A Week in Provence:(4) Wednesday-Thursday

Wednesday, 26th January. Our last day. So, after a good walk in the hills above Le Rouret, we head for Cannes to shop and lunch at Plage Royale, our favourite beach restaurant on the Croisette.

We park in the subterranean carpark beneath the Palais des Festivals, a multi-storey cavern so immense it is easy to lose your bearings unless you are careful. Louise works the shops on the Rue d’Antibes while I install myself at a pavement cafe with une demi pression.

By 1.30 we are seated beside a glittering Mediterranean Sea with the sun and a clear sky overhead. The waiter brings us a bottle of pale pink and perfectly chilled Chateau Minuty, and we are in heaven. Our choice of menu at Plage Royale tends to follow its annual habit: soupe de poisson, a steak tartare with frites, and a green salad. Perfection!

Thursday, 27th January. We check in for our EasyJet flight back to Bristol in good time. This leaves us an hour to kill at Nice-Cote d’ Azur’s Terminal 2.

We go to our departure gate B23 where, nearby, there is a cafe styling itself as the “Bar du Monde”. Here I buy myself a ham salad for 5,50 Euros. It turns out to be the most miserable plastic foodstuff I have attempted to eat in an airport anywhere in the world… ever! It does not bear describing, worse it contains a foreign body which, I think, may once have been aubergine but now looked like a desiccated human ear.

Perfect flight home. Very jolly EasyJet crew who try to sell us things we can do without.

At The Castle tomorrow we welcome the Schubert Ensemble for a weekend programme of four concerts. And, I gather, in our absence over the past seven days, two Michelin men lunched with us to check out Jamie Raftery’s progress in the kitchen. They left promising more visits through the year… all incognito, of course.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago.

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A Week in Provence:(3) Monday-Tuesday

Monday, 24th January. We say farewell to our friends and drive away from Le Mas de Gavarron, their beautiful villa near Lorgues, in radiant sunshine.

Heading east along the autoroute, we exit at Mandelieu-La Napoule and drive to Theoule-sur-Mer to visit the grave of Louise’s parents who are buried in the local cemetery, a place of great tranquility carved out of the red rock of the Massif de l’ Esterel. The surrounding hills are already beginning to burst with mimosa blossom.

Just below the cemetery, we find the road blocked by wire fencing and tape which Louise ignores. Clutching trays of pansies and polyanthus, she squeezes round the barrier determined to replant the grave. Within seconds, a police car screams up the hill. We had been caught on a hidden CCTV camera! “A landslide”, explained the gendarme. “Il est tres dangereux!”

“J’ habite l’ Angleterre”, replied Louise. “Mes parents sont enterre ici dans le cimetiere.”

” Suivez-moi!” replied the gendarme… and escorted us to the cemetery by another route at high speed.

By 1.30 we were hungry and fancied a soupe de poisson in the sun at a favourite beach restaurant just outside La Napoule. It was closed. So was Le Bistrot L’ Etage at L’ Oasis, another special favourite. So we settle for a croque monsieur at a cafe in the centre of the town.

From La Napoule we head for Le Rouret, a pretty village high in the hills north of Valbonne. Our destination is the Hotel du Clos and this is our first visit. We are not disappointed.

Set in its own garden and grounds, two classic Provencal stone-built houses offer eleven individually-decorated and utterly charming bedrooms. Before we even switch off the ignition, we are greeted in the carpark by the manager, Helene Mavon, who leads us straight to our bedroom without any of the usual check-in formalities. We are made instantly at home.

The Hotel du Clos is owned by Catherine and Daniel Ettlinger who also keep the Michelin-starred Restaurant Le Clos Saint Pierre in the centre of Le Rouret where M Ettlinger is chef-patron. Of course, we are booked for dinner.

The evening’s menu runs to five courses at a fixed price of 57 Euros. And the experience turns out to be a triumph! Among the most memorable meals we have had in France in many years. The reason is clear. M Ettlinger allows his impeccably sourced raw ingredients to shine in their own right. He does not over-work his dishes. He eschews excessive elaboration. Simplicity is his dictum. And the results are sublime.

Here is his menu loosely translated: an artichoke salad with Mozzarella and bacon; Sea Bass and Scallops in a light garlic broth; grilled veal with parsleyed new potatoes, spinach, cabbage and an olive oil jus; cheeses; and, to finish, a fabulous coffee, chocolate and nougatine confection.

