Tessa Allingham dines and stays at Adnams' Swan Hotel at Southwold as the company prepares to celebrate 150 years with an eye firmly on the next 150 to come
Back in the late spring of 2018, I interviewed Rory Whelan for a book I was writing. Our conversation meandered from his native Ireland and how particular he is about his whiskey, via his love of carp fishing, Suffolk, and Adnams’ Blackshore Stout. He prepared a chicken dish with charred leeks, a crisp nugget of leg meat and a limpid consommé, and I remember how deliciously simple and spring-like it was.
Scroll forward four years, almost to the day. The head chef at Adnams’ flagship Swan hotel in Southwold still loves fishing and Irish whiskey, still has “all I want” in Suffolk, and is still a joy to talk to. His steady hands are the sort a restaurant needs more than ever right now, as hospitality businesses feel their way through the toughest times. And you can see the impact of his calm leadership: Rory has a full kitchen team of 12, supported by four kitchen porters. I double-check, because that’s a rarity these days. He touches all the wood he can see, puts his fingers to his lips as if to say ‘Shhhh, let’s not jinx it’.
%image(14509928, type="article-full", alt="Chef Rory Whelan and restaurant manager Yann Aubourg at the Swan in Southwold.")
His food is calm too. It doesn’t bristle with ego or try-hard flourish. “I buy good quality base ingredients, things people will recognise, and do very little to them,” he says. Blythburgh pork, Sutton Hoo chicken, truffled Baron Bigod cheese all feature. “What’s the point of gimmicks or putting stuff on a plate for the sake of it? If you get sucked into your own ego as a chef, you start to lose track. I don't want people to feel as if they're being educated all the time either; it’s dinner. We must cook food our guests want to eat and come back for again. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
And so to dinner. You can eat in the more pubby Tap Room with its old photographs, and walls painted deep-blue, but we’re in the Still Room where the copper cocktail bar reminds you of Adnams’ distilling business, and portraits of elegant people add grace to the space. The menu is the same in both restaurants because making things manageable and consistent is paramount right now.
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We could share a platter of oysters, cured herring and cod roe (and the rest, but it’s these three elements that draw me), or scorched mackerel with rhubarb, yoghurt and pink ginger which sounds lively, or a classic steak tartare with smoked egg yolk. Asparagus, at its blink-and-you-miss-it peak, is grilled alongside a savoury black garlic emulsion, with sherry-pickled shimeji mushrooms for a dash of acidity. It’s an umami-laden hit.
%image(14509932, type="article-full", alt="Chicken ballotine with a vivid-green lovage emulsion.")
%image(14509935, type="article-full", alt="Oysters, cured herring and cod roe at the Swan in Southwold.")
My chicken starter is the s/s 2022 iteration of that 2018 dish. This season’s style is a ballotine which sits, pale and tender, on a vivid-green lovage emulsion that punches with the herb’s clean, bitter-edged flavour; it’s a delicious, classic pairing. There’s a charred baby leek on top, tufty end and all, and a sweetly smoky charred apricot. Rory is a fan of sous-vide cookery – it’s the consistency, he says, and how it enables herbal flavours to penetrate deeply into meat and fish. He water-baths the legs low and slow, then sets the chopped meat in a jelly made from the natural juices, wraps the chicken breast round it, and poaches it.
The emulsion is vegan, as are most of Rory’s vegetable-based purées such as the turnip one served with roast lamb, and the white onion and miso that comes with pork belly. “The lovage flavour is so pure; you get a more natural flavour with soy milk,” he says. And while his menu is definitely one for the omnivore, he works hard on the plant-based repertoire.
“Veganism has really influenced my cooking over the past four, five years, and challenged me. I was never educated in it. It’s new to a lot of chefs and it can be difficult to create a vegetarian dish that sits with the standard of the rest of your food.” He’s pleased with a cauliflower main course (I try it the following day in the Tap Room, and I’ll order it when I’m next there). “We cook it sous-vide then roast it. We smoke the trim for more flavour, and make a purée with that.” There’s no butter or cream. “The old-school way would be to add half a pound of butter – which is lovely, don’t get me wrong – but the trend is to lighter cooking. I prefer to use rapeseed or lemon olive oil, depending on the dish.”
%image(14509939, type="article-full", alt="Rory Whelan says; "It can be difficult to create a vegetarian dish that sits with the standard of the rest of your food.” He’s pleased with his cauliflower main course.")
%image(14509942, type="article-full", alt="Turbot is roasted and served with confit potatoes, the simplest cabbage and peas, and a broth.")
