Our thoughts on eating well....for what they're worth!

It has always been our view that one of the central experiences of a country house welcome is the food.  In these times of an ever enlightened and discerning dining audience  'food miles' and provenance is very much on the agenda.

 Whilst buying and using local produce is clearly a good principle, there is little point in doing so if better quality ingredients can be sourced from further afield. 

Luckily Monmouthshire is blessed with an abundance of dedicated small producers, specialising in lovingly grown or reared ingredients, and we don't have to look much further than our doorstep for about 80% of what we require.

We use rare breed and organic products wherever possible, and would rather pay a little bit more to get the very best ingredients.  To give you just a flavour of the 60 different suppliers we work with, we regularly use properley-aged Long Horn, Hereford or Welsh Black Beef, sweet free-grazing Shropshire or Jacob Lamb, Old Spot or Saddleback Pork, and succulent Brecon Venison.  Fresh fish is from Swansea Bay and the Gower Peninsula, aswell as seafood from the North Wales coast. 

The Cheeseboard is made up from a changing selection, all of them Welsh, many of them organic and unpasturised.  Smoked fish and meat is from Crickhowell, and most of our wild game is from local shoots on the Clytha and Llanarth Estates.

The Kitchen....

With such high quality ingredients to work with we have always aimed to let the quality shine through.  Steve Bennett, our classically trained Head Chef whose formative years including time with John Burton-Race at double michelin starred  L'Ortolan, and at the famous  21, Queen Street in Newcastle, shared that vision.  

He and his team understand that well-presented, skillfully prepared and accurately cooked food represents all that is good about the 'foodie' revolution happening in Wales. 

It is no accident that Abergavenny and its surroundings are now home to arguably a third of Wales's top twenty places to dine, and the hugely successful Abergavenny Food Festival.

downloadable sample A La Carte Menu

downloadable sample Table D'Hote Dinner Menu

downloadable sample Sunday Lunch Menu

downloadable sample Table D'Hote Lunch Menu