A Wedding Anniversary Celebrated with a Fine Dinner in a Michelin Starred Restaurant
Baslow Hall
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| Derbyshire |
Baslow Hall, a little north of the village, looks at first sight a typical 17th century country squire’s residence. It was, though, built in 1907 by the family of Jeremiah Stockdale, vicar of Baslow.
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| Baslow Hall, Baslow |
In 1913 the hall was bought by electrical engineer and inventor Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti who had founded S.Z. de Ferranti (later Ferranti International plc) in 1885. From 1919 Baslow Hall had its own generator and more electrical gadgets than any other house of its time, even an electric laundry.
After Ferranti’s death in 1930, the Hall changed ownership several times before being bought by Max and Susan Fischer in 1988. After refurbishment Fischer’s Baslow Hall opened as a fine-dining restaurant with rooms in October 1989. It won a Michelin Star in 1994 and has maintained it ever since. [At least for the next few months. The star was lost when the 2020 edition of the guide was published in autumn 2019]
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| Baslow Hall |
Max Fischer
Max Fischer was born in Lüneburg, left school at 16 and became apprenticed to a local chef. He worked in Germany and then in two Michelin starred establishments, the Restaurant Nicholas in Paris and the Bell Inn at Aston Clinton where, in 1975, he met his wife Susan. Spells in Sweden and Germany followed, before he and Susan took over a small café in Bakewell in 1980 and thence to Baslow Hall in 1989.
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| Kitchen Garden, Baslow Hall |
Max now styles himself ‘Executive Chef’. The Head Chef is Barnsley born James Payne. After some years with Gordon Ramsey at Claridge’s he came to Baslow Hall as a Chef de Partie in 2010, working his way up through the ranks to become head chef this year.
Dinner at Fischer's, Baslow Hall
Apéritifs and Canapés
At the appointed hour we made our way to the lounge. The drinks menu listed seven gins, headed by old favourite Tanqueray, but willing to try something new we looked further down. Each gin was described in a word, or for Tanqueray two - ‘traditional London’, other words included ‘cucumber’ and ‘citrus’. Call us old-fashioned but we wanted a gin not a smoothie. Dingle, however, distilled in that fine Irish town (we visited in 2016), was described as ‘juniper’ – perfect. And very good it was too.
The canapés were pretty. On the left a shell of filo pastry with raw beef and a blob of black garlic on caramelised onion. The elements were top quality, the combination brilliant. Pork rind lounged in the centre laced with something not quite as simple as mayonnaise. It was fine, but however you dress up a pork scratching, it is still a pork scratching. On the right was a crisp mini-pizza with tomato and cheese. The world is full of rubbish pizzas; this is what they should be like (if a tad bigger for a main course.)
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| Canapés, Fischer's, Baslow Hall |
Decor, Amuse-Bouches and Starters
We moved through to the dining room. Professional restaurant critics, of whom I am not one, often bang on about décor; some devote more space to interior design than cooking. Not me, I am here for the food not the curtains. Jay Rayner visited for the Guardian in 2015 and in the course of a faintly patronising review he called Baslow Hall, ‘a venerable country house hotel....where the outbreaks of floral and chintz made me mutter about being buried alive in Laura Ashley’s coffin. In here there is no design issue that cannot be solved by the liberal application of pelmets.’ I know only a little more about interior design than Donald Trump knows about cricket, but surely the design criteria for an urban space would be different from a country house – though according to Rayner the concept of a house in the country is so very 1980s. Perhaps it would have been more fashionable to gather them all up and move them inside the M25.
A tiny bowl of Wye Valley asparagus soup (presumably Herefordshire not Derbyshire's Wye Valley) was intensely flavoured with a swirl of tarragon oil adding an unexpected but delicious counterpoint. Food comes from the country, Jay, and it does not come any better than this.
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| A miraculous little bowl of asparagus soup, Fischer's, Baslow Hall |
And then along came an excellent sourdough loaf with Abernethy butter and black garlic. All wonderful stuff but at this stage of the meal, what is it for? A question I have asked before.
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| Top class bread, but this is not quite when I want it, Fischer's Baslow Hall |
Lynne’s first-course choice was hand dived scallops with tomato, lovage and Cornish gouda. She often orders scallops, knowing they will not match up to Claude Bosi’s at the Ludlow iteration of Hibiscus. Bosi had the confidence to do (almost) nothing to his scallops, and Lynne believes, even as she orders, that all other scallop dishes try too hard.
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| Scallops, Fischer's, Baslow Hall |
These scallops were excellent, well-flavoured and accurately cooked, the lovage sauce a positive addition. The Cornish Gouda did little, though a stronger cheese/fish combination would have been unwelcome. The Dutch Spierings family enthusiastically produce traditional Gouda on their southeast Cornwall farm; a tad strange maybe, though I admire their enterprise and commitment. The unidentified ‘black things’ (looking misleadingly burnt) added crunch. Overall, she thought the dish impressive, but having eaten the platonic template of scallop dishes, nothing else completely satisfies.
My goose liver ballotine with peach, almond and camomile looked megalithic, sculpted cromlechs of peach forming a circle round a menhir of goose liver. The blobs of camomile had little flavour – fine, I don’t much like camomile – but with the almond flakes they provided contrasting textures. The ballotine in the middle was sumptuous, soft and elegant. The peach was a pleasant sweet/acid counterfoil, but the liver hardly needed it, I would joyfully have eaten a whole bowlful with a spoon (though I don’t think it would have done me much good).