Turbot isn’t called ‘king of the sea’ for nothing, and the best recipes do very little to the snow-white, mild-flavoured flesh of this peculiar-looking flatfish. The fillet is roasted and served with confit potatoes, and the simplest cabbage and peas; a broth is poured tableside. “It’s the only dish without a recipe,” says Rory. “The broth has to be cooked to taste. It’s made from the trim from the turbot, the pods from the peas, and those flavours change through the season. You can explain the basic method, but it’s about understanding how ingredients impact the overall taste, not following a recipe word for word.” We drink richly flavoured Roero Arneis from Piedmont and it shines beautifully alongside the turbot.
Dessert is in the hands of pastry chef Leanne Dutton. Classic pairings get strong billing, and familiar-sounding biscuits give texture to mousses, custards and parfaits. Try the iced cherry parfait with a Bourbon biscuit, dark chocolate sorbet and Chantilly cream, or delicate earl grey mousse piped into a ripple and served with a Rich Tea biscuit, milk ice cream, and slivers of candied lime. It is gently nostalgic, fresh and delicious; the sweetness and acidity of Adnams’ Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh is a luscious sip alongside.
%image(14509947, type="article-full", alt="Dessert is in the hands of pastry chef Leanne Dutton.")
%image(14509954, type="article-full", alt="Delicate earl grey mousse piped into a ripple and served with a Rich Tea biscuit and milk ice cream.")
But it doesn’t have to be fancy fish and luxurious puddings. Order a burger or fish and chips – albeit a posh burger in a brioche bun, and monkfish under the batter – because for all its coppery glamour and superlative service (take a bow, restaurant managers James Hall, Yann Aubourg and your team), the Still Room is just a place to go for dinner.
Do stay…
The first person you meet at The Swan is your butler. It could be Sam, who started as a receptionist before becoming the hotel’s first woman to hold the post. It could be Andy, a retired policeman, or Richard, a professional musician who sings with Steve Harris – yes, he of Iron Maiden heavy metal fame. Welcome to Southwold.
The seemingly all-knowing and all-capable butlers will tuck your laptop away somewhere safe for a few hours after checkout, mix you a G&T, arrange a brewery tour, even clean seagull droppings from your car without you even asking. These are non-starched butlers for the 21st century, the sort you’d expect from a company looking to be a fit for the next 150 years rather than misty-eyed about the 150 just gone.
Andy shows me to my room. It is spectacular. In butler-mode, he opens the tallboy to reveal a tv, and drawers and cupboards that hide Nespresso pods, teabags and a kettle, because only attractive things are on show. Antique pieces of furniture and art, and the odd second-hand book (there’s David Copperfield, but only part 2, mind), and pretend-antiques like the old-school telephone and filament lamps, sit alongside contemporary details - framed Scrabble boards set with Adnams-related words (fun) and the Adnams branding of pink, navy blue with a dash of grey and taupe. There’s a welcome plate of wickedly tempting bakes and a box of exquisite Wood Row chocolates. Yes, the sash windows work, yes, the little bottle of Copper House gin is on the house, and if there’s anything more I could possibly need I’m to call Andy.
The bed in room 21 is a pillowy ocean. It is resolutely comfortable. The Temple Spa sleep spray is superfluous, and lie-in land hard to resist. But breakfast beckons and anyway the gulls are in full voice, chivvying and chiding outside the windows.
Breakfast continues where dinner left off, with carefully chosen ingredients and temptations galore. But who knew that eggs benedict has 834 calories? Cursed be the people who suck the joy out of the occasional luxury, and kudos to Adnams for putting this information in numbers so minuscule that I didn’t see them on the menu the evening before. A plum tomato is just eight calories… but a tomato does not a breakfast make. Melon compressed with elderflower and lemon comes in at a mere 50 and it’s delicious, so that’s a win. Lowestoft kippers tempt, so too Blythburgh sausages, but smoked salmon and gloriously creamy scrambled eggs wins for 547 calories and a promise to self that my later beach walk will be extra-brisk.
%image(14509964, type="article-full", alt="Dining in the Still Room at The Swan in Southwold.")
%image(14509971, type="article-full", alt="The comfortable Tap Room at the Swan in Southwold.")
The Swan’s £6million refurb in 2017 saw colour, colour and more colour pour into the Georgian building. Five years and a few discreet tweaks on, it’s still as joyful. The chairs in reception are still shocking pink, the flower arrangement fabulously bold, the vast emerald-green sofas in the lounge as velvety and Instagrammable as ever. It’s not surprising the hotel won a coveted four Red Stars and an Inspectors Choice award from the AA this year, making it one of just four in Suffolk – and making general manager Liliane Aubourg cry tears of joy at the recognition of her team’s hard work.
