The restaurant and homeware business with designs on a bright future
Design-savvy Louise Chidgey tells Sue Quinn how she and her husband Cass Titcombe have overcome the pandemic, diversified and thrived
Louise Chidgey and Cass Titcombe will throw open the doors of Brassica Restaurant today to a near full house: loyal fans have sorely missed their beguiling blend of fabulous food served in lovely surroundings. It’s the first Sunday lunch the husband-and-wife team have served since Britain was plunged into second lockdown a month ago. And their relief at reopening is profound.
“Mentally, the second lockdown has been much harder than the first,” Chidgey says. “Initially our first Sunday lunch was fully booked but being put into Tier 2, which means more restrictions than before, meant inevitable cancellations. But thankfully over the last six years we have built up a very loyal base of customers who want to see that we come out of all this on the other side.”
Brassica sits at one end of the market square in Beaminster, a small Dorset town that radiates chocolate-box charm with its honey- coloured stone buildings, mullioned windows and old-style street lamps. But inside, Brassica is a modern bistro that melds clean Scandinavian lines with Mediterranean warmth and colour.
Light streams through bay windows into an uplifting space where posies of flowers colour-pop from white tabletops, velvet- covered bench seating is dotted with bright cushions and walls are decked in bold modern prints and vintage plates. This weekend, the candles are lit and the fire is crackling.
Chidgey, a design guru who worked for The Conran Shop in London before upping sticks for the countryside, has cleverly removed and arranged tables to comply with social distancing regulations, while retaining the atmosphere of a stylish comfortable home. Tier 2 restrictions mean non-householders can’t eat at the same table, but Chidgey hopes groups of family and friends will still make bookings for the same time. “Although socially distanced, they can still be in the same place with one another,” she says.
Titcombe’s kitchen exudes similar good taste, informality and delicious surprises.
Co-founder and original chef of pioneering modern British mini- chain, Canteen, his Italian-slanted menu features local seasonal ingredients prepared with flair and precision. It’s a design and culinary double-act that works seamlessly.
Chidgey always wanted to run her own business, one that merged design and hospitality. At university, she wrote her dissertation on iconic designer and restaurateur the late Sir Terence Conran, and ended up working for the great man, rising from assistant to senior buyer at The Conran Shop.
Keen for experience in hospitality, she then worked for Conran’s son Tom, managing his dining pub The Cow and eponymous delicatessen in Notting Hill. By then one of the UK’s leading retail creatives, she moved to consultancy, using her exceptional eye and aesthetic to predict colour trends for forecasting giants WGSN and Stylus.
In 2012 Chidgey and Titcombe decided the time was right to take the plunge and start a business together. Originally, they looked for premises in London but stumbled across the pretty Beaminster building, previously the restaurant of MasterChef winner Mat Follas, while on holiday. “Everything just snowballed from there,” Chidgey says.
The couple opened Brassica Restaurant in 2014, quickly winning glowing reviews and gongs for Titcombe’s food, and scooping awards for Chidgey’s design. Soon after the restaurant opened, Chidgey opened her homeware store Brassica Mercantile in an adjacent building, where she sells a carefully edited collection of covetable homeware, books, food and wine. Her style is influenced by modern designers like Hay from Denmark, but she also adores classics like Moroccan textiles, French linens and Italian tableware.
She also runs a consultancy service, offering design advice to hoteliers and retailers through to locals who want to revamp a room. “I’m not a trained interior designer but I have an eye and I know how to put colour and patterns together,” she says. “Often I do it digitally. Someone might send me an image of their sitting room that’s looking tired, and I’ll advise them about fabrics and colour, and source everything for them. It’s something I absolutely love doing.”
The move from London to the countryside has profoundly influenced her style. “During the winter there’s a definite need to use warm colours, creating a more emotive interior to contrast with the stark countryside, when there are no leaves and grey skies,” she says. “In the summer with the hedgerows ablaze with colour, I certainly want to draw on all the wild colours.”
The couple’s escape to the country might seem idyllic, but it’s been a rocky ride. In early 2018, the “beast from the east” forced them to temporarily shut the business, as surrounding roads became impassable due to blizzards and icy roads. And no sooner had the snow melted than thieves used a tractor to try to steal a cash machine from the wall of a nearby shop. Repairs caused nearruinous disruptions to local businesses, including Brassica, which have only recently been resolved.
Then, of course, came the pandemic. But the couple have steadfastly refused to give up. During the first lockdown, Titcombe swiftly developed a range of Handmade Meals in the restaurant kitchen, which customers could collect from the shop or have delivered (Chidgey has spent countless hours driving the laneways of rural Dorset distributing orders). They’ve also expanded the range of food they sell from the shop to include delicious homemade pies, meals and soups, as well as smoked fish and organic vac- packed meat from nearby Haye Farm.
Fearing the first lockdown would not be the last, and buoyed by the popularity of the food, the couple continued the service when restrictions were lifted and the restaurant reopened. It proved a smart move; when the second lockdown was announced in early November, they simply ramped up the service, and have now launched a Christmas Handmade Meals range including Christmas pudding, stuffing, duck confit, whipped cod’s roe and a seafood platter. With Titcombe working tirelessly on his own in the kitchen, and Chidgey managing the website, shop and deliveries, the couple have managed to avert disaster.
Once the pandemic is over, they hope to expand the business. A hotel closer to the sea is one longed-for option, somewhere Chidgey can showcase her design skills. “Cass would love to cook fish, with a sea view,” she says. And they’re always on the lookout for that space to accommodate a restaurant and homeware showroom under one roof.
In the meantime, they’re busy welcoming customers back to their food and design gem in this corner of Dorset. “Cass and I continue to find ways to adapt to safeguard our business,” Louise says. “And thankfully many of our regulars are desperate to come out!”
‘We have built up a very loyal base of customers who want us to come out of this on the other side’
Louise Chidgey’s style is influenced by modern designers like Hay from Denmark