Martyn Pearn is a chef on a mission at a reborn manor house, writes Food Critic Richard McComb.
He’s done it twice before, but will he pull it off for a third time?
Martyn Pearn’s classically inspired cooking has been awarded Michelin stars on two occasions. One of them came when he was a head chef in France, which if not unique for un rostbif is surely a feat that’s rarely been repeated.
Now Pearn is at the helm at Peel’s restaurant at Hampton Manor, a bespoke country house hotel in Hampton-in-Arden, near Solihull. The setting certainly befits gastronomic opulence, the estate once belonging to Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, and the signs are that this 52-year-old chef is firing on all cylinders.
Pearn, who held a star for a total of 12 years at La Reserve, Bordeaux, and Buckland Manor in the Costwolds, is relishing the challenge of making his mark on the West Midlands dining scene and further afield. He has certainly been given a fine canvas on which to craft his work. Peel’s has been created in a former courtyard at Hampton Manor, the roof constructed in a sympathetic conservatory style that had to confirm to strict planning regulations.
I can’t think of a dining room in the area to rival it for space and natural light. As you gaze up, you spy the beautiful clock tower built by Peel’s son Frederick in 1872. Don’t worry though, the bell doesn’t toll for you, it tolls for Team Pearn, now a brigade of eight.
Pearn, who is refreshingly unfussy, explains how he was “temping” (“I suppose I should say I was a food consultant – but that’s not me”) when he was appointed in spring 2009. Back then, Hampton Manor was a building site, albeit it a glorified Grade II listed building site. The property was undergoing a floor to ceiling refurbishment by new owners Derrick and Janet Hill, who have pumped £5.5 million into one of the country’s most exciting privately-owned hotel projects. Hampton Manor has been transformed from a dingy former care home to a luxurious retreat where Formula One driver Jenson Button has been happy to lay his tousled head.
“When I first saw it, I knew Hampton Manor would be quite a venue,” says Pearn, who’s chatting to me in the fashionably furnished bar. “At the time, the floorboards were up and the electricians were in, but I could see the enthusiasm of the directors.”
The hotel is run by the Hills’ energetic son James and trusted son-in-law Jonny Malcolm and although the original vision for the cooking was “a level up from gastropub” it soon became apparent that Pearn was more suited to the elegant flourishes of haute cuisine. It’s in his blood.
Pearn is unapologetic. He says: “I spent nearly four years under Michel Bourdin at The Connaught and he was such a staunch, classically trained Escoffier disciple. Whatever he passed on to you was embedded with you.
“Bourdin always used to say people remember classical music, but they can’t remember yesterday’s number 1 pop song. I think there’s something in that.”
Pearn maintains he is interested in “sensible cooking” and has moved towards a lighter interpretation of butter and cream-heavy classical techniques. In a sense, he is still finding his way even if the touch is never less than assured. At one stage during our conversation, Pearn muses on the fashion for “dribbling” sauce on plates as opposed to coating ingredients. He says: “Sauce is there to be enjoyed,” adding: “We go somewhere between the two – so there is not too much sauce, but it is enough.”
When Sunday lunch service started at the hotel in March 2009, the kitchen was a one-man band with Pearn has head chef and chief bottle-washer. There wasn’t even a restaurant as such, one of the manor’s formal rooms doubling as a dining room.
By the time Peel’s opened in December 2009, there were four in the kitchen. Today, there are double the number of hands, allowing for more finesse and even fresher preparation for the large 70-cover restaurant.
