March onwards…

We love a good glass of beer and we thought what could be a great theme for our March dinner event would be to pair up once again with Yudhistra Moodley of Moodley’s Craft Beer & Wine Making (we last hosted a dinner with him in January 2012) and this time are offering something a bit different. We have always loved using his beer especially in our beer bread.

Yudhistra only brews his beers to  order now commercially but he is however now selling “The Simple Beer Kit” mostly through Farm Shops  and local farmers’ markets including Tunbridge Wells Town Hall, Tonbridge, Aylesford, Hildenborough, Lamberhurst, Shipbourne Horsmonden , West Malling & Robertsbridge and then his web site on the Internet. All so you can brew your own high quality home brew using brewing quality ingredients. You can follow him on twitter @moodleyslimited or on Facebook at Moodley’s Limited

We have teamed up with him for our dinners on Friday 13th & Saturday 14th March when we will be serving a simple beer themed supper to our guests. We will also for each pair of guests be providing a simple beer kit for you to take home and try brewing yourself. Yudhistra will also be on hand each night to answer any brewing questions you may have on how to make a successful brew.

Following a welcome drink and beer themed nibble we will kick the evening off with a bowl of freshly cooked fresh mussels cooked in a home brew and served with our now somewhat infamous beer bread.

We will then go onto the main course dish a classic pork shoulder stew braised in beer with carrots and onions. We will serve this with a herby bulgur wheat and some purple sprouting broccoli – a good warming bit of comfort food

Finally we will then serve a classic chocolate cake made with a dark beer that will be served with a compote of blood oranges and some mascarpone cream.

Then with coffee and we will serve some petit fours.

We think it will be a fun night with the added benefit of a take home beer kit with full instructions on how to make your own home brew, what could be better?

Arrival: 7:30pm Welcome Drink & Nibbles

Dinner: 8:00pm

Suggested Donation: £40 per person including for each pair a Moodleys Simple Beer Kit (retails at £30)

Service not included

Menu

Poached Fresh Mussels in Beer with Hari’s Beer Bread

****

Beer Braised Pork with Carrots & Onion

Herbed Bulgur Wheat

Purple Sprouting  Broccoli

****

Chocolate & Porter Cake, Blood Oranges & Mascarpone

****

Coffee & Petit Fours

To reserve your places please complete the booking form below and we will contact you normally within 24 to 48 hours to confirm  your places with a credit card number.

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Date Required(required) Friday 13th March 2015 Saturday 14th March 2015 - 2 Spaces left

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Happy New Year…

Well here at “Covert Towers” we have been enjoying the festive season in our warm and dry home… a bit different to last year when we evacuated on Christmas Eve and did not return until early July!

It was a challenging year in 2014 for a number of reasons and we are now looking forward to a what will be our 5th year of secret dining.

We cannot thank our supporters enough for sticking with us during such trying times. We cooked in new venues provided by generous hosts and then we returned to our refurbished home and new kitchen and have been cooking up some storming events since then.

Now as we start off in 2015 we have set dates right through to the end of the year. We have some exciting themes planned for the year and we will publish more details in due course but for the moment we have two dates on February 6th and 7th when the menu will be based around Fondues. We will publish full menus in due course.

On Thursday March 26th we will also be taking part in a charity dinner called “Take 5 Cooks” plus one (a late entry) This will be held at Redwood College in Essex and the profits from this dinner is to be shared between Home Start (Essex) and the Welcome Project (Ilford) two small local charities. We will share more details soon as we are just awaiting confirmation on booking details and price per head. Feel free to use our booking confirmation form to register your interest. We Promise it will be a real fun night!

We will publish more details on our other events as soon as we can just keep checking back. In the meantime we wish all our current and potential new customers a very Happy New Year.

Hari Covert

The final “O come all ye Faithful”….

Cancelled – sorry for any inconvenience

Our final supperclub event of 2014 is something a bit special for us… We have always wanted to do a “Pop Up” in central Tunbridge Wells and we can now announce we are coming to the town on Saturday December 20th.

