An oasis of fine food and relaxation
KATHERINE BAINBRIDGE finds a four-star spa that’s just the place to recharge the batteries
YOU know you’re having a good meal when you find yourself going ‘I’m not at all sure what all of this is, but it’s delicious’.
That was certainly my experience at Thornton Hall, a four-star spa hotel located just outside the chocolate box-pretty village of Thornton Hough on the Wirral.
The hotel is home to The Lawns restaurant, run by executive chef Andrew Richards and head chef Ben Mounsey, who turned out some of the tastiest and most interesting food I’ve eaten in quite some time.
Mounsey, 28, joined The Lawns from Fraiche in Oxton and, prior to that, a year-long culinary tour of the Far East (which sounds like a pretty good gig). The menu is deceptively simple, listing the four main ingredients in each dish.
So I had cabbage (with consomme, goats curd, and scallop); followed by wild seabass (with vierg, artichoke and potted shrimp) and pear (with hay, fromage blanc and champagne) for dessert.
The seafood was certainly the star of the show; the scallop in the starter was enormous and perfectly cooked and the sea bass was a contender for the best piece of fish I have ever had, while the potted shrimp was a salty, buttery delight.
All the dishes were very well balanced and the different elements complimented each other perfectly.
My other half had bacon and egg (with cheek, mooli and sourdough); Venison (blanquette, hispi, shallot) and chocolate (with prune, Matcha green tea and lime.
Again, not all ingredients we recognised (blanquette anyone? No, me neither) but again all delicious, particularly the venison and the dessert.
At £45 a head for three courses – which also includes appetisers and some seriously good bread – it’s pretty good value and the service was faultless; just friendly enough, knowledgeable and professional.
The restaurant also offers a number of other options; a tasting menu at £80-per-person and a gourmet menu at £60 per person, as well as an ‘early evening dining menu’ (Sunday to Friday, between 6pm and 7pm), which offers the gourmet menu at £40 and the a la carte menu at £30, which for three courses is astonishing value.
Once you’ve finished your meal, I’d highly recommend repairing for a drink in the cosy lounge bar right next door. It’s not cheap, but then I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a hotel bar that is and my amaretto sour cocktail was a thing of beauty.
After all, provided you’re staying the night, it’s only a short stagger to bed.
For those who prefer a more informal dining option there is The Brasserie, Tapas & Grill, which offers an evening tapas menu from 5pm that contains all the usual favourites, as well as light lunches.
We were staying in one of the hotel’s standard club bedrooms, which was cosy and tastefully decorated with a king-size bed.
My only small issue was that the bath was too small to comfortably lie in (although, at 5ft 10in, I am quite tall).
But I thought the TV above the bath was a nice touch, and we had a lovely view over the hotel’s beautiful gardens.
If you’re a bath person and fancy treating yourself, there are also a number of executive rooms with freestanding bathtubs. I also got the opportunity to experience the spa, with a back, neck and shoulder massage and a mini-facial, which was just the ticket after a rather stressful drive there (it was so foggy we couldn’t see the road signs and kept taking wrong turns).
The spa also has a well equipped gym (experienced by my more-energetic other half, who was impressed), 20m swimming pool, outdoor hydro spa pools (bit chilly for that in winter but they look lovely), sauna, steam room, snow cave, ‘Rasul mud therapy suite’, which I didn’t get to try but sounds intriguing, and a relaxation room where I might still be now if I hadn’t gotten hungry.
All the staff were friendly and professional, if slightly harassed, during a very busy breakfast service, but that’s hardly their fault - breakfast is served between 8am and 10am, so inevitably everyone, including us, turned up at 9.40am.
There was a good selection of hot and cold buffet-style food, including a special home-made granola, and lots of fresh fruit (not that I eat fresh fruit when sausages are an option, but I clocked it).
I was only slightly disappointed that the bread option was sliced supermarket white, especially given the stonking focaccia we’d been served the night before.
But hey, maybe if we’d been motivated enough to get there earlier things would have been different.
The hotel offers a number of packages, including spa breaks from around £135 per person (which includes a treatment, dinner in The Lawns, a night in a club bedroom and breakfast - again, this is seriously good value), midweek breaks with accommodation from £89 per room per night and golf breaks from £125 that again includes dinner in The Lawns and a round of golf at Heswall Golf Club.
It’s also extremely accessible from Manchester - under an hour’s drive from south Manchester (provided you don’t get lost) - and five minutes from the M53, so it is perfect for a short break.
I like spas, my other half likes golf and I’d definitely like to experience Thornton Hall’s gardens and grounds when it’s not so foggy I can barely see three feet in front of me, so I reckon there’s a good chance we’ll be back.