Tag Archives: Suffolk

Home, said Elvis, is where the heart is. I agree, I love my home – even if over the past 20 months, I’ve been getting to know the inside of my home a little too well.

Today I visited a different sort of home, but one just as heart-warming as my own. This one nestles in the elegant honey-stoned Somerset market town of South Petherton – and it also happens to be a restaurant. 

This home, though, is spelled Holm, rather than Home. A holm, I learn, means an islet of a river – an appropriate name for a spot that’s in the heart of the Somerset Levels. Holm the restaurant is the fourth opening from the talented team behind London’s Salon, Levan and Larry’s restaurants, all sharing an emphasis on seasonal and creative food in a casual setting.

As I’m a food writer, you might not be too astonished to hear that I’ve just eaten in a restaurant. But hang on a mo. You might also know that for this past year I’ve set myself the challenge of eating only British food. So eating out is now something I don’t do lightly, or without careful research beforehand. But having met co-owner Mark Gurney while volunteering at Melilot Farm in Cornwall this summer, I felt confident there’d be enough for me to eat.

I am not mistaken. Appetiser is a Westcombe Cheddar fry, a spin on the Comte fry that’s become a signature at Salon. An assembly of confit leek, Westcombe cheddar and flour, it’s topped with pickled walnut ketchup and finely grated Cheddar.  Of course it leaves me wanting more, and luckily more is there in the form of a plate of vegetable pickles and a chunk of homemade sourdough as big as my fist. I slather its pillowy dough with lashings of Longman’s butter, sprinkled with properly British sea salt. 

Ingredients are ridiculously local too – so much so that on a fine day you could probably see the fields where your veg is grown. I kick off my three-course lunchtime menu (£25) with a roasted beetroot risotto that happily shuns white rice in favour of Sharpham Park spelt grains which are beautifully nutty without being virtuous. A nice kick of acidicity is provided by the pickled fried onions on the top, that are crowned by that winter herbal beauty, chervil.  

The decor is equally honest and unpretentious – walls stripped down to bare plaster, custom-crafted round oak tables, and simple black and white prints. The grandiose building used to be a bank and its vaults have cunningly been transformed into storage for Mark’s selection of low-intervention wines, divided into Classics and Outliers. Any alarm I might feel at discovering that none are British is soon dispelled by the discovery that Holm stocks no fewer than five British ciders, including a single-variety Dabinett from the tiny Honey Pot Farm just down the road.

But it’s the main course that really hits the jackpot and has me planning my return visit after the first mouthful. It’s a ragu of local venison married with pappardelle that’s handmade from local Shipton Mill flour. Henry Osmond, the head chef, tells me it’s from a wild Sika deer that’s been shot locally, then butchered and cooked on site. The offal is nabbed to fill the Devils on Horseback on the evening tasting menu, but my ragu is a wonderous blend of confit shoulder, smoked ham hock, tomatoes and spices. What. A. Dish.  

Dessert is a choice between Chocolate mousse, spelt crumb, and miso ice cream. Or Blackcurrant sorbet with honeycomb. Chocolate and miso being out of bounds for another three weeks (on account of being dastardly foreign) I plump for the sorbet and am not disappointed. I hear squeals of delight from my neighbours as I watch Mark gently work the room to ensure we’re all happy. Such service is an unusual delight, but makes all the difference. 

I certainly haven’t gone hungry. I depart deeply grateful to have been able to eat not only British but almost exclusively Somerset. I feel gently thrilled by Holm’s honest, inventive food; and calmed by its friendly service and surroundings. You could say it’s Holm from Holm. But that’d be too much of a cliche.

Hi all, I hope you’re keeping well and maybe making the most of being at home to do a bit more cooking than usual. As you’ll have heard in the media, supermarkets are doing fantastically well out of corona. But sadly what the media don’t talk about are the small, independent food businesses who are having a very hard time indeed, and badly need our support. Luckily for us,  these businesses can deliver, so it’s easy to buy their goods – a lot easier, in fact, than queueing for hours outside the supermarkets. So it’s a win-win. Over the last few weeks, I covered cheese and meat producers, this week I’m connecting you to companies who produce everything from lentils to fudge, coffee, bread, veg or spuds. There’s even a tiny one-woman-band producing saffron in Norfolk. So please use the power of your pocket to support these guys and get ordering, and pass this on to any of your friends who might find it useful. Thank you.

Hodmedod’s are often nicknamed the Bean Boys as their thing is beans – from lentils to split peas, chickpeas and fava beans (two pictures above). They’re all grown in the UK. The Suffolk-based company also produces a wide and interesting range of flours, which has made it very popular in recent weeks (and are mostly sold out). Pulses like lentils and chickpeas can be a godsend if you’ve run out of veg, so are worth keeping in your storecupboard just in case. Order online, delivery £3.95 for orders under £40, FREE for orders £40 or more.

Origin Coffee Roasters, based in Cornwall, depend on restaurants, bars and delis for much of their trade, so need our business just now. As they supply the coffee at our Bristol feasts, I can vouch for their excellence, and given that you’re probably spending more time at home, you might as well be drinking something decent – such as their San Fermin, sourced direct from farmers in Colombia. They offer subscriptions too, and will deliver to your door. If  you order before the end of April, you can get a 20% discount.

Why not use your extra time at home to learn how to use British saffron? You can buy it from Norfolk Saffron , one of Britain’s main producers of saffron. Use it in risottos or paellas. Sally Francis, who grows the saffron crocuses herself, now also produces saffron flour – perfect for breads, cakes and biscuits.

Veronica Farm, on Bryher, one of the Isles of Scilly, is an essential stop on any tour of the island on account of its delicious fudge. It’s made with milk, cream and butter from Troytown Farm on neighbouring St Agnes, as well as salt from St Martin’s, and honey from Bryher when available. Kris Taylor, who makes the fudge, sells it from an honesty stall in front of the farm, but with lockdown there are obviously no visitors so online orders are crucial. Happily it’s very postable! Why not sweeten a friend’s quarantine with a packet of Kris’ fudge? The Scillonian Sea Salt gets my top vote, although it’s a close run thing with the Whisky and Stem Ginger.

Normally it’s only restaurants who can get hold of Natoora‘s top-class veg, but with eating places closed, now you too can get your hands on this veg and have it delivered to your door – provided you live in London (zones 1-4), Oxford or Cambridge. Natoora has also partnered with independent food and drink suppliers to provide things like beer, milk, bread, meat and spirits, which you can order in addition to your veg. Delivery is just £6 and to register, just press here.

It’s well worth a pilgrimage to Orford on the Suffolk coast to try the breads and cakes at Pump Street Bakery. Lockdown may make this impossible, but the good news is that you can make a virtual pilgrimage by ordering their bakery goods and chocolate online. Just visit their website and check out their Doorstep Friendly Packages – including, if you wish, their famous Eccles cakes.

Lucy and Anthony Carroll (Lucy pictured above) grow 13 amazing varieties of heritage potatoes on their Northumberland farm, and before corona you’d have spotted them on the plates of celebrity chefs such as Simon Rogan and Tom Kerridge. Happily they deliver to British homes too, so why not use lockdown as a fantastic opportunity to try some potato varieties you’ve never tasted before? Like the knobbly, waxy textured and delicately flavoured Pink Fir Apple 1850; the gloriously floury Mayan Gold with golden coloured flesh; or purple-skinned Shetland Black (pictured below) believed to have been salvaged from the Spanish Armada. Prices range from £3.99 for 1.5 kg and £24- £28 for 12.5 kg. Discount of 15% on orders over £47, next day delivery.