We will be located in a space in Chapel Place (8a to be precise) where for one night only we will serve a special dinner. It will be a big challenge for us as we will have to transport a kitchen into the site and all the associated equipment.

We hope you will come along and support us and get yourselves into the festive spirit…

We will kick the evening off with a welcome drink and some festive
nibbles then diners will sit down to a sumptuous four course dinner

Arrival:  7:30pm

Dinner:  Served 8:00pm Prompt

Suggested Donation £40.00 per person (service not included)

Bring your own Alcohol – we provided water and ice buckets

Menu

Homemade Pork, Apricot & Hazelnut Terrine

with a home-made Seasonal Relish

*****

Crispy Confit Duck Leg served on a

mixed bean & Spicy Chorizo Stew

*****

Hari’s Selection of Cheeses,

Porridge Oat Biscuits & Homemade Banana Jam

*****

Christmas Pudding Iced Parfait with a Red Berry compote and holly tuile biscuit served with a glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes

*****

Coffee or Hari’s Tea Blend with Festive Petit Fours

Menu subject to market purchases and ingredient availability

 

O Come, All ye faithful…

Well it will soon be that time of year again when we will all start getting festive and excited about the big celebrations of Christmas. As the title suggests we do hope to see some of our regulars and also welcome some new guests as well.

Here at “Covert Towers” we too will be trying to celebrate in style with our Hari Covert suppers on the following dates…

5th ,  12th , and 13th December 2014. This will give you plenty of choice to come and celebrate with us. We will be serving up the same menu at each dinner all you need to do is choose the preferred date and complete the booking form below!

We will be serving up a tasty and traditional four course menu that will reflect the festive season and we hope some imaginative combinations.

The evenings will kick off with a welcome drink along with some festive nibbles. We will then commence the dinner with a home-made terrine of pork studded with apricots and hazelnuts and served with a home-made seasonal relish  and simple salad garnish. We will also serve a vegetarian alternative of a warm Onion & Goats Cheese Tart.

For the main course we will go slightly traditional and serve turkey…
I have to admit not always my favourite meat but we will do a slight twist and serve an individual turkey roulade. A turkey escalope stuffed with a light forcemeat and chopped chorizo to provide a slight kick, each roulade will be wrapped in air dried ham and we will serve them with a light sage cream sauce and seasonal vegetable garnish, maybe even the odd Brussels sprout as well. We will serve a salmon steak as the veggie alternative as well with a similar garnish but a wild garlic pesto cream sauce….

In true Hari fashion we will then serve a selection of cheeses with our much admired Porridge Oat biscuits and home-made Banana Jam.

To finish the meal we will then serve a slightly different version of a Christmas Pudding, namely a Christmas Pudding Parfait, a home- made iced parfait that will come served with a tart red fruit compote and then a holly shaped tuile biscuit.

Coffee or our own blend of tea will be served along with some mini stollen and Christmas biscuits maybe even a mini mince pie will complete the dinners.

We ask guests to arrive at 7:30pm and dinner will start at 8:00pm

Suggested Donation is £35.00 per person (Service not included)

Menu

Homemade Pork, Apricot & Hazelnut Terrine with a home-made Seasonal Relish

Vegetarian Alternative:

Warm Onion & Goats Cheese Tart with Salad Leaves

*****

Turkey Roulade with a chorizo stuffing, Roasted Potato & Parsnip Rosti and a Sage Cream Sauce, Seasonal Vegetables

Vegetarian Alternative:

Roasted Salmon Fillet, Roasted Potato & Parsnip Rosti and a Wild Garlic Pesto Cream Sauce, Seasonal Vegetables

*****

Hari’s Selection of Cheeses, Porridge Oat Biscuits, Banana Jam

*****

Christmas Pudding Iced Parfait with a Red Berry compote and holly tuile biscuit served with a glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes

*****

Coffee or Hari’s Tea Blend with Festive Petit Fours

Menu subject to market purchases & ingredient availability

To Book your places please complete the Booking Form below. We will normally contact you within 24/48 Hours to confirm your booking with a Credit Card number.