Tessa was a guest of The Swan, Market Place, Southwold IP18 6EG theswansouthwold.co.uk
Adnams 150
In the Tap Room at The Swan hotel in Southwold there’s a sepia photograph, taken in around 1880, of a uniformed Victorian gentleman. His moustache is well-cultivated, his boots shine and he’s leaning on a sword. He looks quite pleased with himself.
So he should. The picture is of Ernest Adnams, the man who, in 1872, fancied a punt on making beer in Southwold, and bought the Sole Bay Brewery with his brother George. It turned out OK: the business still makes beer in Southwold, it’s still family-owned (fourth-generation Jonathan Adnams OBE is chairman), its property portfolio has expanded, and it’s emerging from the toughest of recent years to celebrate its 150th birthday.
No doubt a glass or two will be raised to Ernest and George when the celebrations happen in mid-September, bringing the company and the Southwold community together. Bunting will be out, barbecues lit and a carnival atmosphere will centre on The Swan hotel and brewery. “It’ll be a chance for everyone to let their hair down,” says Nick Attfield, Adnams’ director of properties (and also of ‘events, tours and experiences’, but that’s a mouthful). “That’s so important after the last two years. It’s going to be a lot of fun!”
Nick doesn’t want to dwell too much on the past 150 years, though. More interesting is the next 150. “Our job now is to make the right long-term decisions.” He’s feeling positive. “I’ve got some really juicy projects. I’m confident, excited about the future.” The Crown, just down the High Street from The Swan is mid-makeover (a peep through windows reveals walls being painted a magnificently bold green), and plans for the Five Bells pub at Wrentham are being laid.
“It’s such a beautiful location, there’s a meadow going down to a stream. I’d love to have shepherds’ huts, cabins, different types of accommodation there. We could create a rural idyll, our own Soho Farmhouse. I have the idea of old Landrover Defenders bringing people into Southwold.”
There are plans also to expand Adnams’ retail and delivery capacity, and to build an accommodation-only hotel in Suffolk that supports nearby food and drink businesses that stock Adnams. “The brothers took a punt and made entrepreneurial decisions back in 1872,” says Nick. “It’s the job of the current team to do the same. You can’t stand still.”
%image(14509974, type="article-full", alt="Adnams celebrates 150-year heritage this year and is focused on the future.")
The depth of Ernest Adnams’ environmental awareness is not recorded, but that of his descendants is. Jonathan Adnams earned his OBE for commitment to corporate social responsibility back in 2008. Lady Clare, Countess of Euston and Lord-Lieutenant of Suffolk will present Adnams with the Queens Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development during the anniversary weekend. It’s the third time the company has won the award.
The sedum roof at the Reydon distribution centre is now 16 years old, the bee hives and water-harvesting system are well-established, and refill stations, launched early 2022, are being rolled out. “We were and remain environmental pioneers,” says Nick. “ Customers love popping back with their empty gin bottles for us to fill again for them. And if you are local to one of our shops and place an online order it’ll automatically default to delivery by one of our electric vans or bikes.”
The company is also facing up to the reality of changing consumer habits. With the appetite for low/no alcohol here to stay, Nick is hopeful that Smidgin, launched in January, will build the same following as Ghost Ship 0.5%. “There’s a lot of low-alcohol gin around, but it loses its flavour quickly as there’s no alcohol to preserve it. Smidgin is full-strength gin but with 10 times the botanicals; that preserves the flavour for months, means you only need a smidgin.” A copper 2.5ml dosing spoon hangs round the neck of the bottle as a reminder not to slosh too much into the glass.
%image(14509975, type="article-full", alt="Adnams is part of a gin revival and is now embracing a trend for no and low alcohol versions.")
And with the role of the pub radically different from half a generation ago, let alone four full ones, Adnams is adapting to change. “People go out less, but expect more from their experience and quite rightly want everything to be perfect. The role of the pub as the centre of the community is also shifting. Political debate, village gossip and awkward first dates have all be digitised! They don’t need the pub to hear local gossip or meet people,” says Nick. “They swipe for friendship, they scroll to find jobs.”
He believes a shift towards the “disneyfication” of pubs is inevitable, but their place will remain firm. “They might not be the daily social necessity they were 150 years ago, but that doesn’t mean they’re not important locally, and that we don’t enjoy being in them just as much as we always did. Pubs and everything they represent will be part of Adnams’ next 150 years for sure.”
