Travel & Humanitarian Photos
For a birthday present earlier in the year I received a voucher for lunch at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons restaurant in Oxfordshire. We finally took the opportunity to go recently and I must say that it lived up to all expectations. Usually, the merest hint of unnecessary flamboyance or showy pretension is enough to send me scurrying in the opposite direction. I don’t like meals turned into carnivals and I shudder at the prospect of waiters flouncing around me whilst I try to perform what is, after all, simply an every-day necessity – eating my lunch.
I needn’t have worried. Lunch at Le Manoir was a real delight. Apart from squirming a bit in a jacket that I rarely wear these days, it was a very comfortable experience. The waiting staff were the very definition of understated, the food was delicious – really delicious and the whole experience was remarkably unfussy. I think that my experience of what I can only think to describe as “upper class” restaurants before now has been of establishments that want to show how “upper class” they are. Waiters fuss and make a show of pouring wine (not a tricky task in my experience), menus are complicated and sometimes unintelligible, everything is done with a “look at how posh we are” flounce and both the food and bill are apt to leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
Le Manoir is very different. Perhaps because it really is top notch and so isn’t trying to prove anything. It just is spectacularly good. Waiters and waitresses move silently through the restaurant and, remarkably, they’re friendly. There’s no hurry, no palaver, no sense of being out-of-place. It felt like somewhere that you could pop into for a quiet lunch if you were nearby. Yes, the wine list could more appropriately have been called a wine novel (hundreds of pages) and yes, there were several wines listed at over £1000 a bottle but there were also reasonable offerings and we didn’t go thirsty!
It was also interesting to take a walk around the vegetable and herb gardens before and after lunch. Nice to think that the pumpkin soup I enjoyed had been made from pumpkins taken from the garden and interesting to see the small mushroom farm down by the stream.
I know Mr. Michelin’s stars are much more sought after but Le Manoir gets the thumbs-up from me. Will I go back? I might have to wait for another generous birthday present but yes, I think I might.
