The hotel itself is a group of old, but well kept buildings in lovely landscaped garden/forest. It is set on very large grounds so you feel isolated from nearby Bagshot. The England Rugby training centre is also on the hotel grounds and there is a golf course, although you don't see it from the hotel. There is a massive Spa as part of the complex with numerous pools (indoor and out), jacuzzi's, restaurants, treatment rooms and even an ice room - picture a sauna but freezing cold with two walls made of ice and an crushed ice dispenser where the hot coals would normally be. Mrs. T and I went into the ice room for about 1 min, enough to throw ice chips at each other before we ran for the nearest source of hot water.
Next were some amuse bouche of smoked baba ganoush with yogurt and bombay mix (in the cones), pea and mint aranchini and pig trotter croquettes with a tiny spot of very zingy piccalilli on top...all delicious, especially the croquette.
First course was one of our favourites, the octopus. There were three pieces of really tender (cooked sous vide) octopus in a nice herb sauce with a pickled turnip on top...although we were picking sesame seeds out of our teeth for the next 5 min. :)
Next up was an absolutely delicious citrus-cured salmon dish with blackberries and fig puree. Not sure how this worked, but it did. The texture of the salmon was a bit strange...maybe it was slightly over-cured??, not sure...but it didn't stop this from being of our favourite dishes - especially when you got a bit with everything all together. They told us this was currently a "test" dish the kitchen was trying out to see if people liked it. Thumbs up from us.
Next dish was pressed lamb shoulder with a sharp goats curd and a buttermilk foam to offset the rich meat. Mrs. T isn't a fan of mint and this dish had quite a bit in the sauce so it wasn't her favourite. I enjoyed it.
The red mullet dish was really well cooked and again delicious with some white crab meat and a very rich crab bisque. The bisque also tasted of coriander and lemongrass, so had kind of a Thai feel. Couldn't fault it.
The "main" was the veal dish with a perfectly cooked fillet and sweetbread with some mushroom duxelles (under the little wafer thin potato crisp) and one of the few vegetables we saw all night - one leaf of baby cavolo nero we think (the green poking out under the potato). I could have eaten a whole plate of the sweetbreads and the little brown blob at the top was a really zingy mushroom ketchup (basically a really nice "brown sauce" for those of you living in England).
We both actually hated the next dish - lavender ice cream. Nobody likes to eat lavender...it is like eating soap. Pretty though.
The real desserts came next, and they clearly have a very skilled pastry chef. First was a really light and summery passion fruit and mango dish and then a heavenly chocolate delice and ice cream.
Finally, with the bill came with these little Caneles De Bordeaux. We were so full by this stage, we only managed to try one bite, but they were nice.
Our room was a decent size with a king bed and all the mod cons, although the low doors and beams meant you had to keep your wits about you not to bang your head. The bathroom was good sized with both a large shower room and a bathtub. The shower had a ridiculously complicated set of digital controls for "programmes" that had hot or cold water variously cycling through the overhead rain shower, a "waterfall" and two horizontal shower heads on the wall. After some hilarious trial and error, we eventually figured out how to engage manual mode. The only real issue was that our room was hot. There was AC, but it wasn't very efficient at cooling the room, the vent being tucked over in a little alcove by the closet (tucked away over on the left of the second photo). There were helpfully two quiet Dyson fans in the room to spread the cool air out into the room itself.
The main event and reason behind the trip was dinner at restaurant Matt Worswick at the Latymer. The Latymer used to have 2 Michelin stars when Michael Wignall was in charge, but he left a year or so ago. The hotel brought in Matt Worswick, presumably to get those stars back. He has a sterling CV of working in top restaurants and has taken part in various BBC TV cooking competitions (Masterchef: The Professionals and Great British Menu).
We opted for the tasting menu, which was 8 courses with six matching wines.
We started with some freshly baked sourdough bread with Irish butter and Wagyu beef dripping...lovely stuff.
Next were some amuse bouche of smoked baba ganoush with yogurt and bombay mix (in the cones), pea and mint aranchini and pig trotter croquettes with a tiny spot of very zingy piccalilli on top...all delicious, especially the croquette.
First course was one of our favourites, the octopus. There were three pieces of really tender (cooked sous vide) octopus in a nice herb sauce with a pickled turnip on top...although we were picking sesame seeds out of our teeth for the next 5 min. :)
Next up was an absolutely delicious citrus-cured salmon dish with blackberries and fig puree. Not sure how this worked, but it did. The texture of the salmon was a bit strange...maybe it was slightly over-cured??, not sure...but it didn't stop this from being of our favourite dishes - especially when you got a bit with everything all together. They told us this was currently a "test" dish the kitchen was trying out to see if people liked it. Thumbs up from us.
Next dish was pressed lamb shoulder with a sharp goats curd and a buttermilk foam to offset the rich meat. Mrs. T isn't a fan of mint and this dish had quite a bit in the sauce so it wasn't her favourite. I enjoyed it.
The red mullet dish was really well cooked and again delicious with some white crab meat and a very rich crab bisque. The bisque also tasted of coriander and lemongrass, so had kind of a Thai feel. Couldn't fault it.
The "main" was the veal dish with a perfectly cooked fillet and sweetbread with some mushroom duxelles (under the little wafer thin potato crisp) and one of the few vegetables we saw all night - one leaf of baby cavolo nero we think (the green poking out under the potato). I could have eaten a whole plate of the sweetbreads and the little brown blob at the top was a really zingy mushroom ketchup (basically a really nice "brown sauce" for those of you living in England).
We both actually hated the next dish - lavender ice cream. Nobody likes to eat lavender...it is like eating soap. Pretty though.
The real desserts came next, and they clearly have a very skilled pastry chef. First was a really light and summery passion fruit and mango dish and then a heavenly chocolate delice and ice cream.
Finally, with the bill came with these little Caneles De Bordeaux. We were so full by this stage, we only managed to try one bite, but they were nice.
The food was really excellent all night, aside from the lavender. Every dish had loads of flavour and we had some genuinely unusual and interesting flavour combos (see the Salmon dish). Other dishes were more traditional pairings, but they usually still had something of interest on the plate. Seasoning was spot on with every dish, with no cooking errors to speak of. The stand-out dishes for both of us were the Octopus, the Salmon, and passion fruit dessert...oh, and the tiny little pig trotter amuse was amazing as well.
Service was very slick, friendly and flawless all night. It was a little bit on the formal side, not surprising in a 5 star spa hotel, but not overly so. The sommelier did a decent job matching wine with the food and was very enthusiastic describing the wines, although he had a very thick French accent and was a little hard to understand at times.
They should easily get a Michelin star back when the 2018 list comes out in a couple months.
Highly recommended.
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