Live from THE BIG TOP
The retro-chic Giffords Circus turns 20 this year. These showstopping recipes from its restaurant celebrate the quirky style of a national treasure
Iremember the moment (says Nell, pictured right) when we realised there was scope to open a restaurant alongside the circus. It was in 2000 or perhaps 2001. The circus was standing in Minety, a sleepy village in north Wiltshire. My brother and his wife had come to stay and I cooked asparagus for after the show. I took the hot enamel dish from the little wagon oven but couldn’t find anywhere in the crowded wooden wagon to put it. I ran down the steps onto the field and laid the scorching dish on the long grass and thistles. My husband Toti, my brother and his wife were sitting outside – I think I pretty much served the asparagus straight from the dish, sizzling on the grass. The freshly roasted food, the long grass, the sun setting over unruly hedges, the traffic sounds from the busy Malmesbury to Cricklade road, the tent, the anticipation, the excitement of the show filling the air – it was a classic after-show circus dinner, and seemed to be something that other people would enjoy.
From the beginning, Circus Sauce was a travelling restaurant. It was perhaps in inception like the cantinas that used to spring up alongside Napoleon’s army – a kind of renegade organic inevitable off-shoot of a group of travelling people. Food is sourced locally but changes from week to week. In May at Fennells Farm, the circus HQ, they gather wild garlic for pesto and soups. Strawberries are sourced from pick-your-own farms across the Cotswolds. Elderflower for juice and nettles for soup are picked from the hedgerows or from friendly gardeners along the way such as Matthew Rice in Bampton, or even the odd anonymous allotment delivery. The allotment at Chiswick House & Gardens in July provided an array of salads. Butchers across Gloucestershire, including Taylor & Sons in Minchinhampton and Andrews in Marlborough, are now firm friends of ours.
Those early hair-raising days have changed into a slicker operation led by head chef Ols Halas. He heads a team of 12 young hard-workers who, week after week, move the restaurant from site to site, establishing a network of suppliers in the South West. But the vaudevillian nature has not been lost and, between the main course and pudding, Ols and his crew stage a puppet show from the restaurant wagon windows. Sadly, Nell passed away soon after writing this book.