By Benjamin Daniells In the Black Swan garden there are three different types of plants. Some are workhorses, producing mountains of food whilst being taken entirely for granted. Others are a little more special, they produce unique flavours that we couldn’t find anywhere else. Finally, there a few with more charisma than all the others … Continue reading When life gives you (Oldstead) Lemons…
By Benjamin Daniells These fun little veg are related to the tomato fruit yet are definitely more of a savoury veg. Commonly used in salsa verde, we have instead elevated them from garden to glass status. After we’ve harvested the ripe ones, they head to the kitchen to be juiced before ending up in a … Continue reading Let’s chat Tomatillos.
Seb is definitely our go to gin genius! So, when he saw the Three Rivers Gin competition to win the chance to blend your own gin, it didn’t take long for him to send across his ideas. Below is his blog on his experience and how he felt about winning! Oh yeh, did we mention HE WON!!! Blog By … Continue reading The Summer Greenhouse- A cocktail by Seb and Three Rivers Gin
The weather seems to be on the up (after a snowy start to spring!) which means our garden is getting some serious attention. As you’ll have read from the last Garden Update we have been busy through the winter months making sure everything is ready to go, go, go. Our Front of House team are getting outside much … Continue reading Garden to Glass
By Seb Stott Starting work at the Black Swan was an incredibly daunting time for me. To come and work at somewhere of such a high standard and reputation was a wonderful opportunity of course, but it was something that I went into being very, very nervous. One of my biggest passions in life is … Continue reading Wild ImaGINation
As most of you will know and we’ve definitely mentioned before… we love to grow stuff here! We all get stuck into the gardening and harvesting but we have a particularly madcap twosome at the helm. Tom (or TB as he’s known to us) and Alan keep us well stocked with everything you’d expect … Continue reading Part 3- Opportunistic Crops And A Few Mistakes- By Bea Batchelor
“I am not a sommelier” is a phrase that I have often found myself repeating to guests in our restaurant. Surely I am not the only person who feels uncomfortable sitting in a dining room listening to the sommelier’s snobbery? I find myself worrying about my wife’s boredom whilst I struggle through a huge pretentious … Continue reading I am not a sommelier…By James Banks
As we move into the colder months, it seemed appropriate to start thinking about replacing some of our cooling, refreshing summer drinks and start introducing a few more wintery comforting ingredients. Well, and a thoroughly bizarre take on a Margarita… Just because we could. With that in mind, we set to foraging, harvesting and rediscovering … Continue reading Part 1- Is this truly a Martini? By Bea Batchelor
The cold snowy weather means that it has been a quiet week in the garden. Ken has planted Red Russian Kale, Bronze Fennel and next week we will plant our heirloom tomatoes. I can’t wait until summer when we have a tunnel full of those multicolored bad boys!! We have to grow them from seed … Continue reading “Sipping on Gin and Juice”
I have always lived in Oldstead and my parents are farmers so this gave me a passion for food and nature from a young age. My love for ingredients has led me to spend a lot of time searching for the very best suppliers as I believe the quality of the produce is very important … Continue reading Cooking… Growing… Foraging
MADE IN OLDSTEAD 