Dorridge Restaurant Guide

Ex-Simpson’s chef Matt Cheal decamped from smaller premises in Henley-in-Arden to the former Jacques fine dining restaurant in Knowle two years back, gaining a cocktail and tapas bar along the way. There’s a lot of love for the “wonderfully plush surroundings (my old branch of HSBC!) which lend any visit the feeling of a special occasion”, while early reports on the food – à la carte or a tasting menu – praise some “beautifully presented” dishes (even if some feel “the flavours aren’t quite as impressive as the surroundings”).

2022 Review: “A real gem in our local area” – this branch in the stylish, seven-strong Warwickshire-based 'Lovely Pubs' group has a lot to recommend it: “service is on the right side of friendly and very attentive”, they serve “great pub food, but restaurant quality” (including “fantastic seafood platters”), and if you stick to the main bar downstairs, there's plenty of atmosphere too.

2024 Review: “This must be the most ‘undiscovered’ fine-dining restaurant in the West Midlands”, say fans of this yearling from locally born and trained Rob Palmer, formerly head chef at Hampton Manor, whose debut as patron is a 26-seat open-kitchen venue in a former computer game shop. “Food and service are first-class”, and if it’s “a little pricey, it’s worth it”. In the evening, the five-course menu is £85 per person; or there’s a seven-course option for £99 per person.

Hampton Manor continues to re-shuffle and modernise its food offering, and this February 2025 newcomer is the successor to Stuart Deeley’s ‘Smoke’ (RIP) in the same space: the Victorian furnace house of its walled kitchen garden. Now under chef David Taylor, he offers a three-course menu for £85 per person, or a ‘Taste of Kynd’ five-course menu for £110 per person. It opened too late to generate sufficient reports in our annual diners’ poll for a rating, but all early feedback is upbeat: “it seems very much like a continuation of Smoke – and that isn’t a criticism – a rustic-style rendering of fine food, with pleasing atmosphere and service”. On the food front: “A starter of Cornish crab with salted turnip and pickled fennel was delicious, as was a thoroughly enjoyable main dish of beautifully cooked line-caught gurnard with a very tasty bisque, fennel and soppressata. Dessert of Tipsy cake soaked in Organic Welsh rum didn’t quite have the hit of alcohol I should have liked but it was a lovely cake and well matched with brown butter ice cream”.

“All round a great experience” with “great attention to detail” – this brave three year old “continues to deserve its excellent reputation” and to justify the pivot made at this Warwickshire hotel to locating its main dining experience in the very walls of the “lovely” Victorian Walled Garden, complete with cooking over fire and the use of ingredients like carrot nectar, apple kombucha, and pickled magnolia. One long-term fan feels that “David Taylor’s food now seems to have reached the point he was aiming for with each of the fourteen dishes of the Tasting Menu sophisticated, original, clever and delicious (more mature in approach than when it first opened which is not surprising)”: “well crafted with many high points”.