Please also indicate how many of your party require the Vegetarian Alternative dishes.

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Date Required(required) Friday December 5th - Spaces Friday December 12th - Spaces Saturday December 13th - Wait List only

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Any Special Requirements/Info - Please indicate how many Vegetarian Alternatives Required Here(required)

Apple Homage…our October dinners

Well as Autumn fast approaches this months dinner will focus on the humble apple as a key ingredient at each course.

We will kick the meal off with a glass of Kir Normande… A glass of chilled cider with the addition of creme de cassis and some seasonal apple themed nibbles!

The first course will be a homemade brawn of Kentish Apples, Cooked Potatoes and Smoked Haddock set in an Apple Jelly. We will serve this with a light horseradish cream and some crisp Melba toasts. It will be a light start to what will be a fairly hefty dinner.

Next will be a slowly braised pork cheek, cooked in apple juice the tart and slightly sweet flavour helps cut into the richness of the meat and we will serve this alongside a slow cooked and crispy piece of pork belly. We will serve some roasted apple to cut the richness of both meats and the mustard grain creamed potatoes and our ubiquitous serving of green beans will complete the main course.

We will then serve a couple of our favourite cheeses – namely the local cheddar from Winterdale Shaw plus a personal favourite the Stichleton, this is the blue veined cheese from Nottinghamshire made in the traditional way of Stilton from unpasteurised milk. All served with our porridge oat biscuits and our home-made Banana Jam, plus of course some fresh crisp apple as well!

Finally we will serve a Apple, Pine Nut and Cinnamon Torte with a garnish of Salted Caramel sauce and a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. We will also serve a glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes with this as we will have restocked our cellars of our local French wine!

To complete the dinner we will then serve either coffee or tea with an appropriate petit four. I will have the week before the dinners also been down in Spain (Girona) attending the opening of “master chocolatier” Damian Allsop’s new chocolate restaurant and shop so might have imported some special goodies! You will all have to wait and see!

We request a suggested donation of £35 per person (service not included) Guests requested to arrive at 7:30pm with dinner served at 8:00pm promptly.

Dates: Friday 10th (Breakfast Friends – Exclusive Night) Now Fully Booked 

& Saturday 11th October 2014 – Spaces still available

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“Apple Homage”

Welcome Drink served with Seasonal Canapé’s

++++

Kentish Apple, Potato & Smoked Haddock Brawn

Horseradish Cream & Melba Toast

++++

Apple Juice Braised Pork Cheeks & Crispy Roasted Pork Belly

Roasted Apples, Grain Mustard Creamed Potatoes

Green Beans

++++

Winterdale Shaw Cheddar Cheese & Stichleton

Hari’s Porridge Oat Biscuits & Homemade Banana Jam

++++

Apple, Pine Nut & Cinnamon Torte served with Salted Caramel Sauce

and Vanilla Ice Cream

Served with a glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes

++++

Coffee or Tea with Petit Fours

N.B. Menu Subject to Market Purchases and Ingredient Availability 

To book please complete the form below or click this Breakfast Friends link for their exclusive Friday night.

 

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Date Required(required) Saturday October 11th

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Chef But to cook again at Hari Covert’s…

Well we are excited to report Chef Kam Po But formerly Executive Chef at Ken Lo’s Memories of China, Belgravia London has agreed to come back and present another two nights of his culinary prowess.

Chef But had been the Executive Chef of Ken Lo’s for some thirty years plus until his retirement a few years ago. He has been a friend for the same period and is god father to my daughter and we have done Chinese dinners in some truly amazing locations from the depths of the Hampshire countryside to the remoteness of the Isles of Scilly.

Chef But is a true master at blending dishes to be balanced in flavour, texture and colour. He has constructed a menu once again that will demonstrate all of this and to top it all off at the end of the dinner he will once again demonstrate the art of Hand Drawn Noodles. His skill in this is legendary as he has made countless appearances  on TV from The Generation Game to BBC Food & Drink and ITV This Morning.