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| Ballotine of goose liver, Fischer's, Baslow Hall I know this is out of focus, but it's a bad photo or no photo - sorry |
Main Courses, Rabbit and Beef
Lynne liked her main course, loin of rabbit with Scottish langoustine, crispy leg and sweet cicely but was mildly bemused by the langoustine. ‘It was lovely, but a bit like having two different dinners on the same plate.’ The crispy little leg croquette was a success, but overall, although the rabbit was perfectly cooked, it was not particularly rabbity.
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| Loin of rabbit, Fischers, Baslow Hall |
I chose shorthorn beef with potato “tartiflette”, smoked short rib and garden leeks. The beef was first class. Cooked rare, as requested, it was tender without loosing its texture, and full of flavour. The short rib beneath had little smokiness but was soft, beguiling, slow cooked beef at its best. The sauce – or jus, or gravy – was deep, rich and satisfying. The vegetable accompaniment was just that, an accompaniment to the star performer. There was potato, there was leek and there was something delightfully caramelised. I had no more idea what tartiflette meant at the end than I had when I ordered, though I now know it involves bacon, cream and reblochon cheese. I do not recall any bacon or cheese, maybe the inverted commas suggested variations from the script but I don’t really care, everything came together in a substantial plateful of loveliness so what more could I want?
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| Short horn beef, Fischers, Baslow Hall |
Lynne’s choices required white wine, mine red so we had a half bottle of Sancerre and similar of Gigondas. Both were good and of their type, but not outstanding, so given the usual hefty mark-up we were a little disappointed. The bottles were whisked away after pouring - the staff were attentive enough to ensure our glasses never ran dry, but why do this? I do not find pouring my own wine a burden, nor do I object to the sight of a bottle on a table; I like good service, but this felt oddly intrusive.
Pre-Desserts, Desserts and Cheese
A pre-dessert of elderflower ice-cream, fermented strawberries and sweet cicely (her, again) was three mouthfuls of deliciousness, though I wonder how (and why) anyone ferments a strawberry.
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| Pre-dessert, Fischer's Baslow Hall |
Lynne’s desert was pretty and delicious. At his point, Jay Rayner, having had an unadventurous lunch, moans‘it’s as if the setting makes the offering of a crumble or something dense and steamed simply unconscionable’. Unlike Mr Rayner, I was paying for my own meal, and at these prices I expect something more complex than comfort food - not that there is anything wrong with an apple crumble, at the right time and place.
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| Dessert, Fischer's Baslow Hall |
I went for cheese. The selection was impressive and all British, so I will restate my delight at the rebirth of British artisan cheese-making, and regret that such delights can only be found in specialist shops (and top-end restaurants.)
I have come across Tunworth, bottom left, from Hampshire before. Described as a ‘British camembert’ it was under-ripe at my first meeting and I was hoping to discover why it wins prizes, but this was over-ripe, and still short on flavour. [2022 Update: At my third attempt I bought a perfect Tunworth at Gloucester Services on the M5. It was worth it the wait.] Perl Wen (White Pearl), bottom right from Cenarth on the Carmarthen/Ceredigion/Pembroke border claims to be a ‘unique cross between Brie and Caerffili’. I hate to dis my native heath but I have never been a big fan of Caerphilly (Anglo spelling), and ditto, sadly, Perl Wen.
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| Cheese, Fischer's, Baslow Hall |
Irritatingly the best cheeses are the three that must remain nameless (because I have forgotten). The blue and the goats’ cheese, so ripe it was dissolving into a puddle of its own unctuousness, were lovely, but the star was the unprepossessing fish shaped thing across the middle of the plate. At the perfection of ripeness, it was strong, elegant and as fine a cheese as I have ever been privileged to eat.
Coffee and Petit-Fours
And so coffee, petit fours and a cognac from the cheaper end of the list brought our wedding anniversary meal to an end. Jay Rayner was generally complimentary about the food, but after being chided by a (metropolitan?) reader that he is harsher on London restaurants he replies ‘I put more effort in trying to find good places outside London because what’s the point of a crap review of somewhere in, say, Derbyshire?...And sometimes even when you do find solid cooking, it comes with a side order of floral print.’
‘Solid cooking’? Damning with faint praise? He came for Sunday lunch, ate roast beef and wanted apple crumble, which speaks volumes about his expectations of ‘somewhere in Derbyshire.’ Whether Michelin stars are the be-all and end-all of good restaurants is another argument, but they do guarantee high quality cooking and a degree of inventiveness in the menu. There are about 140 starred restaurants in the UK, roughly half in London, leaving 70 in "places like Derbyshire" where the cooking, if you take the trouble to look, is better than ‘solid.’
I usually like Jay Rayner, there is more to him than just a metropolitan snob, but not in this review. We liked Fischer’s, we liked the cooking and we liked the ambience (though our bedroom was rather small). I would hope a 3-starred meal would be perfection, at 1-star I have always found something to quibble with, though rarely more than a quibble. For us, Fischer’s amply justified its place in the restaurant elite, whether judged by London or Derbyshire standards.
Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)
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