TABLE FOR TWO
Kathryn Flett joins the ‘trotters’ and enjoys a bit of crackling at The Pig’s latest venture
Back in the 2000s, I used to stump up for the occasional non-improving weekend getaway, carting toddler/s off to “familyfriendly” boutique excellent childcare
hotels with facilities.
I think I felt I was nailing modern working motherhood by throwing money at the “problem” of relaxing – yay me, supermum-with-a-salary – though I suspect I was fooling only myself. I recall a very loooooong weekend stay at a shall-remainnameless hotel, alone with both my sons – at the time aged about two and six – where I burst into tears of loneparent shame during a heated public teatime child-wrangle. (Everyone else was wrangling in couples.)
Anyway, my kids are now teenagers and can work their way through cake and a cuppa without any of us crying (yay us!), and the boutique concept has evolved into something arguably more fun – thanks largely to Robin Hutson, founder of Hotel du Vin (and, indeed, a former chairman of the Soho House Group) who launched the first Pig (there are now six) in the New Forest in 2011 in partnership with the chemicals billionaire, Jim Ratcliffe.
“The Pig” sounds like a clubbable pub, but the mini-chain’s USP is combining an interesting building with a fantastic kitchen garden – they were among the pioneers of the “sourced-from-within-25-miles” thing. This latest one had been open only a couple of weeks, yet several friends had already mentioned to me that it was a very good thing.
It is indeed a handsome gaff – a Jacobean mansion that became a rock venue in the Sixties and Seventies – just outside the village of Bridge, near Canterbury. According to the friends I met in the bar for a preprandial Virgin Mary, the restaurant space used to be “a sad disco known for its ‘grab-a-granny’ nights”. After its Pig-over, however, the only grannies in evidence in the spacious, airy and slightly over-styled Coach House restaurant were groomed, glam and presumably grabbable only by their grandkids.
Many guests were clearly here just for lunch, rather than weekenders holed up in one of the “Pig Lodges” or “the Barn” in the grounds. It was very busy and there were a lot of staff looking as though they were well past the soft-opening phase and comfortably bedded-in, albeit without straw. A server explained that many staff “have come from other Pigs”, and that many guests are “Pig regulars” – do let us call them trotters – “who have been waiting for a new one”. (Service was easygoing yet efficient, incidentally, which is quite the feat.)
The menu, meanwhile, was both expansive and chattily arch. Come to think of it, if Boden did restaurants they’d almost certainly have come up with a “25mile menu” including “piggy bits”, “fishy bits”, “garden bits”, “garden, greenhouse and polytunnel (mostly picked this morning)” and “Garden of England, North Sea and Channel”.
Offering myself up to the idea of being stylishly nannied, I ordered the crackling and apple sauce “piggy bits” while my date chose the “fishy bits”, aka crab soldiers. Smiling as our plates arrived, I reflected that this was probably as “meet-cute” as me and lunch will ever get. (Fact: if you’re allergic to romcoms you’ll probably hate the Pigs). “It’s crab on toast: it’s fine,” said my date, refusing to be seduced; however, from my perspective there was nowt not to love about perfect crackling as a starter.
My skate wing (from down the road in Rye) with capers and brown butter (accessorised by thrice-cooked chips, cabbage and bacon) was faultless without being in any way “Yay”-inducing. Though how much can one realistically expect of a skate wing? The Pig at Bridge Place sticks to a winning formula