This is a unique chance to sample some truly great Chinese food in a relaxed and sharing manner and will as always be totally oversubscribed!

We will kick the evening off with a welcome drink and simple nibbles before getting guests to sit down to a mammoth banquet. The meal will begin with a range of starters, Crispy Smoked Chicken served with Crispy Seaweed (not actually Seaweed), Sesame Prawn Toasts, Kuo-Tieh Dumplings – a little steamed pork dumpling that are then fried to give a crispy bottom served with a simple soy and ginger dipping sauce. Finally a baked fresh Scallop served in its shell with a piquant black bean sauce.

We will then serve a soup to guests – normally served at the end of a meal here though as a bit of a palate cleanser it will be a delicate Cantonese Hot & Sour Soup.

Next we will then serve what has become something of a signature dish for Chef But. Mongolian Crispy Lamb is a marinated braised leg of lamb that once cold is deep fried until crispy and served with a yellow bean sauce and lettuce leaves like the crispy duck and pancakes. It is a clever dish of textures and flavours and for many lighter than the Duck & pancake variety.

Moving onto the main course dishes we will then serve the following. Chef But will cook them and dish up as quickly as he can but they will generally come as and when they are ready. We will serve a Slow Cooked Beef Shin with water chestnuts. This is a real winter warmer dish and not found on your average Chinese restaurant menu, the beef shin is slowly cooked in a rich soy and spiced broth and then served with crunchy water chestnuts. Stir Fried Chicken Breast in a yellow bean sauce with crispy Almonds. Stir Fried King Prawns with Snow Peas (Mange Tout). Then depending on what we can purchase a fillet of fish done “Peking Style” in a light egg batter that is first fried then steamed with a sauce made from spring onions, garlic and ginger – the “Holy trinity” in Chinese cuisine.

We will serve a fresh vegetable either Pak Choy or Choi Sum (depending on our market purchases) topped with Oyster Sauce and some plain boiled rice.

To complete the meal Hari will be doing the pudding and he will showcase some exotic Asian flavour ice creams and sorbets from local producer Taywell Ice Creams. We will serve Jasmine Tea or if some want a coffee to complete the banquet.

Finally after all of this you will be treated to the hand drawn noodle demonstration by Mr But… this magical process is thousands of years old and we recommend you bring your cameras or phone cameras to capture it all as if you blink you will miss it.

Since we announced these dates spaces filled very quickly and we are now fully booked for both nights.

If you want spaces or be on our waiting list please complete the booking form at the end of this post.

Arrival  7:30pm – Welcome Drinks and assorted Chinese Nibbles

Dinner Served 8:00pm – prompt

Suggested Donation £55.00 per person service not included (Guests to bring their own wines/drinks – Glasses, Water and Ice Buckets provided.)

Menu

Sesame Prawn Toasts

Crispy Seaweed

Kuo-Tieh Dumplings (Pot Stickers)

Crispy Smoked Chicken

Baked Scallop with Black Bean Sauce

吃 嘛

Cantonese Hot & Sour Soup

吃 嘛

Crispy Mongolian Lamb with Lettuce Puffs

吃 嘛

Slow braised Beef Shin with water chestnuts

Stir Fried Chicken with Yellow Bean Sauce and Almonds

King Prawns with Snow Peas (Mange Tout)

Fish Fillet “Peking” Style with Ginger & Garlic

Chinese Vegetables with Oyster Sauce

Steamed Rice

吃 嘛

Assorted “Taywell” Asian Sorbet & Ice Creams

吃 嘛

Jasmine Tea or Coffee

Please complete the following form to reserve your spaces. Please note we are already fully booked for both Friday and Saturday and now only have a waiting list for cancellations or potentially a 3rd night.

