In May this year I won a competition with Demuths and Meat Free Monday for a meal for 2 in Demuths restaurant and a day at the vegetarian cookery school. I was absolutely over the moon as I'd been to Demuths before and loved it and have always, always wanted to go to the cookery school! So Mr Hef and I booked a super cute B&B just outside of Bath (It was called Fern Cottage and run by the nicest couple I have ever met in my life!) and enjoyed a weekend of relaxation and amazing food! Since I won the competition the restaurant has been taken over by it's head chef Richard Buckley and is now called Acorns, but the amazing food and wonderful atmosphere is exactly the same as I remember it and if I didn't live over 100 miles away I would visit this restaurant as much as physically possible!
Going to a vegetarian meal with Mr Hef is always a joy because he doesn't know which vegetable is which (really!) which keeps me laughing for the whole meal! He also never really knows what to pick, so I usually get to choose for him and (selfishly) pick things that I want so that I can eat them too. So for his starter he had carrot and cashew pate with spelt toast, seasonal leaves and herbs, ginger gastrique and tamari cashews.
I had truffled broccoli with cauliflower pannacotta, pickled Kohl Rabi and a thyme dressing. I definitely preferred my starter, but both of them were absolutely delicious! The cauliflower pannacotta was particularly yummy, with a caramelised top and a soft creamy base it went perfectly with the truffled broccoli.
For the main meal I went for the stuffed courgette flower with smoked Dorset red and ricotta, cannellini beans and chard, in a romesco sauce. I've always wanted to try a stuffed courgette flower, and it definitely didn't disappoint. It was full of flavour, and the courgette flower was litterally oozing with smoked Dorset red and ricotta goodness. So much so that Mr Hef got a bit jealous and wished he'd ordered it.
I also really liked the look of his white onion tatin with heritage carrots, runner beans and greens, rosary goat's cheese mousse and curried emulsion, so we swapped halfway through (which makes me seriously happy, I never get to do that in restaurants!) The tatin was also extremely yummy, half an onion in a delicious pastry case, what's not to like!
By this point I was feeling pretty full, but not too full to miss desert. There's always room for desert, especially if it's chocolate ganache with salted caramel, candied pistachios, raspberries and what can only be described as a chunk of chocolate on the side. I pretty much want to eat anything that has salted carmel involved, so this was the obvious choice. It was as rich and delicious as it looks, the perfect end to the incredible meal and enough to make me need a little lie down afterwards.
The restaurant it's self is so cute and comfortable, it literally looks like someone's front room. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend giving it a try!
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