Tag: dining

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CHEFS TABLE

Get ready to finally find out what is upstairs at CPK. 

Join us in our kitchen and take a seat at our custom-made, Chef’s Table to enjoy an exclusive dining experience in Buckingham. 

The Chef’s Table Experience

Open on a Friday and Saturday evening, your booking will give you exclusive access to Cornwall Place Kitchen for you and up to nine guests. 

On arrival you will be greeted with a glass of English bubbles while waiting for your party at our licensed bar. 

We will then invite you upstairs and seat you at our locally made, bespoke table in the kitchen. 

The night then belongs to you; watch chef cook your dishes right in the heart of the action whilst enjoying the time with your friends or family. Take control of the atmosphere and ambience with your choice of music via our Sonos sound system and laugh as loud as you like, safely in the knowledge that yours is the only party there.

Chef has prepared a seasonal set Taster Menu which can be adapted upon request for dietary requirements or a bespoke menu can be created and priced accordingly. Your meal is accompanied by a drinks flight chosen to pair with the dishes or alternatively individual bottles of wines, beers, cocktails and soft drinks can be ordered from our drinks list. 

Both food and drinks menus focus on seasonality, flavour and celebrating British producers. We source our meat from Smith and Clay, located just a few footsteps away and collect on foot our fresh produce from the local market twice a week. We have enjoyed finding and learning about craft drinks and tasting English wine to create the drinks flight, so we’re confident you will share our enjoyment. 

Bookings 

Taster Menus will be bookable for Friday and Saturday evenings while other days of the week may be requested for bespoke packages. A minimum spend of £500 will be applied to all bookings so it is suggested that bookings are of 6-10 people to get the true experience. 

A deposit of 25% will be requested upon booking and the rest can be paid in full in advance or on the evening. Cancellations less than 48 hours before will be charged at £50pp. 

All guests and staff will have to adhere to current COVID guidelines at the time of dining. Tables of 6-10 will be taken on the anticipation that the “rule of six” will be eased in late June. Should this not happen we will happily move your booking to a later date or refund your deposit. 

To make a booking fill out the contact for below. Bookings are currently open until the end of December. 

A message from us

The past year we have been on such journey, it feels like it has been a very long time since we were able to cook and serve guests in person. Cornwall Place Kitchen is our new home and we cannot wait to welcome you to our place very soon. 

See the menu
Book a table

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Celebrating World Sea Turtle Day.

Anyone who knows, works or has bought food from us will have undoubtably heard us say “but think about the turtles!”; it has become something of a mantra of ours to make people think a little bit about waste. It is lighthearted and fun but there is real meaning behind it. 

Helping try to protect the world’s oceans in the food industry is a really big challenge. Pollution, waste, over-fishing, climate change and habitat destruction are increasingly putting marine life at risk and we have to accept that as an industry we have played a part in this. 

BUT…just because it has been like that in the past doesn’t mean it has to be like that in the future.

This is what we are doing; 

Reduce.

Packaging –  you will only find necessary packaging with our products.

Waste – we have little food waste; where possible we will use every part of the produce for something. We even make stock from the butcher’s unwanted chicken bones. 

Growing – last year we took ownership of an allotment, with a vision that in the future we can create menus based on the produce we have growing seasonally. 

Plastic – we request all our deliveries in plastic free packaging and take reusable containers to collect the meat from the butcher. 

Our footprint – our deliveries are only once a week, and we prefer to deliver than collect so that less overall miles will be travelled. 

Supplier footprint – we use local suppliers who we know buy their produce locally. We plan menus seasonally to ensure we are not ordering food with a large carbon footprint. 

Reuse. 

Packaging – all the packaging you get will be able to be reused. 

Storage – in trying to fight the chef war on cling film habits of the past, wherever possible reusable containers will be used to store food. (Try this at home yourself, you will save a fortune on cling film).

Up-cycling – all of our linen was made from discarded denim off cuts. 

Recycling 

Packaging – once you have reused our packaging to death, it can all be recycled.

Food waste – compostable food will be composted ready for the allotment. 

With regards to recycling, food waste bins and composting, be sure to check out your council’s recycling and composting guidelines as they are all seemingly different from one to the next. 

We are all not perfect, but all it takes is for everyone to do a little everyday to make a big impact. 

In celebration of World Sea Turtle Day, Inspires Dining is going a little bit further to help protect the future of sea turtles and we have proudly become adopted parents of two. So be prepared for lots of upcoming turtle spam! 

Inspires Dining – Sustainable Dining 

Find out more about the WWF and adopting a turtle or other endangered animals below.

https://support.wwf.org.uk/adopt-a-turtle

https://www.wwf.org.uk/learn/wildlife/marine-turtles

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Great ways to use wild garlic



Wild garlic is the most seasonal of seasonal produce usually available for just a few weeks around Easter time. Buckinghamshire is famously not famous for wild garlic but after a quick search and chat with a forager in the know, an area a couple of miles from Sarah’s house in Milton Keynes was found and a perfect opportunity for a lockdown outdoor activity. 

Checking the Countryfile guide first to ensure foraging was done responsibly she managed to bring back as much as would fit in the bike basket which left George the fun task of what to do with it. 


Preserving

As previously mentioned, wild garlic is not available all year round but there are plenty of ways to enjoy its delicate flavour and health benefits all year around. 

Oil

Perfect for salad dressings or in sauces, and will last for a few weeks or can be frozen. Blanch* your wild garlic leaves, wizz in a food processor and add equal parts good quality oil, then pass through a fine sieve. 

Drizzled over a white fish such as a seabass or seabream combined with roasted tomatoes and new potatoes (or even better, Jersey royals in June) 

The oil can also be used to make mayonnaise: check out this Great British Chef’s recipe to see how. 

