Harden's survey result
For 25 years we've been curating reviews of the UK's most notable restaurant. This year diners have submitted over 60,000 reviews to create the most authoritative restaurant guide in the UK.
Summary
“Vaux le détour” – Fernando & Kristy Stovell’s beamed farmhouse just outside Chobham deserves some recognition from the Michelin man, for its consistently “assured” and “sublime” cuisine. If there’s a quibble it’s that “the long and impressive wine list is a tad pricey”.
Summary
“A real find in an area short of quality restaurants” – Fernando & Kristy Stovell’s heavily beamed farmhouse, about a mile outside of Chobham, is widely extolled for its “consistently exceptional, innovative-yet-simple cuisine”, its “excellent service” and its “delightful”, “romantic” setting. “It must be only a matter of time before Michelin is knocking on the door!”
Summary
“We are not blessed with lots of top restaurants in these parts”, but Fernando & Kristy Stovell’s tastefully updated, “romantic and candlelit”, 16th-century farmhouse is “going from strength to strength”; “creativity and flavour” characterise “beautifully presented” contemporary cuisine.
Summary
“A very good attempt at fine-ish dining” – Fernando & Kristy Stovell’s ambitious two-year-old in a “lovely” contemporary conversion of a 16th-century farmhouse is “a gem in an area needing good restaurants”, serving “creative” cuisine and “with 10/10 for presentation” too.
Restaurant details
Stovell's Restaurant Diner Reviews
"The restaurant has not been open on the first working day of the New Year for a number of years, but it was clearly the right thing to do in 2018 as the lunch sitting was very well attended and the diners were certainly able to profit from the high standard set by Fernando Stovell in his mind-your-head 16th century mansion. Although the Mexican tasting menu looked interesting, we decided to go à la carte, and, unusually, we selected different options for each of the courses. The amuse-bouches tickled the palate appropriately, tapioca crisp with garam masala and creamy aubergine dip, and a sweet celeriac, parsnip and potato soup with horseradish foam setting us up for some very good open fire-roasted Norfolk guinea fowl with quince and a lovely warm foie gras dish with toasted hazelnuts, Grelot onions, hay tea dressing with sherry and a cooling pennywort juice. Next came a deconstructed beef Wellington, tasty char-grilled local beef sitting on top of a flaky pastry “bun†with a lovely truffle mash, oxtail, brassica and perfect duck-fat cooked chips, and wood-roasted Iberico pork neck which was beautifully tender, had the authentic Spanish taste and was enhanced by pork “popcornâ€, avocado served three ways, and onion crisp. A pre-dessert of lime granita with raspberry and hibiscus sorbet was extremely good as well as acting as a palate cleanser for what the menu claimed to be a chocolate mille-feuille but was actually a tennis ball sized sphere cleverly filled with a ganache and accompanied by banana sprinkled with caramelised sugar and vanilla cream, while the other dessert, carrot cake, came in a mini garden pot with confit baby carrots and smoked sour cream. These thoughtful variations on standard themes and the good biscotti, chocolate balls with a touch of Bailey’s, a macaron with a touch of chilli and a chilli choco-brownie which finished our lunch all made a very good impression and confirmed once more that, for us, Michelin is less likely to get restaurant ratings right than the other guides."
125 Windsor Road, Chobham, GU24 8QS
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Opening hours
Last orders: 10 pm
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