The Feathered Nest: A charming Cotswolds bolthole with world-class food
There’s a new head chef in the village of Nether Westcote and his exceptional tasting menu is more than worth travelling for
I have to confess: once weeks or months have elapsed since a visit to a restaurant, I’m usually hard-pressed to name a specific dish on the menu. I’d definitely be able to tell you if the food was fantastic, if the wine was delightful, the music just right and the company even better, but individual items on the menu? Mostly not, if I’m honest (although I won’t forget Foxhill Manor’s exceptional Marmite butter, or The Lanesborough spa’s epic Asian chicken salad). However, I can assure you I’ll be thinking about the Feathered Nest’s perfect portion of pork belly – oozing with shimmering sauce, escorted by a joyous mouthful of Asian cabbage and so piping hot I think it must have involved some kind of gastronomic wizardry – for years to come.
Renemar Pinedo, please accept my sincere compliments. The Feathered Inn’s new head chef has created a tasting menu I’d return to eat in a heartbeat. I visit in the deep, dark depths of January with one of my oldest and dearest friends, L, and we are both in agreement: this is special food, of a standard you’d expect in a capital city.
In fact, the pork belly only just pips the perfectly pink Cotswold venison loin to the post… and I haven’t even mentioned the tuna tartare. My note for that: ‘best ever eaten’. We even agree, both fairly fussy when it comes to seafood, that the roasted monkfish deserves to keep its place on the menu.
Chef Renemar Pinedo
Chef Rene, who originally hails from Curaçao in the Caribbean, started his career at Restaurant Rozemarijn in Holland before moving to the UK and working at renowned foodie hotspots including Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and Dabbous. He loved Denmark, he says, but once he saw the panoramic views of the Evenlode Valley (which sounds very Tolkien to me) from the 3 AA Rosette Feathered Nest, he was won over by this beautiful part of the world. You may even see him jogging around the area when not in chef whites – he lives down the road. It turns out his mother is from Nevis – “she is a huge inspiration for me” – and that’s where my friend L’s mother lives too, so we have a good chat with this amiable, approachable (and seriously talented) chef.
Before I wax lyrical about the sweeter parts of the meal, I should mention our pre-supper cocktails in the bar, which has a roaring fire and saddle-style bar stools. We toast the start of the weekend with a Raspberrytini and Espresso Martini (cocktail prices are on a par with central London, between £15 and £19) and are welcomed into the adjacent restaurant by superlative sommelier Ruy.
The tasting menu is £85 for six courses and an additional £75 for wine pairings; our table is quickly home to a set (a sparkle? a shattering?) of wine glasses of varying sizes and Ruy’s wine choices are remarkably good. His eyebrows do go up about an inch when I mention I would prefer to stick to white wines but he rises to the challenge, delivering a knock-out replacement. Can any red wine be better than this Stellenbosch Chenin Blanc, I ask him? Smiling, he once again raises an eyebrow enigmatically.
Our meal ends with a palate-cleansing panna cotta followed by a dark chocolate marquise. We feel the right kind of full at this point: after some tasting menus, one feels like a guest after a feast at which it would have been rude to refuse a single mouthful, turning dessert into a course to be endured rather than enjoyed. Here, the choice of courses and size of portions are just right: the rich chocolate marquise, with its crunchy miso caramel hazelnuts that taste like popcorn, is the satisfying end to one of my favourite meals ever.
We retreat, as full and happy as Frodo Baggins heading to his hobbit hole, to our own dwelling for the night. The Inn has four traditional guest rooms and a standalone dog-friendly cottage, which is where we’re staying. Downstairs there’s a cosy living room complete with wood burner (where we play Scrabble by the fire) and a little kitchen which we plunder for crisps, homemade biscuits and tea provisions. Upstairs, there’s a bathroom with a huge metallic silver bath and a lovely bedroom area. It’s as quiet as you’d expect a tiny countryside village like Nether Westcote to be and we sleep deeply.
The next morning, we’d planned to go for a walk, inspired by the helpful leaflet detailing three circular routes from the Feathered Nest, but thanks to biblical rains that have recently thrashed the UK, we decide it would just be too swampy. Had the weather been on our side, we could have chosen an easy two-mile stroll to sister village Church Westcott, a longer but also fairly easy circuit taking in Idbury, Fifield and a wooded nature reserve, or a moderate walk of 6.5 miles with a pub stop if desired (always). Instead, we meander down to breakfast, served between 9 and 10am.
Now, in daylight, we can appreciate the beautiful views of the valley, and a lawn that must be the local sundowner spot come spring and summer. Our breakfast is fit for a true foodie, with its starters and hearty main options – we go full hobbit and have a first and second breakfast, beginning with fresh pastries and Greek yogurt and fruit puree, followed by a full English (for me) and smashed avocado with rose harissa for L. The Cacklebeam eggs are from the delightfully-named Crackleberry Farm just four miles away and, of course, Rene scrambles the eggs just so and cooks the best mushrooms I’ve ever had. Please don’t be tempted away, chef; I won’t be able to resist coming back.
Rooms from £157.50 per night, visit thefeatherednestinn.co.uk
