare sauce. Very attractive, and certainly a good start to the meal, as the cod was perfectly moist and the tartare sauce delicious, a funny food pun on fish and chips.

After a little while, we moved to the dining room, where we chose our food. The sommelier recommended an Austrian pinot noir, something which piqued my curiosity enough to order it. I'll blog about that separately as usual. The wait for the food wasn't over-long, but our amuse bouche had whetted our appetites. It was white haricot bean soup, creamy, and bursting with truffle (slivers! not oil) and what tasted like celery salt. The Pretty Lady thought it tasted like durian, and Yumchia agreed. We were pretty hungry, so we attacked the bread basket with gusto. The highlight was a sun-dried tomato bread, which had large chunks of sweet and succulent tomatoes, and wasn't overly oily either. Nevertheless eating so much bread proved to be a mistake.

I had ordered a ballotine of foie gras with poached rhubarb. It was delicious - in addition to the poached, compote-like rhubarb, there were little chunks of rhubarb and lemongrass jelly and girolle mushrooms dotted around the plate. They offset wonderfully against the sweet foie gras, both in terms of texture and flavour. The Pretty Lady had langoustine cannelloni with braised fennel, sauce vierge and shellfish sauce. She made me a Perfect Bite which seemed to produce a flavour explosion in my mouth - sweet, lobstery, slight zing from the fennel. Yumchia had quail egg, onion confit and smoked bacon tartlet with roast quail and truffle. Hers was the best of all - sweet and savoury, with the fragrance of the truffle infusing the meat and the egg. Reminded me of a Talisker 18 yo, perhaps without the orange.

For mains I had a slow-cooked sliced venison dish. The venison came arranged on a slice of braised pork belly, with figs and chestnut puree. It was surprising - there was braised red sauerkraut tucked away between the pork belly and the venison. The flavours went very well together, the gamey grilled meat blending perfectly with the sour cabbage and the sweet smoky pork belly. The Pretty Lady had roast duckling with savoy cabbage, turnips and roast garlic. Very sweet due to the honey sauce, and I think it didn't meet the Perfect Bite test, as the sweet sauce fought with the garlic flavours, and the duckling lost. The Pretty Lady and Yumchia disagreed though. Yumchia had roast lamb with fondant potato, and what I believe was a herb puree, although it didn't seem to taste like thyme as stated on the restaurant's website. It was more rosemary, and I think it went better with the lamb than the thyme would have. My main course was my favourite of the three.

We then moved on to the cheese course. By this time the ladies were groaning, but they love cheese, and we hadn't reached dessert yet, so we soldiered on. The waiter, who gave us wonderful service all afternoon, wheeled out the cheese trolley, with was laden with about thirty different types of cheese. I lost count of the number of cheeses we tried, but I think we agreed that the best was an orange Mimolette, which was nutty and hard, and provided a real flavour and texture change from what we had been eating all afternoon.

For dessert, I had a creme brulee with pear sorbet and stewed pear. It was beautiful - the creme brulee came in two discs, one on top of the other, with a nougatine disc on top and in between. There was a perfect fragile spiral of sugar that looked like a spring, nestled on top of the scoop of sorbet. The flavours went really well together, but what impressed me most was the skill it took to assemble the dish. The Pretty Lady had a pistachio souffle with pistachio coulis. It was wonderful - nutty, full of pistachio flavour, and slightly overdone and caramelised, which is exactly how I like my souffle. However, it's generally considered to be a flaw. Yumchia had the apple tart with vanilla ice cream and cider coulis. It wasn't particularly impressive to look at, but the cider coulis gave the caramelised apple a more rounded, fuller flavour. I thought that it was as good as the tarte tatin at the Savoy Grill, although the Pretty Lady disagreed.

After that mammoth meal, we retired to the drawing room for coffee and petit fours. Those were quite tasty too - a passionfruit Jaffa cake, mango foam with chocolate parfait, and a mini cinnamon puff. They tasted like they sound, not particularly impressive, but it was a small weakness to a magnificent experience.

After a while, we climbed back into the car for the long drive back to London, fully replete. It was entirely worth it. If this post sounds a little too much like a paean to gluttony, it's because it is - the food was that good, and we paid a very reasonable price for it.

Scores:

7 April 2008: TFQ = 28, CS = 28, S = 18, AD = 9, VfM = 8. Total = 91 points.

What does this mean?