Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons
Great Milton, Oxford OX44 7PD
To cross the threshold of Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons is to glide, noiselessly, into another world, a sybaritic, sumptuous Xanadu where the grit and grime of the workaday toil slip away like mink off silk. As you sink into soft carpets (and even softer sofas), coats are whisked away, menus proffered, and cool glasses of Manzanilla sherry eased into grateful palms.
Yet there’s no trace of the brusque, tight-lipped obsequiousness so often found in other five-star pleasure palaces. Service is warm, but immaculately drilled, and smooth as a river-rubbed pebble. A mere two minutes after arrival, my heartbeat slows to a languid tick.
Le Manoir has little time for the cool and cutting edge, and the decor seems not so much timeless as eternally comfortable. If you’re looking for minimalist chic, jog on. At its heart is Raymond Blanc, its boss, the soul, and the greatest of chefs. He never stands still. I must have been here a dozen times over the years and he, along with his brilliant executive chef Gary Jones (‘my general’, in Blanc’s words) is constantly, eternally innovating. Not just in his garden, with the mushroom tunnel, fruit hedges, the beds filled with 90 varieties of vegetables, and the greenhouses overflowing with 90 kinds of herb. But on his menu too.
Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons has little time for the cool and cutting edge. If you’re looking for minimalist chic, jog on
Blanc is a great figure of modern British gastronomy, entirely self-taught and still wearing a French accent as thick as Normandy cream. But despite being Gallic to his core, he’s also one of us. And his legacy, for want of a better word, is immense. Since the place opened, over 30 years back, the list of chefs who trained under Blanc is astounding. Marco Pierre White and Heston Blumenthal, Michael Caines, Sat Bains, Bruno Loubet, Eric Chavot, Paul Heathcote and John Burton Race. To name but a few. As Matthew says, as we wander through into lunch, ‘he instils fine culinary principals, without ever crushing his chefs’ own culinary character’.
Again, you don’t come to Le Manoir looking for bleeding edge culinary pyrotechnics. They’re way beyond trends, gimmicks and look-at-me histrionics. What they do is provide food of the highest level, consistently, for around 80 people per service, which is a monumental achievement. At these prices, every last punter expects perfection.
We order à la carte, although there’s a five-course menu for £95. Not cheap, but incredible value. First out, a freebie, an egg, probably slow poached, topped with shavings of crisp fried carrots and fresh grated curls of black truffle, all surrounded by a pool of amber mushroom broth. Winter farmyard meets the frosty field, mixing the oozing and sensuous with the crisp and crunchy. And that broth has a blessed note of acidity, so the dish doesn’t wallow entirely in winter. It hints of sunny days to come.
Then crab, pure as a bracing sea breeze, with lemon-grass sorbet, and wisps of whipped coconut milk, and a sharp mango jelly. There’s a magnificent clarity of tropical flavour, a sense of getting to the soul, the essence of each ingredient, while bringing them all together with expert aplomb. Matthew has sweetbreads, burnished and bouncy, sitting upon a tangle of slow-cooked onions, and shards of pickled onions, and an intense, joyous, mightily reduced jus that has ‘exactly the right viscosity’. Old-school French, but with a very modern precision.
As there is with my brill, as fine a piece of fish as I’ve eaten all year. OK, so it may have been cooked sous-vide but the texture is sublime, wallowing in a blissfully buttery sauce, seasoned with a wodge of caviar and the merest whisper of wasabi. There are flecks of seaweed and ribbons of cucumber, giving the dish a marine richness and startling freshness too.
Matthew’s woodcock, that most beautiful and blissful of game birds, is arranged like a Ralph Steadman sketch, head split to reveal brains, claws akimbo. Bacon and brussels sprouts add more winter welly, but it’s far removed from heavy. This is a kitchen that manages the rich and the light with equal grace and skill.
Puddings are the same. A gilded and luscious millionaire’s shortbread, rich as a pasha. Then carpaccio of blood orange with Campari sorbet, a bracing blast of bitter cool. Cheese is perfectly kept, the Poire William reliably icy.
Brill with scallop, mushrooms and caviar. As fine a piece of fish as I’ve eaten all year
Raymond comes and sits down as we finish. He’s back in the kitchen, fiddling, testing, simplifying. It’s impossible not to fall under his spell. And that of Le Manoir, a one-off, a treat, a treasure, a monument to the evolution of modern British cookery. And the legacy of French haute cuisine.
This is a place that has sat at the top for three decades, and it’s easy to see why. Old-fashioned comfort and service, hard graft and cooking that’s always evolving, without ever falling victim to fashion. Even on the greyest of days, Le Manoir is eternally bright.
About £95 per head
What Tom ate this week
Saturday
Off to The Oak W12 for diavola pizza with the children. Then Sichuan boiled beef, green beans with pork and ma pa tofu from Tian Fu in Shepherd’s Bush.
Sunday
Xio long nap, prawn bar gau and XO seafood rice with family at Shikkumen, West London. Then down to Oxfordshire for a wonderful dinner of steak tartare, then turbot.
Monday
Epic chicken and mushroom pie for lunch. Then green papaya salad, tom yum soup and larb gai at Tawana in Westbourne Grove.
Tuesday
Lunch at Dinings in Marylebone. The original, obviously. A glut of sushi.