The Swan @ Stoford (again!)

We were fortunate enough to be in Stoford at the weekend, just after the autumn menu had been launched by their wonderful new chef.

They were very, very busy. Very busy.  They had had an unexpected coach load of visitors in earlier.  I think the kitchen staff were quite harassed.  The bar and waiting staff were running around looking worried.  All the tables were booked up.  There were LOTS of people in the building.

We seem to have acquired our own table - at least, we are usually sat at it, up in the corner, by the window.  We sat there, calm and relaxed, watching the hubbub, perusing the menu and sipping wine.

The Builder and I remembered from our last visit that having chips and garlic bread and such things before the main course had not been a good idea.  We ate so much of that that we struggled to eat our main course.  So we decided to be very good and not have a starter of any sort.  Until I saw the scallops on the menu.  Sorry, but if there are scallops on offer - then I'm having them!! 

The scallops were amazing.  Absolutely amazing.  They were seared and beautifully cooked.  They came with smokey cauliflower puree and shallots and crsipy pancetta.  Wonderful they were.  Unhappily for me, The Builder also thought they were amazing and had scoffed his by the time I had finished mine.  Just as well for him though, or I would have removed them from him - by force if necessary.  Yum-diddli-umptious they were.

I suspect I was thwarted in my burger ambitions by the unexpected group of coach people.  So I ordered the salmon (which I had been pondering anyway). The Builder had haddock and chips.  The salmon came with butternut squash mash and lemon and thyme potatoes. (It also came with baby turnips but, as everyone knows, turnips are cattle fodder not people food.  The Builder appears to think he is a cattle and he ate them instead!!).  Had I not just eaten the yum-diddli-umptious scallop dish, I would have said that my salmon was one of the best things I had eaten in a very long time - notwithstanding all the other delicious food I had eaten over the past couple of weeks.  I snuck a couple of tastes of The Builder's battered haddock. It was oh-so-very nearly as sublime as my salmon.

There was a bit of a wait between courses - but that works for me.  I can't eat my main course and enjoy it if the courses rush in one after the other.  But it says a very great deal about the competence of the kitchen staff that they could be so busy, so harassed and so frantic and still turn out such splendid food.

The question now though is - how do we convince this chef to stay?  I was thinking of nailing his feet to the floor - but that might limit his cooking capacity!

(The front of house staff are pretty good too.  You'd never think they had been rushed off their feet all day!)

Now.  When can I get back to Stoford for more of those scallops before the chef moves on to his winter menu .....

Not a great photo - but the scallops were magnificent