Tuesday, 25th January. To the arty crafty village of Biot, famous for its glass and pottery. But the place is deathly quiet and many of the shops, galleries and restaurants are closed. We withdraw to an eccentric creperie, the Auberge du Vieux Village, where our theatrical proprietor, Christel, welcomes us like old friends she has not seen in a dozen years. Her pancakes fill a hole and we drive back via Valbonne and Opio. A lazy day.

Back in Le Rouret, I check my email messages from The Castle. We have had a rush of excellent bookings in the past six days, including some weddings confirmed for later in the year.

Dinner in Le Bar sur Loup, at Restaurant L’ Ecole des Filles. An amusing, wacky place that was, indeed, a girls’ school in a previous existence. Lots of visual metaphors – blackboards (for menus) and school desks, old class photographs, big maps of the Western Front in WWI, a globe of the world, and our bill came in a wooden pencil box. Lovely staff. Again, a big natural welcome.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

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A Week in Provence:(2) Saturday-Sunday

Saturday, 22nd. Clear skies, brilliant sunshine, wine-chilled air. Winter in Provence at its most perfect.

We drive to Aups, high in the hills of the Var, the truffle capital of the region. It is market day and the village square is heaving with folk  inspecting the stalls scattered around the plane trees. There is everything here: cow, ewe and goat’s milk cheeses by the score, charcuterie, fresh fish and seafood, serried ranks of chickens spit-roasting slowly on giant rotisseries, fruit and veg, flowers and plants. And that’s not all. You can buy everything from a double-bed to a pair of socks, and clothes, shoes, fabrics and jewellery in between.

In the far corner of the square, the “Grand Cafe de Cours” is packed with people demanding hot chocolate, coffee, beer on tap and pastis. The fountain in front of us trickles soothingly. And just beyond is the church of St-Pancrace. The entrance to this great edifice is a vast Renaissance door in oak. Inside, I discover a mishmash of the Gothic, Baroque and Romanesque, so typical of this part of France. Within a minute I turn on my heel and desert  the sepulchral gloom of the place to go back to the buzz and sunshine of the square.

Joining Louise and our friends at one of the cafe’s pavement tables, I order une demi pression and watch a leisurely world go about its business. Bliss!

Sunday, 23rd. Another day of brilliant winter sun.

We decide to attend the 10.30 mass in Lorgues at the church of St-Martin – a huge 18th century pile dominating this small town. More architectural mishmash rescued this time by the music of a magnificent organ suspended high above the west door. The local priest is over-generous with the incense which invades our nostrils and consumes our heads. But the cold in the pews freezes our bones. So we light candles and leave before the Eucharist.

We drive to Vidauban for lunch at Le Concorde, a popular eaterie on the main square. This is a family-owned enterprise and it shows in the warmth of our welcome – all smiles and hand-shakes. The atmosphere is upbeat and very jolly, the menu reads appetizingly and the list of local wines is excellent. But the service is painfully slow and it takes the kitchen 75 minutes before we see our starters – delicious plates of moules farcies and a cassolette d’escargots. Not that we care too much about the delay. Our host’s charm conquers any thoughts of complaint. A carre d’agneau is followed by cheeses, and generous glasses of Calvados on the House have us waving fond farewells.

Again, I wonder about the British attitude to the notion of good hospitality and “service”. In France, l’art de vivre is alive and well. In England, this simple philosophy is often hard to find in our restaurants. For my team at The Castle, it is the cornerstone of our existence.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

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A Week in Provence:(1) Thursday-Friday

Louise and I have decamped to the South of France for a week’s respite from the damp and pewter skies of England in January.

We leave The Castle in the safe hands of Kevin McCarthy, our GM, who will be preparing for the Schubert Ensemble at the end of the month – the first in our 35th season of Musical Weekends. Something for us to look forward to on our return. The weekend is a sell-out, both in the hotel and for non-residents buying tickets to one or more of the four concerts.

Thursday, 20th. We board our EasyJet flight for Nice at Bristol International Airport. Our investment in the airline’s “Speedy Boarding” scheme proves worthless. We miss the first bus from the terminal building to the aircraft, so it’s Hobson’s choice on where to sit.

