Centurion United Kingdom Spring 2023

London chefs and

London chefs and restaurateurs. With a guaranteed summer trade from holidaymakers, plenty of second-home owners, a (usually) gentle climate, a stunning coastline and a plethora of good produce, it has proved hugely attractive to those seeking respite from London’s hurly-burly. Holm, in Somerset, is a good example. Chef and co-owner Nick Balfe admits he had “never even heard” of South Petherton, the village just west of Yeovil that he now calls home. Most recently head chef of Brixton restaurant Salon, Balfe had spent a decade running restaurants in London before stumbling across the building that was to become Holm. “It really just landed in our lap,” he recalls. “We met the owners of the building and they turned up with a picnic hamper with bread, wine, a Thermos of tea, venison sausages and a whole Baron Bigod cheese.” These, he thought, are people he could do business with. This was August 2021, and the building was “full of rubble. It was a big project. We managed to open that November, but – to be honest – we massively underestimated the challenges we would face. Managing to find talented people for the kitchen and front-of-house, for instance: we were short-staffed for most of last year.” Shortly after the boost of a five-star review in The Telegraph came the low of the Omicron variant – “we had to close for 10 days” – but the rollercoaster ride seems a little smoother now. And some London chefs have moved even further afield. Jon Atashroo, for example, formerly head chef at Tate Modern, who dreamed of being his own boss, looked at properties for five years, including places in Devon and Wales, before eventually landing with his family in Masham, Yorkshire, last February. A chef with Michelin in his DNA, Atashroo’s multicourse tasting menu had its detractors to start with – “one guy rang up and said ‘Is it right I can’t choose?’ and then hung up the phone” – but he has persevered, forging relationships with local farmers and fishmongers, “although early on, one supplier told me I couldn’t have any of his meat because it all went straight to London”. Cooking in the countryside, it transpires, presents many unforeseen challenges, but none of these chefs and restaurateurs is hurrying back to London for anything more than a weekend anytime soon: the fresh air, the sense of community and the quality of life have them all hooked. As Lattin of Emilia restaurant in south Devon puts it, “My commute is 30 minutes across Dartmoor from Chagford to Ashburton, and the only traffic I see is the cows, the sheep and the wild ponies. It’s wonderful.” Emilia, Ashburton, Devon When restaurateur Clare Lattin and her business partner and chef Tom Hill decided they wanted to move away from the day-to-day running of Ducksoup and Little Duck, their two London restaurants, they dreamed of opening “the sort of tiny dining room you might find in a small village or town in Italy” and Emilia, in the pretty Devon town of Ashburton, is just that: there is one big table and a scattering of bar stools. Open for lunch and dinner from Thursday to Saturday, Emilia’s menu features meat from local farmers and produce especially grown for Hill by a biodynamic farm in Dartington: apricots, for example, pickled and plated with local Devon Blue cheese, pappardelle sauced with a ragù of braised beef short-rib, and sorbet made with grappa and Victoria plums. Lattin admits that her wine list, based on her London lists and featuring natural and biodynamic winemakers, has been a harder sell than the food: “The market is still fairly new for these wines here, but our customers are very open and curious, and in the seven months since we’ve been open we’ve seen a tremendous growth in interest.” emiliaashburton.co.uk Ox Barn, Gloucestershire Chef Charlie Hibbert’s long, gleaming kitchen in his five-year-old Ox Barn restaurant was always going to be his domain: Ox Barn is part of Thyme, his family’s glorious Cotswold estate that opened in 2014, while Hibbert’s training – his CV features both Darina Allen at Ballymaloe and Jeremy Lee at Soho’s Quo Vadis – was the perfect preparation for opening his spacious 62-cover restaurant: as the name suggests, it is where the estate’s oxen once dwelt, and boasts hefty, original wooden beams and local stone walls. Hibbert’s duties as chef/director also include Thyme’s cookery school and The Swan, the village pub, recently given a smart makeover by his sister Milly. His menus both at Ox Barn and the pub make full use of the estate’s herb beds, kitchen gardens, fruit and nut orchards, and farm, as well as top-notch produce from local suppliers: wafer-thin crostini PHOTOS PREVIOUS SPREAD CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CLAIRE BINGHAM, ISSY CROKER, LUCAS SMITH, MICHAEL EDDY, © UPDOWN FARMHOUSE, © EMILIA, JADE NINA SARKHEL, PETER CLARK 102 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM

loaded with shaved asparagus, crumbly ricotta and the salty kick of anchovy, perhaps, or crubeens – the Irish dish of boned, rolled and breaded pigs’ trotters – served with great dollops of tarragon-rich gribiche sauce. And Sunday lunches at the pub are superb. thyme.co.uk Argoe, Newlyn, Cornwall Ben Coombs, chef and co-owner of Argoe, a seafood restaurant perched next to Newlyn’s harbour wall, was, until a couple of years ago, head chef at Margot Henderson and Melanie Arnold’s much-lauded Rochelle Canteen. Determined to leave London, he looked at various venues – “one in Edinburgh, one with a walled garden in Kent” – before he got a call from Cornish fish supplier Richard Adams. “Richard said he planned to open in Newlyn: he’d found a shack on the quay that was really just a couple of changing rooms used by the local lifeboat men.” Coombs jumped on board, and is now the proud co-proprietor of a little gem of a restaurant, decked out in Somerset cedar and serving everything from a plate of just-caught sardines – “they don’t even have time to go stiff” – to a whole John Dory, via a trademark fish soup, made from whatever’s local and fresh, mussels steamed in local cider, and perhaps megrim sole – a Newlyn speciality – grilled with oregano. Winter trade has been up and down, says Coombs – “last November and December were abysmal, and we closed for January this year” – but the restaurant is now fully booked, and he loves his new community. “I can’t help but feel happier here, even in bad weather,” he says. “It’s the best move I ever made.” argoenewlyn.co.uk Holm, South Petherton, Somerset Chef Nick Balfe spent 17 years in London, 10 of them running restaurants, before succumbing to the charms of Somerset and opening Holm in South Petherton, a few miles west of Yeovil. He met his wife while working at Salon, in Brixton Market, “but we were both yearning for a bit of space and security,” and so, two years ago, they moved themselves and their three children to a house opposite the restaurant, opening their new business in November 2021. Holm’s woody, bare-brick dining room offers diners both a tasting menu and a shorter set menu: in terms of developing his dishes, Balfe’s access to local suppliers was, he says, “a game-changer. Being able to buy venison, Old Spot pigs, hogget, more or Bavette with beetroot, horseradish and bitter leaves at Ox Barn PHOTO KIRSTIE YOUNG CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 103