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Happy to share a table?(required) Yes

Date Required(required) Friday 21st November - 4 Spaces left Saturday 22nd November - Wait List Only

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More than 6

Any Special Info/Requirements

September Menus… Hari’s Favourites

UPDATE…

JUST 2 Spaces left  for 20th September …Please spread the word…

Well we are back home and all is looking good. We have decided to do four nights in September over two weekends this month as it has been over nine months since we did dinners in our own home and we have something rather different now. We have decided to do a simple choice set menu on each weekend that will give diners a chance to sample some of our favourite dishes. On September 5th and 6th the Menu will be as follows. Choice can be made on the night which is something new for us!

Arrival 7:30pm Dinner served at 8:00pm

Gravad Lax with a Sweet German Mustard Sauce 

Onion & Goats Cheese Tart with a Salad Leaf Garnish

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Spicy Moroccan Lamb Tajine with Cous Cous

Smoked Cod Fish Cakes, Wilted Spinach and a Lemon Butter Sauce

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Chocolate “Nutella” Torte with a Red Berry Compote

Hari’s Cheese Selection with Porridge Oat Biscuits & Banana Jam

Coffee or Tea with Petit Fours

Suggested Donation £30 per person (service not included)

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September 19th and 20th the menu will be as follows:-

 

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Pork & Apricot Terrine with Rocket & Pine Nut  Salad

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Poached Chicken Breast with Spinach, Feta & Sun dried Tomato Stuffing, Herb Butter Sauce. Lemon Bulgar Wheat

Roasted Salmon Fillet with Chorizo, Green Beans & New Potatoes

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Flourless Orange & Hazelnut Torte with Marmalade Cream

Hari’s Cheese Selection with Porridge Oat Biscuits & Banana Jam

Coffee or Tea with Petit Fours

Suggested Donation £30 per person (service not included)

NB: All Menus Subject to

Market Purchases and Ingredient Availability

Please complete the booking form below to secure your places. Please note we will normally contact you within 24 to 48 hours to confirm your booking.

 

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Happy to share a table?(required) Yes

Date Required(required) Friday September 5th Saturday September 6th Friday September 19th Saturday September 20th

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Pickering’s Choice… Saturday 19th July

We have decided for our first official dinner in our restored home to host a special dinner on Saturday 19th July. (if demand sufficient then we will also do Friday 18th July)

We have invited a guest chef to launch our new venue and we will be joined by Peter Pickering a 27 year old chef who is a young lad to watch. I have known Peter since 2009 when I was appointed his mentor at Oxford Brookes University in his final year of study before he graduated in May 2010.

He has since gone on to work in some prestigious places from the 5 star Milestone Hotel in London to the Broadcasting Centre for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics to the opening of “Dinner by Heston Blumenthal” with Ashley Palmer Watts, The Café Royal relaunch in late 2012  and then more recently the Chiltern Firehouse the new André Balazs Hotel in late 2013 working alongside Chef Nuno Mendes. A truly impressive pedigree.

I have asked Peter to put together a menu to relaunch the new Hari venue and we will be hosting a five course menu that will reflect his experiences in some pretty amazing restaurants. I will be acting as his commis chef and it will be as much a learning experience for me with modern techniques and imaginative flavour combinations! Very exciting!

Peter’s menu will be as follows:

Menu

Grilled little gem salad, Nuns of Caen, marinated button mushrooms, soy and sherry dressing

*****

Seared Cornish mackerel, poached rhubarb, pickled shallots, borage

*****

Cotswold white chicken, confit heart, onion and horseradish, spring greens

*****

Chocolate mousse, passion fruit jelly, milk and lemon thyme

*****

Hari’s Selection of Farmhouse Cheeses with Porridge Oat Biscuits

*****

Coffee with Homemade Shortbread

Menu subject to market purchases and ingredient availability

Arrival 7:30pm – Welcome Drink & Canapés

Dinner 8:00pm – prompt

Suggested Donation £50 person – service not included

If you wish to attend then please complete the following booking form. It will be a single table seating 14 persons in total and we will be allocating places on a first come first served basis.

