A beer with Raymond Blanc
Once sampled, quality beers leave a deep impression, as chef Raymond Blanc has discovered. Alastair Gilmour met him at his hotel-restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, England
Every sense gets a look-in on the long, straight path leading to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.
The feel of lavender on leg, the sight of the honey-coloured manor house, the aroma of woodsmoke that merges into roast lamb the closer you get, the dribble of saliva and the warble of birdsong blending with the purr of Jaguar.
The restaurant and country house hotel near Oxford, owned and run by the extraordinary Raymond Blanc, is regarded as one of the best in Europe and one of the few restaurants in the world to have retained two Michelin stars for 22 years (its four AA red stars, five AA rosettes and a 9/10 score from the Good Food Guide almost pale by comparison). This mecca for gourmets is described as constantly evolving “with a twist of imaginative genius,” so is this why we are anticipating the finest, freshest, bestcooked, most beautifully presented gastronomic joy, ever?
Perhaps, but this particular twist of imaginative genius is to be accompanied by beer.
Beer, that most fundamental of thirst-quenchers and the basic choice of millions, not wine from Bordeaux’s cru classé, but beer from Germany, Belgium, the United States and Britain with every course matched flavour by aroma by texture by Mr Blanc, chief sommelier Xavier Rousset and head chef Gary Jones, a Blanc protégé and himself a Michelin-starred master.
Raymond Blanc has grasped beer’s nuances, subtleties and face-slapping vigour with the zeal of a convert. And now he’s preaching from Le Manoir’s 15th century roof.....
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By Alastair Gilmour
Section : Beer Celebrities
Page number : 34
