Run on the mill

Francophile influences in a Warwickshire mill and a touch of the Irish in the heart of London's West End give Menuwatch pause for thought. Fiona Sims investigates.

Marcus Ashenford couldn't be happier with his one-Michelin-starred restaurant's new home. Chavignol, which upped sticks from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, to open in nearby Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, in June, is now in the Old Mill, a picturesque timber-beamed property on the banks of the River Stour, with space to accommodate the restaurant's growing customer base.

The Old Mill has room for 35 seats, which will increase to 50 when a conservatory is built early next year, and a private dining room for 30. At the 26-seat Chipping Norton site, owners Mark and Donna Maguire were turning people away on Saturday nights, so the extra space is welcome.

The five new bedrooms, created out of the Old Mill's original seven and each named after a region of France by the Francophile Maguires, are another bonus and enable the couple to offer a dinner, bed and breakfast package from £240 per room.

With the new site has come a raft of new dishes created by Ashenford, who trained with Michel Roux at the Waterside Inn and then Ramon Farthing during his Calcot Manor days. Beef dishes and scallops remain among the best sellers, but new takes on these include sliced fillet of beef with roasted field mushrooms, puff pastry filled with creamed wild mushrooms, sautéd veal sweetbreads and Madeira sauce. He serves two different scallop dishes on the same plate: one marinated for a couple of minutes in honey and orange on small buckwheat blinis, topped with Sevruga caviar and a cross of asparagus spears; the other roasted, then served on green beans with a red wine and shallot dressing, a slice of roasted red pepper and deep-fried basil leaves.

A starter of grain mustard mousse with pan-fried ox tongue on a purée of cauliflower and truffles with raspberry vinegar sauce is another new dish. "I only sell about one of those a night," Ashenford moans. "People don't want to try ox tongue around here. Scallops and beef, those are what sell."

About three-quarters of diners take a pudding, a popular new one being a chocolate and lemon ravioli with ros‚ de Languedoc and strawberry jelly.

A three-course à la carte meal costs £40 and a table d'h"te menu around £30 for three courses, but the average spend rises to around £70 for dinner with wine. Mark Maguire is something of a wine buff and is working on a new 200-bin list, a tasting room and a wine shop, which will sell the wines served in the restaurant.

Ashenford is supported in the kitchen by four other chefs and by a front of house team of five, including Mark. Donna, meanwhile, runs the front of house at Chav, the brasserie opened by the Maguires on Chavignol's old site. Head chef at Chav is Paul Hayward, former sous chef to Clive Dixon at Lords of the Manor in Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire.

A selection from the à la carte menu at Chavignol (£40 for three courses)

Red mullet baked in tomato vinaigrette with ratatouille and tapenade tagliatelle, minted cucumber and Parmesan crisps
Sautéd foie gras on mushy peas with rillette of Shipston duck, prune and cider compote
Poached duck egg on buttered spinach in a globe artichoke, glazed with hollandaise, with tuna beignets and a beetroot syrup
Roasted sea bass in a pesto minestrone alongside a ravioli of lobster and roasted fennel
Squab pigeon on a carrot and swede purée with fondant potatoes and roasted garlic, a pigeon and oregano sausage and cassis sauce
A warm apple frangipane tart with home-made Granny Smith sorbet and a caramel sauce
Iced honey and muesli parfait with a pineapple sabayon, sesame tuiles and sugared brioche

Menu of the month

Bruno's in Dublin (Caterer, 5 July 2001, page 50) has been named Menu of the Month winner for July. It wins a hamper of Baxters food to the value of £100 and automatically goes forward to the shortlist for the 2002 Cateys Menu of the Year, sponsored by Baxters Foodservice.

Chavignol at The Old Mill, Mill Street, Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire CV36 4AW. Tel: 01608 663888