We look forward to seeing what we hope will be some new and old customers!

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Date Required(required) Saturday 19th July Friday 18th July (if full on Saturday)

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Sorry for the Silence…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I cannot believe it has been some two months since my last post.. my apologies…

We are still awaiting to move back to our flood hit home but the end is in sight. We hope the next two weeks of frenzied activity by builders, decorators and such like will result in a fresh exciting new venue. Please watch this space as we will be posting new dates for some exciting dinners over the next few months.

We will also be posting some revues of meals out we have had over the past few months as they provide some great inspiration of what we could also offer.

Some of the pictures show the work in progress and we are lucky to have a great bunch of workman helping to restore our home.

Thank you to you all for your patience and understanding…

Cheers

Hari C

Mmmm… Hari Dinners are back…

Well we have been touched and appreciative of all the generous offers of venues for our Supper Club having been victims of the Christmas Day flooding.

We have had to move out of our home and are likely to be out until at least mid summer as it dries out and gets re-instated.

We currently are busy doing a couple of private dinners over the next month in people’s homes as we get our lives back to some semblance of normality and routine.

Our first public “pop up” will now happen on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th March in a Yalding venue (You will be informed where once your booking is confirmed)

Our next date will then be Saturday 3rd May (if demand is sufficient then also possibly Friday 2nd as well) and we will be using a very nice property at the top of Linton Hill on the outskirts of Maidstone.

Then Friday 30th and Saturday 31st May again back in another secret Yalding venue. We will publish menus etc in due course for the May dinner events but for the March dinner we will be cooking a four course meal that will highlight some good seasonal produce. It will also be pretty much vegetarian friendly as well apart from the first course where will happily also provide a substitute dish for those that so desire. We are also happy to accept booking for any of these events now so please complete the booking form at the end of this post to reserve those places as we are limited to ten persons each night as the venue hosts rightfully get two places for themselves.

So for our March dinners we thought we would start the meal with a classic Jambon Persille… Ham Hocks slow cooked and chopped then added to the stock with an abundance of freshly chopped parsley and garlic and then set. We will serve this with a mustard and caper mayonnaise dressing and salad leaves. If you would prefer a veggie option then please state at the time of booking.

Our next course will be one of my favourites. A freshly made risotto of roasted butter nut squash. The creamy risotto will have the addition of roasted squash and a sprinkling  of Parmesan. We will then serve a freshly poached fillet of Salmon that we will serve with a very light beurre blanc sauce with an abundance of freshly chopped herbs. It will be served with some simple baby new potatoes and then a melange of spring vegetables including some haricot verts … well it has to does it not?

Finally dessert will be a warm Almond Frangipane Tart served with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream and of course a glass of our ubiquitous Muscat de Rivesaltes.

Coffee will be served along with some Petit Fours to complete the meal. If you wish to reserve spaces for either evening then please just complete the booking form below. We normally will contact you within 24/48 hours to take a credit card number to confirm the booking.

If you wish to book the later dates in May then please pick the date required on the booking form and we will contact you to confirm.

Name(required)

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Date Required(required) Friday March 28th 2014 - Yalding Fully Booked Saturday March 29th 2014 - Yalding Saturday May 3rd 2014 - Linton (Maidstone) Menu TBC Friday May 30th 2014 - Yalding Menu TBC Saturday May 31st 2014 - Yalding Menu TBC

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Happy to share a table?(required) Yes No

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Friday 28th & Saturday 29th March – Venue in Yalding

Arrival 7:30pm

Dinner 8:00pm prompt

Suggested donation £40 per person service not included.

Menu

Welcome Drink & Nibbles

****

Jambon Persille with Mustard & Caper Dressing and Salad Leaves

****

Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto

****

Poached fillet of Salmon with a herb beurre blanc

New Potatoes & Vegetable Medley

****

Warm Almond Frangipane Tartlet with Vanilla Ice Cream

****

Coffee & Petit Fours

Menu subject to market purchases and ingredient availability