At Nice Cote d’Azur we pick up a car from Hertz and we reach our destination by lunchtime – an enchanting Provencal villa in the hills outside Draguignan, home to restaurateur friends of thirty years. (Google: Holiday rentals Le Mas de Gavarron). This is Provence away from the tourist grind – a land of mediaeval villages, hidden valleys and pine-clad forests. Harmony and peace to soothe the soul, warm the heart.

We walk the dogs in the woodland behind the house – Pandora and Daisy, our hosts’ two contented cocker spaniels. Then dinner beside a blazing log fire in the hearth. Six old friends, good food, local wine and a lot of laughter. We sleep soundly. 

Friday, 21st. A visit to the 12th century Abbaye du Thoronet, a Cistercian foundation set in a quiet valley amidst oak woods, its Romanesque architectural austerity matched by a simple, sublime beauty. The silence in the abbey church is total. And a limpid light pouring through the small stained glass windows casts soft colours of pink, coral, cream and grey over the limestone walls. We are all moved by this sacred place.

Lunch at Les Chenes Verts, a Michelin-starred restaurant near Tourtour. We go for le menu degustation, the order taken by our charming host, chef-patron Paul Bajade. His cooking is good but not without fault. M Bajade tends towards over elaboration in some of his dishes – a Poulet de Bresse, for example, stuffed with foie gras and other less determinable ingredients which rendered the assembly somewhat bland and confused.

But after my recent blogs about the dire state of some West Country eateries, this was a real treat. Most of all, we were welcomed warmly – and we were beautifully cared for by the restaurant manager and his well-trained waiting staff.

It is no surprise to me that Michel Roux Jr is fronting the BBC 2 programmes on “Service” – a television series which introduces the viewing public to the lost art of the waiter. Mr Roux’s outlook is deeply rooted in French gastronomic culture. In the past half-century, the Roux Brothers, his father Albert and uncle Michel Sr, have been the single most profound influence on standards in British restaurants. In France, gastronomic culture is not simply about food and wine, rather it is a way of life which this civilized nation describes as “l’art de vivre“. And this is what we found at Les Chenes Verts.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago 

 

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Wassailing The Castle’s Apple Orchard in glorious mud!

They came over the Levels through mediaeval mists and thin, intermittent rain. Scores 0f our most loyal, most resolute clients – all bound for Charlton Orchards near Creech St Michael. And what for? To wassail our new apple saplings in deep, thick, sticky mud – an orchard of 60 trees to mark 60 years of the Chapman dynasty at Taunton’s Castle Hotel.

They came with their hunting horns, rattles, bells, trays, pots and pans. A handsome gathering of favourite Castle folk whom we greeted with scrumpy, apple juice and mulled wine; pork pies, game terrine on toast, and apple & cinnamon doughnuts. Paul on his fiddle and Brian on his accordion amusing us with there ancient wassail songs. And a blazing brazier keeping the chill from our bones.

Louise unveiled the bright blue “Castle Orchard” sign, listing the ten traditional English apple varieties we have planted.

With a pair of shovels, we heaped the sodden earth around the 60th sapling. The crowd roared, banged their trays, blew their horns, rattled their rattles.

Then Kevin, The Mighty McCarthy, and I took up our positions by the blue sign and chanted our wassail verses.

“Apple tree, apple tree, we all come to wassail thee…”,the poem ending with the refrain: “Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full…” More cheers, more banging, bugling and noise to ward off the evil spirits while Sally and Duncan, who run Charlton Orchards, christened the trees with cider. 

Paul and Brian now led the throng with their own verses and, accompanied by fiddle and accordion, we all sang this merry song:

Old apple tree we’ll wassail thee 

 And hoping thou wilt bear

The Lord does know where we shall be

When apples come next year.

For to bear well and to bloom well

So merry let us be.

Let every man take off his hat

And shout at the old apple tree.

Then shouted:

Old apple tree we wassail theeAnd hoping thou wilt bear.Hats full, Caps full,

A gurt bushel bag full,

And a little heap under the stairs.

Hip hip hooray!

Kit Chapman, prop. The Castle at Taunton, author My Archipelago

 

 

 

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Michel Roux. This is how bad “service” gets in Somerset!

I despair. Michel Roux’s Service on BBC 2 needs to come to my home county, Somerset.