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/wild-garlic-mayonnaise-recipe

Powder 

Dehydrating as a preserving method is great because once the moisture is removed not only is the shelf life long but the flavour intensified, therefore not much is needed to pack a punch. 

You do not need a dehydrator for this all you need is an oven on 50 degrees. In the industry this is something we might do overnight and if you have an electric oven you can do this if you feel comfortable doing so. 

Once dehydrated blitz down into a fine powder in a food processor and store in an airtight container. 

Uses for the powder

  • Seasoning meat or vegetables 
  • Mix in with eggs 
  • Incorporate into bread flour to make a subtle garlic bread


Freeze 

Blanch and freeze to use in the future. Similar to spinach wild garlic wilts down so blanch* and either freeze into ice trays or small balls. 

*to blanch your leaves, place in boiling salted water for 10 seconds, remove and leave on the side a clean t-towel to dry 

Pickle 

Pickle the buds and use in salads or in a buttery sauce for a light white fish.

Standard pickle recipe

1 part water
1 part vinegar
1 part sugar


Semi preserved

Pesto 

Wild garlic pesto makes a great pesto, perfect for pasta and salads and will last about two weeks in the fridge. There are plenty of recipes to follow to make the pesto, with standard pine nuts, parmesan (or vegan alternative) and lemon juice. 

For a lovely, quick weekday spring dish, add your pesto to cooked gnocchi with cherry tomatoes, artichoke and roasted chicken breast. If you have a bit more time on your hands and feeling braver, try making the gnocchi yourself, see the video by Gennaro on Jamie Oliver’s YouTube channel to see how:- 

Butter 

Butter will last for weeks in the fridge (you could also freeze) and is really very versatile. 

Finely chop your garlic leaves and add to slightly softened butter with a touch of salt. 

The “chef” way to then store it would be as a log**, this is so you can create small portions at a time easily with a sharp knife, but you could store in a tub or a jar. 

This butter then can be used on steaks, in garlic bread or Chef George’s favourite…the mighty chicken Kiev, 

** video on how to make a compound butter 


Eat fresh 

Add the flowers to your scrambled eggs

Pimp your pizza – add leaves to a shop bought or homemade pizza before you cook or add flowers to the top after you have cooked. 

Substitute any of your favourite spinach recipes with wild garlic such as; 
Tortilla
Sweet potato fritters
Saag aloo
Pasta sauce
Filled pasta
Risotto
Filo pie filling

BBQ Marinade – blend (Nutribullet or similar) chopped wild garlic, oil, lemon and green chilli to make a marinade perfect for chicken or even to be served on steak after cooked. 

Foraging should  be done responsibly and with permission of the land owner. Read Countryfile’s guide below to make sure you are following the rules and if in doubt always follow the Countryside Code! 

https://www.countryfile.com/how-to/food-recipes/wild-garlic-guide-where-to-find-how-to-cook-it-and-recipe-ideas/

Have you ever used Wild Garlic in a recipe or have you tried it in a dish in a restaurant? Let us know if you have and what you thought via Inspiresdining on Facebook or @inspires_dining on instagram. 

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Five things to expect from an Inspires Dining experience

Cooking and serving the five course Exploration Menu

With years of restaurant experience, cooking and serving for everyone up to Royalty, our team know how to provide a professional service. In this blog, we’ll take a look at five things that you can rely on when you book an Inspires Dining event as well as discovering a little bit more about us and what we believe in.

Restaurant experience at home

Just like when you go out for a meal we do all the shopping, set up, cooking, serving and cleaning for you – the only difference is that you can wear slippers to the dinner table, if you so choose.

So why at home? Why not just go out for dinner? As restaurant professionals we’re passionate about restaurants and the experience they provide; they are usually lively with a unique buzz and atmosphere as well as their choice of food. However, they can also be, noisy, un-intimate and with lots of hidden costs (service, wine, baby sitter, taxi). When you book an Inspires Dining dinner, you’re guaranteed to be the centre of attention all evening; you just pay a set cost and you can give the baby sitter a night off.

Create your own menu with Chef

When booking with us you can choose from one of our pre-set menus and special offers or to make the occasion more unique to you, Chef will consult with you to create a menu with all your favourite elements. For example, allow us to help recreate a memory from a holiday or an anniversary for your dinner party.

If you have a dietary request then you will be all too familiar with “the allergy folder”, which is a pet peeve of ours. We believe that good food should be accessible to all and with our years of experience there are few allergies we’re yet to cater for, so we will create a menu that means no-one will be missing out.

Inspires Dining did ALL the work – from setting up, laying the table, cooking and clearing up to an expert standard.

Pearl Slater, Exploration Menu

Professional table service and set up

All packages come with a professional service team as standard. When we arrive we will set up the table for you and bring all the crockery and cutlery we need to serve. Alcohol is not included in the packages but the team will serve your arrival drinks and wine throughout the meal.

Table-side chef interaction

Inspires Dining is born from a passion for creating great food using seasonal produce and most importantly having a bit of fun, so no-one could better to explain the dishes to you than Chef. Food service is an art, with a story behind each dish including the elements and the flavours so our chef will explain this to you. The kitchen is always open, so if you enjoy watching people cook, come in and ask Chef your culinary questions.

Private dining menus

Fully insured and five star hygiene rated

We pride ourselves on having high, professional, restaurant industry standards and we want to reassure every customer of this. When you book a dinner with us you can feel safe in the knowledge that we are fully insured and DBS checked. It is important to us that from the very start of our journey our HQ was registered with environmental health and received five stars on its first inspection.

Read more and find out how to make a booking.