Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons: Behind the culinary icon
During my first visit to Le Manoir I could neither speak nor talk. This is not hyperbole about dumbfounded luxury – I was just a baby. But my parents still tell the story of how Raymond Blanc, in full chef’s whites, came to ask them if I had enjoyed the fresh pasta and butter the kitchen had whipped up for me. They still vividly remember this and everything else they were served over two decades later, which always struck me because (unlike the child they raised) they are not notable food obsessives.
But after my second, cognisant visit, it makes total sense. Le Manoir is in the impression business – it clings to you long after leaving.
As Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, a Belmond Hotel (to give it its full title) enters its 41st year, it remains a certified culinary pilgrimage. Its offering of hyper-seasonal fine dining in a bucolic setting has set a tone for foodie destinations from Ynyshir in Carmarthenshire to Cumbria’s L’Enclume.
A greeting at the hotel starts with champagne as you shed the life you left behind. Belmond’s Le Manoir is a lavender accented Land of the Lotus Eaters, a place that allows you to forget everything outside its perfumed gardens. The honey hued house is clasped by pale wisteria and sits framed by gardens and orchards. After the warmest of welcomes, we were taken out to soak up some sun in the garden and explore the grounds. Considering the driving ethos of Le Manoir is food – and perhaps more accurately, produce – it makes sense it has 27 acres of gardens in which to grow. If this farm to table schtick feels staid, it’s in a large part because Raymond Blanc was doing it here first over 40 years ago.
I stayed during a particularly warm late April and the garden offered snatches of summer in a hazy spring malaise. Rainbow chard piled up haphazardly in polytunnels, rows of fragile baby lettuce leaves split the soil and rhubarb pushed lids off terracotta pots. In the extensive apple and pear orchard, puffs of pale blossom sit like scrunched tissue and hungry bees hang heavy in the air. There is a huge array of wonderfully named varieties to admire: Captain Kidd, Chivers Delight, Lord Lambourne, Egremont Russet. This is perhaps the purest distillation of Blanc’s food ethos and the possibility of produce when it is not separated, as the English are want to do, into cooking and eating binaries. Here Blanc sees the world in an apple seed, and this attention to detail washes over the entire hotel.
Central to all of this is the kitchen, the beating heart and workhorse of Le Manoir. During my stay I took a cooking class, which feels like an apt way to experience the inner sanctum. The school is expertly overseen by Mark Peregrine and his excellent team. Apart from cooking some delicious (and very accessible) food, the course offers a pleasant way to while away the afternoon, hearing stories about Le Manoir’s iterations throughout the years. There are a range of classes to suit different skill levels and interests, from BBQ and bread to macarons and mackerel.
After an afternoon of cooking I was shown to where I would be staying. There are 32 rooms, from doubles to suites, all boasting extraordinary attention to detail. My room – Hydrangea – was in the main part of the manor house with views over the lavender path and into the gardens. In addition to the comfiest bed I’ve ever slept in, the room has a spacious living area and bath-cum-jacuzzi. From here you can watch dappled light trace across the walls in perfect serenity. The furnishings are William Morris accented and the artist’s adage that a house should only contain things that are beautiful or useful encapsulates the room: a whole, freshly-baked lemon drizzle cake (beautiful), containers to take the leftovers home or to scoff on the train at 9am (useful).
Before dinner we played some pétanque and drank chartreuse cocktails and I was one gauloise away from full francophilisation. This was followed by cocktails in the hotel’s plush lounge, and then onto dinner.
The restaurant at Le Manoir is a destination in itself. It’s double Michelin-starred and headed up by Luke Selby, who returned to the hotel as head chef after a stint fronting Soho’s intimate Evelyn’s Table. This is a different affair entirely. The meal, a seven course tasting menu, is unsurprisingly produce-led but never fussy. The food is mirrored by the service, with its open palmed generosity, relaxed atmosphere and eye for precision.
The meal started with confit egg yolk on a set pea custard and a maypole dipping soldier. This playfulness fed into the next dish of Orkney scallop ceviche with an intensely aromatic granita of thai basil and lemongrass that was reminiscent of Calippo shots on holiday. The signature dish of chicken-stuffed morel and white asparagus is a textural wonder, bouncy like tripe and deeply savoury like the most perfect pies. Coral-blushed confit salmon comes with a green sauce that tastes like bruised spring: wet and earthy. The crowning course is lamb and richly caramalised sweetbread with little hits of tomato, zips of mint gel and the lip-coating funk of sheep’s curd. Both deserts, one a chocolate-lime-coconut number, the other a strawberry millefeuille tour de force, were excellent, but the sweet highlight for me was the liquorice magnum in the petits fours: bitter, medicinal, delicate, perfect.
As we walked from dining room to lounge, it struck me how imperceptibly day had switched to evening, and evening to night. It’s like slipping in and out of consciousness as you weave from rooms, full and tipsy, with total contentment; from sun soaked gardens to lit fires and dimmed lights.
A stay at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, a Belmond Hotel is special. It’s a place that has been at the top of the game for over four decades and is still the benchmark for foodie pilgrimage in the UK. As long as the hotel continues to echo Blanc’s ethos, whether that’s investing in its staff, hyper-seasonal food, or homely hospitality, it will stay the crown jewel in British hotels for a long time to come.