Lumiere

Every trip to England has to include at least one Hereford United game. Getting back from Barcelona on the Friday evening meant that a stop in Cheltenham made sense before heading on to Hereford on the Saturday. Reviews of Lumière have been positive and having talked with them via Twitter about a mutual love of Chase Marmalade vodka it seemed the obvious choice. 

Lumière is run by Jon Howe leading the kitchen and his partner Helen running the front of house. I knew that they’d eaten at Roganic and as I finished a meal there I sent a (very tongue in cheek) message to Jon that he had quite an act to follow. I didn’t expect a response and definitely didn’t expect this Tweet 

Cooking for @jensenbull tonight special menu, can we live up to the brilliant @Roganic that he has already been to this week? We shall see!” 

Combined with the additional sweetener “@jensenbull @ChaseVodka marmalade vodka sorted on 2 courses!” it was building up to be good.

From the outside,  Lumière looks pretty unremarkable. Inside, the long elegant dining room runs to the bar and serving area with an end window into the kitchen where you can see the chefs moving about as they prepare dishes. The first course was delivered with the menus, billed as Marmalade on Toast (Blood Orange, Pain D’epice, Marmalade Vodka). This represented the first appearance of Chase Distillery’s Marmalade Vodka and was a lovely deep orange hued drink in a martini glass. Gingerbread crumbs were coated round the rim of the glass and a smal slice rested on top. The drink was great and what kind of amuse bouche could possibly match up to a marmalade vodka based cocktail? For dinner, the only real option was to go for the special customised menu.  

Now to the food. The canapés to kick things off properly were squid crackers with tzatsiki and a cheese scone. The squid crackers were excellent with a delightful squid flavour and as an accompanying dip the tzatsiki worked perfectly. The lovely light cheese scone filled with truffled cream cheese & beetroot jam was equally good.  

This was followed by “Popcorn Chicken” with popcorn & chicken soup in a glass accompanied by a pink & white striped paper bag. This creamy soup went down well with the popcorn providing texture. Digging into the bag revealed fried chicken nuggets that were really tasty. This course was good but not really a highlight for me. 

Next course, however, was superb. Diver Caught Oban Scalllops with pork belly, cumin caramel, carrot, orange & anise puree. The scallops were cooked perfectly, nicely seared on the outside and meltingly tender on the inside. Their combination with every other component on the plate made the dish complete. The pork belly had a wonderful flavour and with the scallop was so far beyond your average scallops & bacon. The cumin caramel placed on top of the dish gave some good crunch and the carrot, orange & anise puree was an equally strong accompaniment. I rate this as the best scallop dish I’ve had. Talking to Jon afterwards, he likes to change dishes on an ongoing basis but public opinion prevents him replacing the scallop from the menu. Thank you everyone for keeping it there, it is truly excellent. 

The fish course was Cornish Red Mullet with charred baby leeks, mussels, clams, fennel, orzo and saffron. The fish and shellfish were perfectly cooked with wonderful flavours. The use of leeks and saffron in the broth was very reminiscent of the crab raviolo from Medlar.  Again the subtle use of saffron made the broth just delicious. 

Moving onto meats the next course was billed as Oxtail. The focus of the dish was a wonderfully chewy, rich oxtail faggot resting on parsnip puree. Pear spheres provided a refreshing accompaniment. The bone marrow “kiev” with the faggot was one of those items you wish was at least twice its actual size.  

A "tequila slammer""palate freshener was the next course. This was another stunning presentation with a salt tuile, lime sphere and a glass containing a tequila sorbet. The idea was to eat in the usual salt, tequila, lime order as if you were doing tequila shots. It was spectacular and the sorbet was a real highlight. 

Next course was Badminton Park venison. Slices of wonderfully tender venison rested on a bed of braised red cabbage. It came with Brussels and squeak, an adaptation of bubble and squeak with Brussels sprouts in the place of cabbage, ceps and chocolate. This was a really strong finish to the savoury courses of the meal.  

A pre-dessert of warm parsnip milk with a white chocolate and cranberry biscotti was a nice interim course but I was more ready for the real desserts.  

 The first dessert was listed as Lemon and Lime and this featured the second appearance of the marmalade vodka. This carefully crafted dish had a lemon doughnut, gingerbread, lemon verbena jelly cubes, marmalade puree and lime ice cream with a small shot glass with a marmalade vodka drink. I enjoyed this dish but looking at it now (2 months later) can’t say what worked about it, although the lemon verbena cubes were delicious  

The meal finished on a real high note. The Valrhona Guanaja dark chocolate dessert was delightful. It had three main components. At the base of the dessert was a lush, rich dark chocolate delice with a sprinkle of pecans & smoked salt. The portion of brown bread ice cream on top was also delicious. The best part of the dessert was the sesame cannelloni stuffed with bourbon “cheesecake”. Overall, it was just superb. 

Finally, although sated, room had to be found for the petit fours comprising a passion fruit jelly, chocolate aero, vanilla fudge, salt chocolate and a lime marshmallow. Consistent with the rest of the meal these were of a high standard with the Aero and jelly the best of the bunch. 

Overall verdict
The food was excellent and Jon & Helen could not have been more hospitable. They went beyond the usual for a restaurant. Once my reservation was finalised, they immediately sent details of good places to stay. I ended up at The Bradley, a family owned hotel, and it was excellent too.

Would I revisit Lumière ? 
In a heartbeat. Excellent food combined with a very friendly hosts means that there’s a good chance that day trips to Hereford will now become weekend trips including a diversion to Cheltenham. 

Overall Rating - 4.5/5