A special friend from London spent the weekend with us. On Sunday, we took her to Exmoor – England’s smallest and most exquisite National Park. At lunchtime we found ourselves in the beautiful mediaeval village of Dunster. We were hungry and settled for a well known, well respected hotel opposite the 16th century Yarn Market.

The staff were young and bored. The roast beef came swamped in a black slick. The Yorkshire puddings were rubber balls which might bounce breezily around a squash court. The potatoes were reheated specimens from a previous age.

Never mind. The service was worse. When our careless waitress came to clear our unfinished plates, she stacked the dishes on the table in front of our eyes, squashing the remains of lunch as if she were making sandwiches!

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton

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Michel Roux’s Service on BBC 2: A coup for the restaurant industry

The arrival Michel Roux’s Service, an eight-part prime time TV series which introduces a group of young front-of-house career hopefuls to the restaurant world, is the greatest PR breakthrough our industry has seen in over 30 years.

Since the late 1970s and early 80s, when chefs emerged from their lowly status as kitchen skivvies to be lionized as superstars, front-of-house has become the Cinderella sector of the trade. I still remember the days when managers and maitre d’ hotels ruled their domains as the principal personalities in any successful restaurant. These were the performing stars. These were the names who attracted their adoring clientele while the chef was kept firmly out of sight below stairs.

All this changed with the growth of press interest in the new “foodie” culture and the arrival of restaurant criticism led by Quentin Crewe and Fay Maschler. A history I cover in some detail in my two volumes of Great British Chefs (still available on Amazon).

So far, just two of Michel Roux’s eight programmes have been screened. And what I found particularly interesting was that the narrative thrust fell less on the technical skills of the job and more on personal attitude and the social skills essential to becoming a successful restaurant manager. Ten minutes before he did the deed, I was begging Michel to fire the arrogant idiot who was poisoning the whole beautiful experiment.

Front-of-house is an art every bit as important as the cooking. One cannot exist without the other. The principles of welcome and care, the need to embrace and connect with your guests and the importance of passion for your craft are the key elements being played out here. And I hope millions of young people are watching these programmes and being inspired to look at this glorious industry as a serious career opportunity.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton

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An embarrassment of apples. “Drink up and we’ll wassail thee”!

Last week I wrote a letter to all members of The Castle Dining Club – 338 supporters of our special events and, indeed, our most loyal clients. My purpose was to invite them to “wassail” or celebrate the planting of our own orchard of 60 apple trees to mark the 60th year of the Chapman Family’s custodianship of the hotel.

The apple is a hallowed symbol of Somerset and, for me, expresses perfectly The Castle’s 35-year policy of encouraging local growers and producers to supply our kitchen – an aspect of what I have called my “English Project”, a campaign to rehabilitate our culinary repertoire.

The wassail ceremony takes place this coming Monday (17th) at Charlton Orchards, about four miles outside Taunton. Organising a party away from base is never easy and, of course, we like to do these things properly.

So we decided to limit numbers to thirty Dining Club members with tickets allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Add to these the press, our team and the planting staff from Charlton Orchards, we reckoned on catering for about fifty people. After all, we thought, how many folk are going to pitch up on a cold, damp January afternoon for a glass of cider and a pork pie just to stand in a muddy orchard to anoint 60 apple saplings and listen to the chanting of our wassail poems to ward off the evil spirits who might blight the trees?

Well, we miscalculated. We tried to close the book and failed. Numbers now stand at over a hundred. Mad! But heartwarming! Thank you all for your wonderful support in our anniversary venture. 

To all those Dining Club members we (finally) had to turn away… My profound apologies! The good news is that we have every intention of returning to our orchard at regular intervals to celebrate the development of the trees and the ten traditional English apple varieties we are growing.

Here’s to thee, old apple tree, That blooms well, bears well. Hats full, caps full, Three bushel bags full, An’ all under one tree. Hurrah! Hurrah!

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

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Kitchen amateurs and rogue chefs still roam wild.

This week Louise and I suffered one of the worst meals we’ve eaten in years.

On Friday an errand in Honiton, a small town in East Devon, left us free for some lunch. I called up a favourite pub in a nearby all-thatch and picture postcard village tucked inside the folds of the Blackdown Hills. Until 2008, the pub was run by a brilliant husband and wife team – he a polite and solicitous Englishman; she a heroically large Swedish lady with a teasing repertoire in verbal abuse which she directed at her guests who lapped it up and returned for more. The theme in the kitchen was fish and seafood. And it was good. Very good.

