Beaverbrook is a luxurious country house hotel near Leatherhead, Surrey. It was once the home of newspaper baron and close friend of Winston Churchill, Lord Beaverbrook, who, as Minister of Aircraft Production during WWII famously instigated the “Saucepans for Spitfires” campaign and melted down as much of his house’s metals for the iconic fighter plane (which is why Spitfire imagery is ubiquitous at Beaverbrook).  I dined in Beaverbrook hotel’s main restaurant a year ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it’s high quality contemporary Japanese food, and its fabulous setting on a beautifully warm and sunny day.  Now, back to July 2020, as restaurants in the UK began to reopen after Covid-19 lockdown, I searched for somewhere nice to take Mr A for his birthday.  Everywhere I checked in London was either still closed or fully booked (restaurant capacities were restricted to enable ‘social distancing’).  But when I found that Beaverbrook and it’s premier restaurant (now called The Japanese Grill) were open I reserved a table for lunch. Mr A loves Japanese food!  I was elated to be able to book a good restaurant again, after being house-bound for 100 days!

Beaverbrook is accessed via a long driveway which passes through a stunningly laid-out golf course. After a short distance one comes upon a gatehouse where your name is checked, and in these Covid times your temperature is also checked.  I continued along the road right to the main manor house, where a chap in cricket jumper and baggy hat told me valet parking wasn’t operating (due to Covid), so I should continue along to the nearest carpark. Unfortunately the walk back was over uneven ground and a bit of a distance for me and my walking stick, but when I got back to the cricket-clad chap he noticed my stick and kindly offered to get a buggy to drive us back to my car after lunch.  So whilst I did have a little parking issue (like last time), the customer service standards were definitely much improved.

We chose to go straight to our table, rather than having a drink in the bar, but I requested a couple of glasses of Champagne to be brought to us.  Inside the high ceiling’d beautiful dining room the two prime window tables were taken, so we took one looking onto a side garden terrace. The table layout didn’t seem different to pre-Covid times, but they were appropriately spaced out.  Hand sanitiser was at the entrance, but easily missed. Waiters wore neither face masks nor gloves.  The only Covid-related changes noticeable were the restricted menu and that the staff didn’t top up waters or wines – ie changes designed to lower operational costs rather than to enhance diner safety.  Aside from that minor gripe I applaud Beaverbrook for opening its restaurant when many places were still closed. They reported to me that trade has been good (there were 12 diners on this lunchtime service; significantly more than a year ago) so well done them!

The new covid lunch offer consisted of a choice of 4 fixed Bento menus.  We both chose the Takumi Bento because we preferred the sound of its contents, and we made a special request for ants to be included, if available, because I’d enjoyed them so much last time!  Each Bento began with a Miso “Cappuccino” (no canapés with our Champagne, no appetisers/amuses bouche), which was a coffee cup of warm miso soup topped with a cold soya foam, decorated with a spitfire stencil.

The miso soup element was pleasant, but the cold foam was not to my taste; I’m not a fan of unfermented soya’s flavour, nor of cold foams on a warm soup.  I’ll give it a score of 4/10 for the novelty, but I think this dish is a ‘work in progress’.  I would have appreciated a spoon to hold the foam away from my mouth when drinking the soup.

Next up was the so-called foraged salad with dashi jelly and crispy tofu skin. I say “so-called” because I didn’t recognise anything that might have been foraged by the kitchen, rather than supplier-bought. But it was a very tasty and pretty salad: fresh and crisp with some beautifully delicate pickling going on with some items. And the kitchen had answered my request and added some British wood ants to give a citrus seasoning. Along with the tofu skin for texture, this was a very well balanced salad. 8/10

The sashimi part of lunch was served alongside the salad. We each had two pieces of nice fatty tuna belly and two pieces of somewhat bland brill, along with traditional accompaniments (except soy sauce was replaced by a soy-sesame-mayo type dip).  Flavours and presentation were not to traditional Japanese standards. 6/10

Unusually for a Japanese meal, we were then presented with two rice dishes simultaneously. Grilled eel (unagi) with rice was very good; the eel tasted fresh and light because it didn’t have a heavy teriyaki sauce on it 9/10.  The nigiri sushi served alongside was slender and refined; just a slim portion of rice topped with raw fish and a condiment. A delicious miso-like paste was great with the salmon, citrussy ants topped some yellowtail, and a truffle concoction topped blood red tuna.  The truffle wasn’t as overpowering as last time I was here, but it was still strong enough to smother the delicate tuna flavour. BTW The menu actually said we’d have a scallop nigiri, but chef substituted yellowtail because the ants we’d requested go better with that fish. 8/10

My love of Japanese food doesn’t normally extend to their desserts, largely because of the prolific use of bean paste, which I’m not that keen on. Today’s dessert was two hemispheres of refreshing yuzu ice cream, encased in a light yellow bean paste.  By Japanese standards I liked it, but if I measure it against western desserts I would call it mediocre. 4/10

We finished our lunch with a double espresso, which was good and strong with an impressive crema, but wasn’t accompanied by petit fours.  Service was better and more friendly than a year ago, and while we did enjoy our lunch overall, it wasn’t as good as last year’s visit.  Overall score today is 6.5/10, against 9/10 last year.  Too may dishes failed to impress in terms of flavour and presentation. It’s possible they are cutting their operational costs (understandable during the pandemic) too much. Or it might just have been that a sous chef was in charge of the kitchen for this lunchtime service.

Total bill £195.75 for two.

BTW a slightly more extensive menu is available for dinner, below