Extravagant Weekend Getaway at Keythorpe Hall
As weekends away go, they don’t come more extravagant than those spent at Keythorpe Hall – where gastronomy is at the heart of every stay.
In the gardens of Keythorpe Hall, resident ethnobotanist and wild-food academic Claudio Bincoletto picks wheat-scented St George’s mushrooms as a cuckoo calls in the forest. Nearby are the furry remains of a hare’s leg, possibly hunted by the red kite that lives in an ancient beech tree and often hovers on the airwaves, looking through the high sash windows of the grand house. This hall, completed in 1843 by the 11th Lord Berners, has been returned to its former glory by owners Giles Godfrey and Barbara Van Teeffelen, recently reopening as a full-service rental for up to 20 guests.
Godfrey, who grew up in the area, and Dutch Van Teeffelen renovated Keythorpe Hall over a decade, doing the interiors themselves. There’s an elegant undone-ness to the spacious house, dotted with auction-bought Chesterfields and chandeliers, complemented by textural modern art for sale alongside portraits of various lords who have presided over the place. However, food is the main calling card, whether for weekend guests or locals attending the twice-monthly seven-course dining club. Chefs Peter Johansen and Bent Varming, having worked in some of the great temples of provenance, were drawn by the purity of the seasonality at Keythorpe, where all but a few ingredients are local.
Johansen and Varming generally work with what Bincoletto, himself a trained chef, provides them – from aptly named oyster leaf to hop shoots picked on the exact three days of the year they taste best. Bincoletto’s philosophy revolves around observing and working holistically with the land, rather than imposing rigid human order. In the old walled garden, which was overrun with towering nettles five years ago, there are lines of punchy garlic mustard, soft purple orach, tender asparagus, and much more, supplying local vegetable boxes.
Many of Bincoletto’s interventions in the wider grounds are gentler. Brashes of fallen trees have been left to provide havens for small mammals. On a slope down from the house, a patch of roughly cut grass serves as an easy hunting ground for the local kestrel, while barn owls can find prey in the wilder section next to it. Scores of creatures have returned to this nurtured Arcadia: song thrushes and newts; peacock, Adonis Blue, and orange-tip butterflies.
Of course, so much of this leads back to the long dining table at Keythorpe Hall, where the view is of rolling fields in an area Bincoletto compares to Chianti. One can savor asparagus with brill-roe emulsion; Cornish bass ceviche with fennel, kumquat, and citrusy rhubarb; a deceptively simple salad of lovage and fennel tops. Those St George’s mushrooms are served with a red scarlet potato gnocchi, dressed with hogweed and cime di rapa brassicas. It is sublime yet unforced, with so much flavor straight from the earth.
Godfrey points out that none of what’s happening at Keythorpe is actually trendy – rather, it reflects a return to the days when aristocrats had walled gardens to entertain guests. This approach embodies hedonistic locavorism that feels like Bincoletto’s view of nature: sensual, creative, and as seductive as borage to a bee.
Location and Pricing
Hotel Address: Uppingham Rd, Leicester LE7 9XJ
Price from: From £6,000 a night; seven-course supper clubs cost £80.
