Menuwatch – The Park, Sutton on the Forest
After winning one Michelin star at the Black Swan at Oldstead, chef Adam Jackson has gone out on his own and opened a charming little restaurant in the grounds of Sutton Park in North Yorkshire. Tom Vaughan pays a visit
If chef Adam Jackson repeats the remarkable feats he achieved at his previous restaurant, the Black Swan at Oldstead, he will find himself running the only Michelin-starred tea room in the country.
A former stable block in the grounds of Sutton Park stately home, part of it is still run by his wife as a tearoom, but after leaving his post at the Black Swan last June, Jackson has transformed the other half into a bijou, 16-cover fine-diner to showcase his imaginative modern European cooking.
While flying solo is always scary, the motives behind Jackson's dive into the unknown are plain for anyone to see: as well as living in the village, Jackson has the bounty of Sutton Park's estate to craft his menus with.
"When I come into work, I walk through our kitchen garden, where we grow three types of raspberries, peas, broad beans and asparagus," says Jackson.
"There's mushrooms from the estate, wild herbs and sorrel; game from the gamekeepers; and cattle and sheep, which are grazed on the estate and killed in the village abattoir. And with 16 covers we have the time to do everything we want with the whole animal - we're not working flat out to feed an 80-cover restaurant."
There are plenty of amateur supper clubs out there with more than 16 covers and two chefs in the kitchen, and some of them (especially in London) don't charge far off the £48 it costs for Jackson's eight-course tasting menu. What they don't have is someone of Jackson's calibre -â¨a largely self-taught chef whose innate talent saw him pick up a Michelin star at the Black Swan.
"You sort of teach yourself a lot of the stuff," he says. "I didn't do any stages, it was about trying new things. When the Swan gave meâ¨a free rein, it was all I needed."
This lack of formal education means that Jackson's style is â¨unrestrained by any national boundary, and so he treats British seasonal produce in a broad spectrum of international styles.
"You can blend different styles," says Jackson. "It's not hard to incorporate Italian, French and Japanese in one dish. I mean, dim sum is just ravioli, isn't it?"
Witness, for example, a carpaccio of salmon, marinated in lime and sugar, with a salmon tartare and sushi ginger bound in â¨wasabi mayonnaise and rolled in â¨compressed cucumber. Or his take on a NiÁ§oise salad, with sushi-grade tuna tartare, pepper purée, a fennel bread tuile, tapenade and tomato salsa.
The basic formula for each dish is more or less the same - three main ingredients, each treated in a variety of different ways, to deliver a dish brimming withâ¨creativity and imagination.
A pork, sage and onion main has a stuffed, rolled fillet, 14-hour braised cheek, pork belly, crispy pig's ear, onion purée and a modern take on boulangère potatoes, poached in a water bath with pork stock, sage and shallots.
"It's about having the time to do the animal justice and try and use every part of it," says Jackson. Having the time to showcase â¨each ingredient properly not only keeps dishes both sophisticated and uncomplicated at the same time, but helps the GP. For example, pears from the kitchen garden go into a dessert of vanilla parfait with compressed pear, raw pear, pear granita, pear jelly and pear and vanilla consommé.
The menu changes every two weeks, and each of the eight courses arrives with the same imagination - even the bread course.
"We wanted it to eat like a proper course," says Jackson. "So we have things like a focaccia with tomato ragÁ¹ and whipped mascarpone, which eats like a pizza."
As well as the startlingly good-value tasting menu, there is also a £22 three-course set menu from Tuesday to Thursday.
It all seems like a chef's dream - the time and produce to really stretch and challenge you, all in your own bijou space. And ifâ¨Jackson can gain similar recognition as he did at the Swan, it'llâ¨be a dream come true: "I believe we're knocking out one-Michelin-starred food," he says. "If anything, the quality is better because of the size of the restaurant."
Sample dishes from the menu
•Tomato, mozzarella, basil
•Pork, pease pudding, parsley
•Salmon, crab, saffron
•Dim sum, sweetcorn, pak choi
•Lamb, swede, carrot, barley
•Venison with carrots and salsify
•Yorkshire rhubarb, white chocolate, tonka bean
•Crème catalan, blood orange, raisins
•Chocolate, mango, passion fruit
The Park Restaurant
Sutton Park
Sutton on the Forest
York YO61 1DP
www.theparkrestaurant.co.uk