To the inner city dweller, the countryside can feel like a faraway place, a breath of fresh air requiring suffering on Britain’s roads or railways for many hours. However, a glimpse of wide open spaces is available closer to home as we discovered when we took the 30-minute train journey from Kings Cross to Welwyn Garden City and Brocket Hall.
Set in 543 acres, the grade 1 listed Brocket Hall is the quintessential English stately home. The house itself is now an events venue and the grounds contain a championship golf course. Overnight accommodation is available in Melbourne Hall, which has 16 traditionally furnished and comfortable rooms that can be booked as part of the dining experience to ensure champagne upon arrival, and the golf clubhouse doubles as a bar and provides a very good breakfast for residents.
The purpose of our visit though was to dine at the Auberge du Lac restaurant. Situated in a lakeside 17th-century hunting lodge with great views out towards the main house, the dining room pulls off the trick of feeling quite intimate without making you feel like you are cheek by jowl with the surrounding tables.
We opted for the seven-course tasting menu with matching wine flight. As a further reminder we weren’t in London any more, this comes priced at £85 for the food and £50 for the wine. Proceedings began with some delicious opening snacks involving smoked Lincolnshire cheese, a delicate mini waldorf tartlet and some potato and rosemary bread with herb butter. The first course proper was a Chicken & Ham Terrine, with black garlic mayo and house pickles. Sometimes I find terrine can be hard work as a starter, a bit too chunky and chewy, but this was delightfully light and fresh with the pickles providing a tart cut through to the meat. A crisp 2020 Picpoul de Pinet sat alongside this enhancing the refreshing nature of the dish.
This was followed by a Scottish Monkfish tail, a meaty and succulent piece of fish again freshened up by a light confit egg acting almost as hollandaise and accompanied by white asparagus. The matched wine was a 2020 Chablis, typically flinty on the nose but more citrussy on the palate than your average Chablis which made it go particularly well with the fish.
The meat course was a trio of lamb, presented in steak, pulled and terrine forms, with a fricassee of pears, mushroom and some rather fun mint sauce jelly cubes. The lamb was perfectly cooked with a beautiful deep flavour and again there was a light counterpoint provided by the mint. This was accompanied by a 2019 Chateau de Cruzeau, a proper claret with notes of cherry and cedar and good tannins that gave it the necessary heft to sit against the lamb.
The first dessert was a Passionfuit Martini, almost a Sgroppino beautifully presented in a dish. A light passionfruit sorbet was accompanied by a decent slug of vodka which gave it some kick and astringency. An ideal palate cleanser before the final delight, a choux pastry containing vanilla ice cream and a sharp rhubarb that was tempered by a warm creme Anglaise. The final wine was a Riversaltes Ambre, a French dessert wine I had not encountered before. Imagine a Sauterne but a bit sharper on the nose and a little less sticky and you get the idea, and well suited to the creaminess of the dish.
All in all, this was impressive stuff. Each dish was beautifully presented and thought out. Although not billed as such, this was very much a spring and summer menu. Each dish had something that gave it an extra freshness that seemed in keeping with the lengthening of the days and the (belated) arrival of warmer weather. The setting is lovely, both in the dining room and in the world immediately outside its windows, and the friendly and attentive service was immaculate. Very much a fine dining experience but at prices that suggest a location further away from London than it actually is.
Auberge du Lac, Brocket Park, Marford Road, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City AL8 7XG, tel 01707368888 https://brocket-hall.co.uk/auberge-du-lac/
Open Thurs-Sat lunch and dinner. 7 course tasting menu £85, matching wine flight £50. A al carte and set menus also available.