The reinvention of the country house hotel - where thrilling dining scenes are on the menu
If your cursor’s spent the last week hovering over the ‘book now’ button while government ministers hummed and hawed about our ‘Great British summer holiday’, now’s the time to click. Luxury properties have been inundated with reservation requests for the coming season, none more so than country house hotels.
For all the challenges posed by 2020 – many businesses traded for as few of four of the last twelve months – it was the country house hotel’s season in the sun. Their unique package of world-class luxury and acre after acre of safe open space could not have been more attractive: it’s pretty easy to socially distance when there’s a croquet lawn and a topiary swan between you and the next guest. “The staycation saved the country house hotel,” says Michael Caines, chef patron of Lympstone Manor in Devon. “It looks like it’s going to be the buzzword of the year again.”
Some foodies, however, haunted by melon balls and salmon parcels with their elderly aunt, may take some persuading. Can tea and scones in the Cotswolds really cut it with a new generation used to holidaying in Tuscany, Tulum and Tokyo? Leading operators reckon so and have spent the last lockdown readying themselves to prove it.
This year, they’re channelling the irreverent spirit of the eccentric aristos who once stalked their halls to rip up the rule book. Who would have thought a year ago that parking up a graffitied trailer in the car park of Whatley Manor in bucolic Wiltshire would be a good idea?
In fact, Paradise Carriage, chef Niall Keating’s pop-up drive-thru serving ajo blanco and brioche buns stuffed with Cornish turbot was soaring success last summer. It’s a safe bet it will be back this one. Whatley Manor’s general manager, Sue Williams, is in her element. “Creativity is very good for managing stress, I find,” she says. “I’ve got to think rather out of the box right now. I love it.”
Another inspired idea was the introduction of ‘Earth Hour’ – when electric lights are switched off between 8pm and 9pm every Saturday night. Madness? Not at all, the guests embraced it. “Since we’ve opened the sustainability dialogue and the food quality has been recognised with lots of lovely awards [a second Michelin star in 2019; a green sustainability star this year], we’ve seen a much younger demographic, no question about it.”
“Last summer we really hit the innovate button,” says Andrew Stembridge, executive director at Iconic Luxury Hotels. His team installed a gin garden in the maze at the Lygon Arms; a Veuve Clicquot bar in a yellow-liveried Airstream in the courtyard at Cliveden; and a pop-up pizzeria in the kitchen at Chewton Glen. The latter did just three kinds of pizza, one pudding, and one white, one red and a rosé. “As simple as that. Absolutely, we wondered why we didn’t do it years ago!” All will, very likely, return this year.
The Exclusive Collection will be among the first out of the gate with chintz-free ‘hyper-local’ concepts at both Pennyhill Park in Surrey and Lainston House in Hampshire. Why shouldn’t a country house hotel open an ‘immersive’ restaurant featuring a ‘nose-to-tail’ menu, wood-fired cooking and on-trend low-alcohol cocktails involving organic hop leaf infusions?
Lainston House’s new Wellhouse restaurant will have all these, while at Pennyhill Park, Hillfield Brasserie and Bar complement the existing Michelin star restaurant the Latymer with an all-day offering of barista coffee, ‘Surrey spritzes’ and artisan cheese from a dedicated cheese bar.
“After being locked up, people are craving experiences and stimulus and freedom – physical freedom and freedom of choice,” says Exclusive Collection managing director Danny Pecorelli. “Lockdown has given us the time to take a step back and look at these opportunities to re-invent. The majority of country house hotels have come quite far, quite fast.”
Change has been bubbling under for a while, but the pace of developments is in response to changing patterns of residency. Occupancy was close to 100 percent at top properties last summer, as stays extended from quick getaways to proper holidays. “The customers who came last year were discerning and, having cancelled holidays, were looking to treat themselves,” says Michael Caines at Lympstone Manor.
“They were having breakfast, lunch and dinner with us. The spends were really quite dramatic.” Last year, Caines installed five swish shepherds’ huts to the grounds; this year, he will introduce a new pool and pool house restaurant overlooking the vineyard, serving whole fish, steaks and wood-fired pizza – a convivial alternative to the hotel’s Michelin star restaurant.
Of the new gen properties in with the cool crowd, Babington House – an old favourite – is looking better than ever after a full refurbishment, its first in 20 years, last year. The popular Pig group, ten years old this year, has a new one joining the litter in the South Downs in September.
The Newt in Bruton, only six months old at the start of the pandemic, is at the vanguard. “I cannot recall a single day when we haven’t discussed a new idea,” says The Newt’s CEO Ed Workman. “The unsettled climate has promoted a culture of innovation right across the business. In the last year, the working estate has taken its tours and workshops online, added a medicinal herb garden to serve the spa, and launched Mobile Newt, an e-commerce business now with a fleet of seven trucks dispatching blood orange pickle, apple gin and homemade granola.
“We have hardly drawn a breath in the last year”. The team is counting down the days to welcome real guests again. “People will be looking for a heightened experience to escape the monotony of lockdown routine. They’ll be looking for excitement, luxury and romance in equal measure, wishing to breathe deeply, eat well and rest easy.”
For all this talk of innovation, fear not: the traditional markers of country house hospitality – the mountains of scones, the plump pillows, the roaring fires and cosseting service – remain absolutely non-negotiable. If your hotel doesn’t resemble the set of a Richard Curtis film, you’re in the wrong place.
For super-rich travellers, used to what Cliveden’s Andrew Stembridge calls “the Swiss watch style of service” of the international luxury chains, the friendly, almost familial can come as a surprise. But if lockdown has shown us anything it’s that it’s the people and places and the emotional connections we form that make an experience. “It’s all more important than how ‘marbly’ the bathroom is,” notes Stembridge wryly.
So when hotels reopen – maybe next month even? – expect an army of rosy-cheeked chambermaids, cheery gardeners and talented chefs waiting to greet you. You won’t want to leave.
Ten Gourmet Getaways To Book Now
Soho Farmhouse, The Cotswolds
Look forward to ‘frosé’ on the lawn, tempura and sashimi in the boat house; sohohouse.com
Linthwaite House, The Lake District
Cutting-edge cuisine at new restaurant Henrock from L'Enclume’s Simon Rogan; leeucollection.com
Hambleton Hall, Rutland
Tim and Stefa Hart’s Oakham hideaway celebrated forty years last year; its restaurant has held a Michelin star for 38 of them; hambletonhall.com
Heckfield Place, Hampshire
A grand Georgian address with its own biodynamic farm and a coolly chic restaurant by Skye Gyngell; heckfieldplace.com
Beaverbrook, Surrey
For modern Japanese cooking and 470 acres of prime picnicking territory; beaverbrook.co.uk
The Pig at Bridge Place, Kent
Find the Pig hotel group’s seasonal and sustainable signatures under an hour from London; thepighotel.com
Grantley Hall, Yorkshire
Shaun Rankin’s grand fine-dining restaurant is one of this year’s crop of new Michelin stars; grantleyhall.co.uk
Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, Oxfordshire
Raymond Blanc’s picture-perfect manor house, established in 1984, continues to set the bar; belmond.com
Gleneagles, Perthshire
An icon of Scottish hospitality, with Restaurant Andrew Fairlie the only restaurant in Scotland to hold two stars; gleneagles.com
Thyme, Gloucestershire
Rustic-luxe interiors and a restaurant from Ballymaloe and Quo Vadis alumnus Charlie Hibbert; thyme.co.uk
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