Regional & Seasonal: The Straw Kitchen
A café made from hay bales at a working pottery in the West Midlands has home-grown produce at its heart
hundreds of CLAY pots of all shapes and styles are stacked along the borders of a path; some for sale and others filled with shrubs and flowering plants. The warm air is buzzing, both with the sound of bees and the chatter of people converging on a pretty grey-and-whiteroofed converted barn at a working pottery. The tantalising aroma of cooking bacon emanates from the building, tucked away in a scenic Warwickshire valley. The Straw Kitchen is owned and run by Christine Bottine and Maia Keeling. It is a café based on strong principles, with food and environmental sustainability at its core. Maia’s parents founded Whichford Pottery in 1976. Before returning in 2013 to begin work on The Straw Kitchen, Maia managed a city farm café. Meanwhile, Christine, who comes from France, was working for food-linked charities. “Setting up our own place based on sustainable principles felt like a natural option for both of our worlds to meet, and locating it here at the pottery gave a real sense of contributing to the family business,” says Christine. “We both love this part of England, with its beautiful rolling hills, lots of woodland, quaint Cotswold-stone villages and stunning walks.” But the barn was in a state of disrepair. “It was being used to store large pots and a world of other random things, so we started by emptying and rehousing the contents,” she explains. “Then, we stripped it back to the timber frame, gave it a new insulated roof and infilled the walls with local straw bales. We made a new floor out of the recycled wood from an old swimming pool roof, lime-rendered the outside walls and made our own clay plaster and paint from the pottery’s clay supply. We kitted it out almost entirely with recycled wood and furniture. “We worked seven days a week for a year, doing everything ourselves, from the roofing to building the raised beds outside.” The work included laying bricks for the walls’ foundations, screening the limecrete floor, hammering floorboards in, carving the hazel pins by hand to secure the bales in place and hoisting them up to form a wall, and tiling and fitting the kitchen. The café finally opened its doors in May 2014. It is bright, open and inviting, with some very quirky touches. “We’ve left a little framed window in the plaster so you can see directly into the straw wall,” says Christine. Displayed on the walls are handprinted lino cuts, paintings and a collection of things the women like. “But the building itself creates the atmosphere; strippable walls with natural clay paint make for a very warm, inviting room. The painted straw bales have a cosy bumpiness to them, and their breathable nature adds to the comfort.” The main table runs the whole length of the café, enabling large groups to sit together and encouraging strangers to chat. “We grow what we can, and when possible, we only buy fruit and vegetables that are in season, so our menu changes weekly,”
says Christine. “We grow all our own salads and herbs, rhubarb and special, rarer vegetables, such as golden beetroot, orange cherry tomatoes and cucamelons. We serve apple juice from our own orchard, homemade lemonade and seasonal cordials such as elderflower and plum. Ninety per cent of the food is made here.” What they do not grow is sourced locally from a farm. They also buy from a local butcher and an ice cream company using home-grown fruit and seasonal flowers in its recipes. Milk and cheese are delivered and coffee is roasted locally. “We have a small menu, with five permanent dishes, including our award-winning bacon sandwich, soup and a beetroot dish, which is our most popular, on homemade bread.” Specials vary weekly. There are two mains, one meat- or fishbased, and a vegetarian or vegan option. “We love to travel and draw inspiration from absolutely anything that makes our mouth water. Our regulars trust that we will serve up something delicious, even if they’ve never heard of it before, which makes playing around with dishes and cakes a lot of fun.” Food waste is kept as low as possible. What is not recycled is either composted and used on the kitchen garden or fed to Maia’s mother’s chickens, who love the leftover cake and crusts. “There’s nothing more satisfying than having a moment to take in the building and think that we laid all those bricks and bales and planks, and to watch people enjoying the food and atmosphere that we have crafted.”
CONTACT
The Straw Kitchen, Whichford Pottery, Whichford, near Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, CV36 5PG Tel 01608 684950 www.whichfordpottery.com