The Pig near Bath is a boutique hotel housed in a Georgian-era manor home made from honey-hued stone.Jake Eastham/Supplied
It’s too early in the season for the Pig near Bath’s two-acre kitchen garden to be producing much but impressive amounts of kale. But head chef Sophie Fenlon eagerly eyes the raised beds of dark, loamy soil.
On this damp, chilly day in Somerset, England, some beds already sprout purple broccoli, Jerusalem artichoke, buckler sorrel and at least six types of mint. The Vancouver Island-born chef of the country inn starts listing off what she will eventually pluck from the nearby thorny canes that stand at least five feet high: “Gooseberries, tayberries, red, white, pink and black currants, Chilean guava berries ...”
Fenlon plans the restaurant menu around what this garden grows, what the hotel’s apiary provides, the eggs laid by its chickens and quails, fresh venison from its deer park, cultivated fungi from the mushroom house and whatever local farmers and cheese makers supply. All of the Pig’s English manor hotels use a 25-mile menu – 80 per cent of its ingredients must be sourced within this radius. That’s why Fenlon began working here: to reconnect and stay in touch with where food comes from.
The large and bountiful kitchen garden at the Pig Near Bath, in Bath, Somerset, England.Jake Eastham/Supplied
Chef Sophie Fenlon, head chef of the Pig near Bath, grew up on Vancouver Island.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
“I’m being very creative here, the approach is casual and rustic but a lot of fun,” Fenlon says with a grin. When she first arrived, Fenlon made a Canadian misstep – “I got scolded for putting maple syrup on the 25-mile menu!” – but has since found her footing with the hotel’s head gardener Welshman Zack Jones, who likes to snip off bits of barbecue rosemary and ginger rosemary, or just about anything in the garden, for a curious visitor to munch. Twice a week Fenlon and Jones take a turn around the garden to see what’s flourishing so she can cook accordingly. “I come out here for inspiration,” she says.
Taking direction from the English kitchen garden is key to the spirit of the easygoing Pig hotels. Each of the eight locations in New Forest, Somerset, Southampton, Dorset, Devon, Kent, Cornwall and Sussex are housed in atmospheric old manor homes, all of them “Listed” buildings of historical importance. Inside them all is a mélange of English countryside decor – overstuffed, button tufted couches, elaborate iron wall sconces, Hunter boots of all sizes waiting by the door, antique butterfly collections are decoratively displayed, and heavy tables and steamer trunks hold your drinks in front of hearths of blazing wood fires. It’s a carefully curated atmosphere of olde English wealth that makes guests feel they are “to the manor born” even if they aren’t, and without the aristocratic airs that go with it.
Pig chief executive officer Tom Ross chats with visitors gathered around a carved stone hearth in a Georgian manor that’s home to the Pig near Bath. A thin Persian carpet spread over wide-planked hardwood floors is underfoot and heavy-framed portraits of unsmiling 18th- and 19th-century faces hang on the wall behind him.
“We actively say that things might be a bit broken and they are supposed to look like that,” Ross says as he rubs a chipped corner of the fireplace mantle. It is “supposed to feel a bit tired but it all sort of works.”
He may protest too much. Guests will find interiors more chic than shabby; rooms come with a deep soaker tub, often placed near mullioned stained-glass windows within a robe’s throw of a plush four-poster bed. Marble bathrooms have throne-like pull-chain toilets, which are more charming than one might think. In each Pig restaurant, tables are set with whimsically unmatched china and silverware. Juice infusions are poured from old-fashioned porcelain jugs rescued from antique shops. Scented pelargonium houseplants grow in chipped pottery and it’s all so bloody charming.
The Pig brand was launched by English hotelier Robin Hutson in 2011 to make escapes to the countryside a lot less stuffy but still a high-end experience. “Not being too grand was central to what we wanted to do,” he told British Travel Journal in 2022. Calling his hotels “the Pig” made them seem less posh, more like a pub he figured.
Last March, KSL Capital Partners, a hospitality private equity firm, purchased a chunk of the Pig hotels (Hutson continues as chairman). The new ownership is helping to expand the brand with three openings in the next two years in the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon and, in 2025, at Groombridge Place, a moated 17th-century home seen in 2005′s Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley.
Each new property follows the same kitchen-garden approach to its restaurants. Every plate that goes out is touched by the kitchen garden in some way, Ross says. “In the winter that might be something that’s preserved ... it might be something that’s cured.”
It’s a challenge chefs are eager to take on.
The walled kitchen garden at the Pig on the Beach, in Dorset, England.Jake Eastham/Supplied
At the Pig on the Beach, in Dorset, sous chef James Rothnie stands amongst a few guests admiring three hairy Berkshire/Mangalitsa pigs nosing about their pen with views of Studland Bay and the Isle of Wight in the distance. When prompted, he muses about what these chunky, fatty and, yes, adorable swine will bring to the kitchen in three months’ time. “It seems strange to talk about terrine and lardo while looking at them,” he admits eventually, but he can’t hide his excitement. “I’d never tackled whole lambs before or pigs or venison, I’ve learned so much.”
Restaurants at the Pig hotels work from a 25-mile menu. These Devonshire Hand Dived Scallops are served at the Pig on the Beach.Max Milligan/Supplied
An engaged chef is a good chef. And that pays off on the plate.
Menus at each Pig change weekly, sometimes daily, based on what’s available in the garden. Fish, steak, pork, duck and vegetarian dishes are seasoned and sauced with homegrown greens and pickled everything: walnuts, fennel, chili, rhubarb and veg of all kinds are pickled daily. Later this summer, expect to find nasturtium pesto on Pig menus and edible marigold flowers in pastries.
Chef Alex Proudman in a smoke shed at the Pig New Forest.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
Wellies are always at the ready for guests to borrow at the Pig hotels.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
Chef Alex Proudman at the Pig New Forest in Brockenhurst decided he’d brew his own amaretto from his kitchen’s discarded apricot and damson stones. (He’ll pour you a little if you ask nicely, too.) And he keeps a smoker shed going daily for salt, salmon or whatever tickles his fancy.
On a tour through the New Forest greenhouses and gardens, head gardener Alex Sultan points out a gnarled, moss-covered apple tree. It needed trimming but he couldn’t bring himself to cut the ancient limbs. He’s serious! But his enthusiasm for the garden is infectious.
In March, the brightest plants are rows of pink and green peppermint chard but he’ll be adding sunflowers and a pumpkin patch for colour and fun, and, of course, food. Sultan stands ankle deep in mulch while his arms move in wide arcs pointing to different parts of the grounds. His eyes grow distant as he loses himself in his garden dreams for a bit. Proudman calls him back to Earth. With a shrug, Sultan grins: “Whatever Alex wants to cook, it’s my job to grow it.”
If you go
The brand’s newest hotel, the Pig and the Village Pub in Barnsley House opens in the Cotswolds this summer. In addition to the kitchen garden, this hotel, six kilometres from Cirencester, includes a renowned formal garden designed by Rosemary Verey. Rooms at all Pig hotels start at $435.
The writer was a guest of Visit Britain and the Pig hotels. Neither reviewed nor approved the story before publication.
Catherine Dawson March