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David Sexton's rating
Reader rating
Phone: 0870 860 8421
Magical setting: aperitifs are served in William Robinson’s flower garden
The gardening writer William Robinson (1838-1935) bought Gravetye Manor, a stone-built Elizabethan mansion, in 1884, living and gardening there for the next 50 years.
It’s a mystery how Robinson, who came from a poor Irish background, could afford to buy such a house, with 1,000 acres of land, from the proceeds of gardening journalism and books.
Much about his private life remains obscure, too. He never married and from 1909 was confined to a wheelchair, apparently suffering from syphilitic paralysis.
What Robinson did at Gravetye, though, is no mystery.
He remade the whole place to make it as beautiful as he knew how.
The house was restored and extended, while he planted thousands of trees around the estate.
And he laid out Gravetye’s extensive gardens in accord with the ideals he had put forward in his marvellous books, The Wild Garden (1870) and The English Flower Garden (1883).
In this, he was a pioneer and he remains a hero to many gardeners, his achievements just having been emphasised again by a big new picturebook, William Robinson: The Wild Gardener by Richard Bisgrove (although an earlier biography by Mea Allan still tells his life story more sympathetically).
In his will, Robinson left Gravetye Manor to the nation.
The woodland around remains in the care of the Forestry Commission, while, in 1958, the lease on the house and gardens was taken up by a hotel company directed by Peter Herbert.
He immersed himself in Robinson’s writings and dedicated himself for many years to bringing the gardens, as well as the mansion, back to life — as much as possible in Robinson’s style.
In 2004, his manager Andrew Russell and chef Mark Raffan bought the business from him and they continue to run the hotel and restaurant in the same spirit.
You can really only visit the house and the gardens if you go to stay (expensive) or eat (not quite so steep).
So that makes it — especially for anybody at all interested in gardening history — one of the best country restaurants within tolerable distance of London to visit on a fine day.
The three-course table d’hôte lunch is £25, dinner £37, or three courses à la carte £57, before service.
Mark Raffan, who trained at Le Gavroche and worked for a while as personal chef to King Hussein of Jordan, describes his cuisine as “eclectic modern English”.
It is hotel food: elaborate fare prepared for a wealthy clientele who do not want too many surprises.
The menu bears the disconcerting message: “Should you wish to have more simply prepared food, please do not hesitate to ask.
Bon appetite!” [sic]. Perhaps a simpler, shorter menu in the first place might be a better idea, for the cooking proved, unexpectedly, a little hit-and-miss.
From the table d’hôte dinner, a starter of pan-fried West Coast skate wing with spinach and a caper, cockle and mussel butter had a sharp, lemony taste.
A main course of duo of sea bass and sea bream with confit cherry tomatoes and bouillabaisse juices, had the same over-tanginess, while the accompanying saffron risotto was starchy and a bit tired.
On the other hand, from the à la carte menu, there was perfectly nice steamed asparagus with hollandaise sauce, the stems peeled for ease of eating, and a frothy little asparagus soup in a little cup on the side.
Fricassé of native lobster was a fair few chunks, in a buttery, well-flavoured nage, full of baby vegetables from the kitchen garden, flavoursome in a different way than the airfreighted microveg from other continents so pointlessly stocked by ambitious supermarkets.
Adorning the plate, a Gravetye courgette flower, decorative and scarcely cooked at all, had been stuffed with a light salmon mousseline, there being quite a lot delivered in the moussey line here.
Puddings were refined, too, a roasted peach being served with both vanilla ice cream and vanilla panna cotta, while iced honey and nougatine parfait featured roasted strawberries and a crispy tuile.
The chef’s choice of British and Continental cheeses was adequate rather than exciting — there are better cheeses from the Pyrenees than the extensively marketed P’tit Basque, for example.
The imposing wine list turned out to have some accommodating corners, offering Louis Latour Macon for £17 a bottle, for example — a surprising bargain in such a context.
Water from Gravetye’s own spring is enjoyable too, modestly charged at £1.75 a jug. Service is friendly as well as formal.
On this showing, you wouldn’t really come from London to Gravetye Manor for the food alone.
Yet as a total experience, it’s hard to beat. Walking around the grounds here and then taking an aperitif on the lawn in Robinson’s flower garden, amid beds full of profuse growth, cardoons, acanthus and hardy geraniums all entangled, while a heron flaps across the valley below, over the lake and the meadow full of wild orchids, is quite magical.
Man does not live by bread alone, some people think.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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