Ambitious young chef Sam Sturman heads up the kitchen at the new-look All Saints Hotel, golf and spa at Fornham
There's no curbing Sam Sturman’s enthusiasm. Chatting to the young chef is like being swept up in a culinary tornado. He’s always on the go and is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious cooks in the county. Sam aims high, which put him in good stead for the Eat Suffolk Food and Drink Awards in 2020, when he won Chef of the Year.
Now, just as the seasons are changing, there’s been a shuffle in the county’s culinary scene and Sam is amongst the movers and shakers. Formerly chef patron at The Brewers in Rattlesden, he is currently settling in as executive chef at All Saints, a golf, hotel and spa in Fornham on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds, with six of his trusted Brewers brigade alongside him.
“It’s exciting. Something completely fresh for all of us,” Sam says of the bold decision to move. “The premises are lovely. The whole location is amazing. And we’ve got a nice kitchen and restaurant with a view over the golf course. I can’t wait to get properly stuck in.” It’s clear to see he’s hungry for the challenge. While he doesn’t cite any particular food heroes as inspiration for his style of food, he does like the finer things in life, and has eaten at many Michelin-starred restaurants, which has surely rubbed off on him, firing his ambition.
All Saints has two dining spaces, The View and The Lodge, an all-day destination for refreshments. “If I went to a hotel and checked in earlier than 3pm, I might not want a full meal or fine dining,” Sam explains. “I might want a few nibbles, a coffee, or maybe some cake. We’ve built a great pastry team here, so all the cakes and pastries are made by us upstairs, and brought down every day to The Lodge.”
Upstairs, The View has been completely revamped. Here Sam 's ambition is to offer an experience in the upper echelons of dining, although there’s also a bar menu of favourites that should be popular with regulars on the golf course. There are bowls of moules mariniere with crusty bread, battered haddock with warm tartare and triple-cooked chips, and The View cheese and bacon burger. “We make our own bacon jam with Guinness,” Sam says. “It makes a kind of Guinness caramel, so you have the sweetness with the smokiness of the bacon, which is nice." Here you'll also find aged dairy cow steak, with bone marrow carrots, chimichurri and Parmesan chips with Parmesan butter and garlic, and familiar desserts - an oozing chocolate fondant, and the kitchen’s take on peach pavlova.
It’s the a la carte menu where Sam’s real ambition lies. “We want to push the menu and our limits as high as possible,” he says. All Saints, he says, is not afraid to invest and he wants to make it the finest dining he possibly can. His favourite dishes from the current menu include local venison, barbecued lightly and chopped into a tartare with pickled and raw beetroot, blackberries and a red wine mayonnaise. There’s Suffolk crab, livened up with radishes, a punch of fresh lemon and kaffir lime.
A main course of halibut is poached and plated with a sauce vin jaune, clams and Grelot onion. Seared venison loin is partnered with a rich venison Bolognese, accompanied by caramelised celeriac, barbecued hen of the wood mushroom, hazelnut and black truffle.
For dessert, one of Sam’s winning Chef of the Year dishes, a hazelnut and Frangelico bavarois with chocolate, cherries and Kirsch, or finish on a savoury note with a warm three-cheese waffle, topped with a sweet and sour chutney, figs and pickled walnuts. “It’s something a bit different, isn’t it,” says Sam with a wry smile. If, like me, you can’t whittle down your decision, you could opt for Sam’s tasting menu, priced at £75 for eight or nine courses with “a few surprises” along the way, ending with a taster of the chef’s own glossy chocolates, made with recipes he perfected during lockdown.
Sam and his pastry team have also launched the hotel’s luxury afternoon tea, £25 per person, with the opportunity to upgrade with a glass of fizz. The menu includes a range of sandwiches, making the most of East Anglian produce, fruit scones with Tiptree strawberry preserve and clotted cream, pistachio and dark chocolate Paris-Brest, Opera cake, lemon curd pavlova with seasonal berries and lemon verbena, a sausage roll, and Montgomery cheese straw.
“I’m completely buzzing,” Sam says of the move. “It’s great to have some of my guys here as I know what they can do, but it’s fantastic to have a new team to work alongside too. I’ll be working hard building up those relationships, and the relationship between front of house and the kitchen, to make the best dining experience for all our customers.”
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