Harvest Dinner at Denstone Hall
Denstone Hall is an award-winning farm shop and café on the border of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, set on a family-run farm.
I was aware of their wonderful farm shop with its array of local produce – including groceries, cheeses, fresh vegetables as well as a stunning deli and a butcher’s counter featuring their own beef, and also the café where I’d recently had a lovely breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg before some serious food retail therapy in the adjoining shop.
What I didn’t realise, until a month or so ago when I happened to see they would be holding a Harvest Dinner, is that they also host occasional evening events.
Very impressed with what I knew of Denstone Hall already, it sounded like the ideal opportunity to try more of what they seem to do so well, so I immediately booked a table for myself and my partner, ID.
We received the menu via email during August and were asked to return our choices a week before the event in early September.
If you haven’t been to Denstone Hall before, and you’re thinking that a café is not necessarily a suitable environment for an evening meal, rest assured that is not the case here. Yes, it’s unusual to walk through a closed shop to get to your dinner, but the café and open kitchen are lovely, bright and welcoming. The décor is light, fresh and modern without being annoyingly trendy. Pleasant views of the surrounding farmland can be seen from the large windows before dusk fell.
It’s rare that either myself or ID don’t have the full three courses when dining out (actually, that’s sort of the minimum as we have a bit of a penchant for tasting menus…). There’s none of that ‘shall we have a starter or a pudding?’ business with us and, with so many delicious-sounding dishes on a menu packed with local and seasonal produce, this meal was no exception. In fact, when I’d posted the menu online, one of my Facebook followers joked that he was glad he couldn’t make it as it would be ‘wrong to be forced to choose between the dishes on offer’.
I’d already decided on pork for my main course (I’ll tell you why later) so, to me, that discounted one of the starters I’d considered; the pigs cheek bon bon. I’d opted instead for the ballantine of chicken (more usually called a ballotine, meaning a boned, stuffed and rolled piece of meat) and it arrived looking wonderful: slices of a firm-textured mousse of chicken studded with black pudding encased in a very thin outside layer of, I think, chicken meat or skin. The flavour was very delicate but satisfying; the chicken not being overpowered by the black pudding. The pumpkin seed bread was toasted just right for my taste and the pumpkin and pear chutney had the right balance of sweet and savoury.
ID had selected the pig cheek bon bon which I was very pleased about as it meant I could have a taste. It arrived on a slate, not my favourite method of serving, but all was forgiven as it did look beautiful and tasted pretty good too. The bon bon themselves were of a generous size with a nice coarse texture inside. I particularly liked the celeriac puree which was good and buttery.
After many years together, myself and ID’s tastes in food seem to have become conjoined and we often find ourselves ordering the same things. But rather than finding this rather sweet, it’s actually a great annoyance to us because we like to have a taste of as many different dishes as possible (there’s those tasting menus again…) and will always sample each other’s choices. So picking the same dishes seems to us to represent a lost opportunity.
This Harvest Dinner was a case in point. When choosing dishes, I often start with the main course and build around that. And when I see Packington pork on a menu it takes a lot to shift me away from that. So there wasn’t an awful lot of thinking to do when ‘Packington duo of fillet & slow cooked belly pork’ appeared on the Denstone Hall menu. But the same went for ID too.
I should say that unless at a vegetarian restaurant I rarely order a vegetarian main course (although we eat a lot of vegetarian and vegan food at home) and I don’t order much sea fish (despite loving it) unless I’m at the coast. So that left two other, meaty, main courses: Denstone Hall 28 day aged sirloin steak, chips plus all the fixings or a duck leg cooked for eight hours and served with fondant potato and blackberry sauce.
I know Denstone’s own beef is good but, as I’d usually only eat steak and chips as a single course meal, that left the duck which sounded delicious so, as I was still intent on the pork, that meant I had to persuade ID to pre-order the duck so I could try that too. No such luck. He stuck to the pork.
While we were waiting for our dishes to be served, we almost (almost!) regretted our decision as we saw the stunning-looking duck coming off the pass.
But we needn’t have worried. When it came, the pork was just as good as we’d come to expect from Packington and the Denstone kitchen had done it justice. The fillet was so soft and tender and the slow-cooked belly, along with some extra crackling, had the perfect amount of fat to be flavoursome without a trace of greasiness. There was a sensible amount of rich cider gravy and some nicely cooked greens too. The accompanying Sarladaise potatoes were a revelation. I’d never heard of them before so looked them up a few days previously where I found they’re potatoes cooked with garlic and fat, usually duck or goose. In our version, the potatoes were mashed with what appeared to be little pieces of bacon and herbs. I don’t know what fat was used but they were delicious.
While waiting for desserts, and after seeing a cheeseboard on the pass, we’d toyed with the notion of being extra-greedy and sharing some cheeses to finish the meal. But that idea was soon quashed when faced with the very generous puddings.
I had the plum, ginger and almond frangipane; a lovely plum jammy, almondy delight sitting on perfectly crisp pastry and beside it a squiggle of fruity sauce with some Chantilly cream on top. Not one for overly-sweet desserts, I loved the combination of slightly tart plums with rich almond filling and flaked almonds on top.
ID is a sucker for a panna cotta and he’ll nearly always order one if on the menu. He declared this one a winner with just the right amount of wobble. Its mixed berry sauce got the thumbs up from both of us, the natural taste of the berries coming through without being swamped in sweetness. The little cinnamon beignets that came with the panna cotta were a lovely contrast of texture too.
The talents of the kitchen staff were obvious in the food they produced, but front of house staff were excellent too – very friendly and welcoming, providing service that was efficient without being rushed or too slow. They quickly had to hand details of our pre-ordered dishes which they went over with us.
Besides the great food, the café has a lovely atmosphere. It was absolutely buzzing when we were there with tables almost full all the time.
The total cost of our food was just under £25 per person and for dishes of this quality, we think that represents excellent value for money. There isn’t an extensive wine list but we were very happy with our bottle of Malbec for £14.95.
Our server told us that another evening event was currently being planned and we hope to be able to make it that one too.