For absolute months now I’ve been looking forward to meeting up with fellow blogger ElizabethonFood at the Hand & Flowers. Elizabeth and her lovely husband, Xavier, had been there before and we were excited to catch up in convivial surroundings! Could the Hand & Flowers ever live up to those expectations?
Tom Kerridge has a reputation for big, bold and gutsy food, and shot to fame after twice winning the Great British Menu. Indeed Tom will be back as a judge in this years’ competition… Tom’s previous experience includes Adlards, Hampton, Odettes, Rhodes in the Square, Stephen Bull and The Capital.
The Hand & Flowers is a sweet little pub in Marlow and has two Michelin stars. The building has exposed wooden beams, wooden floors and low ceilings. The tables are wooden, without tablecloths. It’s all rustically laid out, lots of wood – bespoke wooden accessories, such as the little wooden container for the complimentary whitebait etc… It’s pretty dark inside, so please forgive the awful photographs!
To begin I had the parfait of duck and foie gras, with orange chutney and brioche – the brioche was crisp on the outside and soft and dense on the inside – very good. The chutney added both the required acidity and sweetness, cutting through the richness of the parfait. I tried a tiny bit of my chum’s braised pearl barley – utterly scrummy – and truthfully I wish I had ordered that.
Next was a breast of Suffolk chicken with pistachio crumble, lovage poached turnips, soft polenta and winter truffle. The chicken was flavoursome, scattered with breadcrumbs (I think made of grated sourdough, like rough panko), shavings of winter truffle, chunks of pistachio, and some popcorn chicken. There were fragrant little shards of lemon thyme in the breadcrumbs too, adding piquancy.
The lovage in the turnips was nice, but by far the best thing about this course was the polenta – ironically I’m not a polenta fan, but buried deep inside the smooth concoction was some lovely lemon confit – oh my word, Oh. My. Word… The polenta had also been spiked with a little truffle oil – a perfect little dish – worthy of any two Michelin starred restaurant. I did also try one of the duck fat cooked chips – definitely not for me. In the way that you occasionally pickup up a shard of über crispy roast potato from the bottom of the pan without thinking, this tasted overwhelmingly of fat.
For dessert I ordered the pear soufflé – I’ve been blogging about soufflés lately and, rather ironically, had made the point that finding a good soufflé is rarely about the technical ability of a kitchen, and more about the flavour combinations. Here, I’m very sorry to say it was entirely about the technical skill of the pâtissier – our soufflés were undercooked, and we left them… There was no discernible pear flavour, instead they tasted of scrambled egg whites – bleh! The apparent quenelle of ice-cream you can see in the picture was actually a lukewarm quenelle of cream spiked with mace – both Xavier and I took a big mouthful thinking it would be cold ice-cream – a bit of a shock! I know it was listed on the menu, but it was just a little incongruous..
For over a year Elizabeth and I have been debating about whether it’s fair to blog poor experiences in restaurants, as it can seem that all you’re doing is knocking the kitchen. However, now our debate turned to whether or not you could let such things slip. The is especially true in a two starred restaurant – except this is a two starred pub. We raged endlessly, comparing different two starred restaurants: how did they compare to this; was it relevant to compare them; are there different rules for pubs; why are restaurants like Koffman’s ignored entirely; was it because they were in London and this was in the countryside?