So we were keen to see what had become of one of our most loved West Country watering holes. My call was picked up by the landlord himself – a friendly voice who reassured me that, although fish was not his speciality, the menu offered traditional home-cooked dishes made with fresh, locally-sourced produce.

When we stepped into the old place, we found ourselves alone in a cold and empty space save for a pair of young lovers cuddled at the end of the bar. The welcoming log fire that once blazed in the hearth fizzled meekly, denied of its fuel. The buzz and laughter which filled the pub’s tables – even on a damp January afternoon – had vanished. And we never got to meet the landlord who, we gathered, was confined to his kitchen.

With just four customers’ orders to attend to, our chef-patron took an age to produce the food – a linguine of mushrooms and rocket for Louise; a steak and ale pie for me. Both dishes execrable. The pasta soaked in an astringent balsamic vinegar. The pie (certainly “home-made”!) filled with leaden bricklets of meat that were chew-proof.

All kitchens have their off-days. Not this one. Here was a chef with no palate, no sense of taste, no understanding of his raw materials, let alone how to deal with them sympathetically. He should not be allowed in a kitchen demanding good money off its customers. Indeed, he would do much better to apply to Brakes for advice on his menu.

All this makes me pretty angry. For all the noise the media makes (me included) about the dramatic rise in the quality of eating-out in Britain, the country still suffers from rogues and amateurs who fancy themselves as professional cooks. What’s the point when you can visit your local M&S or Sainsbury’s and buy high quality ready-made meals for a lot less.

These days expectations in restaurants are higher than ever. And quite right too. At our once-favourite pub in East Devon, the punters have done a runner.

Meanwhile, I see that the February edition of the foodie magazine Olive has spotted The Castle’s own chef, Jamie Raftery, as the “One to Watch”.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

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A taste of what’s cooking at The Castle in 2011

Happy New Year to you all!

My kind blog-meisters at WordPress.com suggested I posted “2010 in review” below and I was happy to oblige. To be absolutely accurate, I finished the year on 10,139 views for a blog I began in March. A creditable result. Blog aside, 2010 was a landmark year for three reasons: the publication of My Archipelago in September, the celebrations to mark my family’s 60th anniversary as custodians of The Castle in October, and the arrival of Jamie Raftery as our new Head Chef in November.

For a self-published book, My Archipelago has sold very well and we are on target to shift all 2,000 copies of the first print-run. Mercer Books, my publishers, will have been tickled by a piece in Boxing Day’s edition of the Sunday Times which revealed the names of a host of celebrities whose mainstream publishers paid huge advances on memoirs which have bombed. Among them Jerry Hall, Nicholas Parsons, Christopher Plummer and Arabella Weir.

As for the Chapman Family’s 60th Anniversary, we have one more event planned. On the 17th of this month, we shall be inaugurating The Castle’s own orchard of 60 apple trees at Charlton Orchards just outside Taunton. Ever since Louise and I joined the family business, we have supported local growers and producers – part of my “English Project” to rehabilitate the English repertoire in the kitchen. Indeed, our local suppliers have been listed on our menus since 1976. And so it struck me that nothing was more symbolic of this policy than the English apple, showcased in Somerset by an orchard featuring 60 trees of ten traditional varieties.

For Jamie Raftery, our New Year’s Eve dinner was his most challenging test in his two short months as Head Chef at The Castle: a five-course gastronomic menu for 92 critical palates eager to find out if the new boy measured up to the job. Well he did. By any yardstick the dinner was a triumph – and that’s not me boasting! It’s what all our guests are telling me. Wisely, Jamie decided to use the evening as an opportunity to test some of the dishes he is developing for the new carte. Here’s his first menu for New Year:

Terrine of smoked goose with caramelised winter vegetables and sourdough.

Roast scallops, Jerusalem artichokes, pickled beech mushrooms and pine nut crumble.

Baked cod fillet with leek fondue, beetroot essence, crispy potatoes and Noilly Prat sauce.

Roast loin of venison and its braised faggot, butternut squash fondants, creamed Brussels with bacon, chestnuts with a cranberry sauce.

Warm chocolate fondant, milk chocolate mousse, orange sorbet.

I believe what we have here is a taste of what to expect at The Castle in 2011.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

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