The Wild Rabbit (Kingham)

The Wild Rabbit is the brainchild of Lady Bamford who created Daylesford Organic Farm, a mile north of this hotel and restaurant and which has casual, organic shop/eateries in London.  There is a seriously nice feel to this venue with a front terrace for lunch, a casual bar/pub entrance area with an open log fire that provides a snack menu, rooms for those that would like to stay for an average of £250 per night, a beautiful garden terrace area at the back which shares a log fire (behind glass) with the open kitchen restaurant.

Whilst we are in COVID times, the menus have been turned in to QR codes that guests scan with phones and which take you to their online menus.  This is good as you know that what is on the website is what is being served in reality so you can actually do this before getting there and obviously reduces the need to use paper menus.  Hand gel is available at each table and staff were alive to the need for minimising time at the table, yet seemed happy to see customers again.

With the background and format sorted, on to the meal, which began with canapes of a tapenade at the bottom of a little flower pot with wild radish and broad beans and tapioca crisp. The cold tapenade had a refreshing taste to dip fresh elements of the garden in, presented in a very pretty way.  The tapioca crisp was extremely light and these were a pleasant way to begin, served with homemade French rolls and brown bread.

I had the Daylesford cheddar cheese and onion tartlet which was served with feuille de brick, candied walnuts and chives.  This was nothing short of a triumph. The pastry case was thin and absolutely well folded all-around with a mix of melted and almost aerated cheese which was beautifully light, with the sweet from the candied walnuts being a perfect balance.  The only observation I had was that the size of the starter was fairly conservative and almost tasting menu size – if the same size is used for both then there is a case for this starter being slightly larger.  If it is and the tasting menu tartlet is smaller, then I am probably guilty of being hoggish….or just over the top pleased to being back in a restaurant and wanting more(!).

The other starter was Vale of Evesham crab with tomato gazpacho.  The Cornish crab here was extremely fresh and moist with superb basil and pickled cucumber that really added punch and refreshing hit of acidity to the clean and lovely tomato gazpacho that is was smothered in.  This was another very good dish and everything thus far being a very good opening impression.

Cornish turbot came from a 4.2kg turbot and was served with garden pea, grelot onion, lettuce and a delectable smoked bacon sauce (creamed sauce with small pieces of bacon within).  The sauce was perfect for the turbot which was a pleasure all round, with the turbot perhaps a touch on the tough side compared with most I have enjoyed.  The other main was a Wootton Estate lamb.  This included best end rack and shoulder, served with miso-glazed aubergine, Market Garden courgette, Sheep’s curd and tomato.  When attention is paid to the detail it is really nice to experience and the glazed aubergine and explosive sweetness of the lone tomato in this dish were beautiful to go with the quality piece of lamb.  With three sauce-like components on the plate, the lamb was not shy of wet decoration; the fat from the lamb was a lasting good experience.

The desserts had were a caramel parfait and who can ever resist a decent soufflé? I was expecting the latter to be better but actually the caramel parfait revealed a superb take on banana and peanut butter desserts.  The caramel parfait was nicely judged in strength and smooth texture and covered in a beautiful blend of banana and peanut butter ice cream.  The caramelised filo pastry was complimented by a very nice blend of sweet from the caramel sauce and banana and umami from soft peanut.  A very light crunch of the pastry made this a superb dessert.

The Market Garden strawberry soufflé was airy and cooked as well as a soufflé can be, right to the centre.  Tonka bean custard was poured over unashamedly (and rightly so!) and I have to say the vanilla ice cream was fantastic in vanilla essence and super smooth and dare I say, almost outshone the actual soufflé.  However, this was a good way to end the meal leaving the two of us very happy.   Coffee served was extract of organic espresso.

A quick note on the venue as a stay over: I’ve been looking forward to enjoying the terrace garden here to enjoy wine ever since I first visited on my mission around the country and there is no denying that this is one of the loveliest hideaways in the heart of the Cotswold and country that you can come across.  Our room was the smallest of all (The Mouse) which just had room around the huge king-sized bed to manoeuvre and is reasonable at £165 for this room compared with the larger rooms averaging £250.  Information for guests arriving and checking in was more pedestrian than I was expecting for the price tag and could have been more swept up I thought.  The service in the bar area in the afternoon was definitely shaky compared with the evening service, but one can understand there is an air of tension as everyone familiarises with the new format to hospitality.

Breakfast was included in the stay and I would honestly say that this is another trump card of the visit as head chef Nathan Eades is there, personally making sure the breakfast is on top form with beautiful, organic farm produce.  Breakfast is only available to those staying over and this is a significant bonus of the stay.

So in general, definitely full marks to the Bamford design, Cotswolds stone and the kitchen for this proper visit and I would say it is worth more than its current accolade.  I recommend this restaurant to anyone, and to stay as a thing to have on the background to-do list, assuming you can actually find a date to getting a room – good luck on this as we caught a very rare opening and would definitely recommend planning and taking advantage of the windows of opportunity at the moment with not as many people checking in as usual.

The food here was very nicely done.  Home made breads were pleasing to begin with and as salads are (for me) more difficult to make interesting, I wanted to see what this was like.  The result was an imaginative presentation with powdered onion decoration and a lovely amount of goat’s curd to add moisture and something lively into the proceedings on the palate making a lovely flavour.  The quail was another beautiful looking dish with some very delicate slices of Marteau sausage and glorious smoked shallot puree.  I wasn’t expecting to have such an acidic walk away flavour with the gel, creative as it was and personally I would have loved more of the puree and maybe another quail egg in breadcrumbs as I ran out of these relatively quickly to have with the amount of quail it was supporting, but it was an enjoyable dish.  A beautifully smooth lemon curd with madeleine as petit four finished off the meal very nicely in the bar area opposite the open fireplace.

The sides were simple and well done, as was the béarnaise that the kitchen kindly gave on request.  There were a couple of minor dips in service that stood out to the critical eye (forgotten replacement bread that was offered and a lengthy wait for the bill) but generally, the key thing was that the staff clearly wished to try & make the experience a good one for the diner in the restaurant.

This was a lovely evening visit and would be utterly perfect for a dinner date or special little treat.  What I particularly loved was seeing people come into the bar just to grab a pint and the scrabble board mixed with those that preferred to have their rustic meal in the bar area instead of the restaurant which I think is one of the gems of our nation and the way in which this can be done in a sumptuous, yet cosy pub.  Based on the food I had it seems quite apt to see this one with a Michelin star, I will back here in a heartbeat for bar snacks and drinks with others whenever I can as a firm marker in the map.