Chef Tom Kerridge has built up quite an empire in the charming Thames-side town of Marlow.  Mr A and I have eaten at The Hand and Flowers a few times, but we hadn’t stayed in his ‘rooms’ before.  He has converted 4 houses scattered across Marlow, close to The Hand and Flowers, into luxury accommodations.  In February 2022 I saw a promo offer on Tom Kerridge’s Instagram account which I booked immediately! For £1000 Mr A and I got to stay in one of his ‘rooms’ for 2 nights, a 3 course a la carte diner one night and breakfast each morning in The Hand and Flowers (his 2 Michelin starred pub), 8 sharing dishes at The Coach the next night (his 1 Michelin starred pub), a bottle of English sparkling wine, a signed Tom Kerridge cookbook, and a £50 voucher to use on meat in the Butcher’s Tap and Grill, his butchers shop (which also serves food from noon until 9.30pm)!  This special offer was only available midweek and the non-refundable payment had to be made at the time of booking.  Note that Tom Kerridge’s businesses do not take American Express, and the package price does not include drinks with the two dinners (my drinks bill came to £407.80).

We arrived at The Hand and Flowers late afternoon, in April, parked in the pub/restaurant’s car park and entered the building to check in, on the ‘pub’ section of the building.  After discovering we didn’t have to move our car again during our stay, we ordered a pair of espresso martinis from the bar, which offers a range of cocktails in addition to regular pub drinks such as draught keg beers.

We were ‘checked in’ by a bubbly, friendly lady, before one of their friendly drivers took us the short distance round to Apple House on Marlow High Street, in a smart new Lexus hybrid.

Marlow is in quite a wealthy area, and unlike most British towns it has a thriving High Street without any boarded up shops; just a selection of pubs, restaurants, galleries, bakeries and coffee shops, as well as the obligatory charity shops. But the street isn’t busy with traffic or rowdy drinkers, so even though our room was facing the street we had no issues at all with noise during our stay.

Our room was called Roxbury, and despite being rather ‘bijou’ it was beautifully and luxuriously decorated. The promised English wine was on ice, the cookbook was on our king sized bed and the butcher’s voucher was waiting for us too.  A large TV screen was on the wall opposite the bed, we had a small bench seat below the window facing the High Street, a coffee machine and a small writing desk.  But a surprise was that Roxbury was on two levels, with the main bathroom down a flight of stairs, to what would have been the original Victorian house’s basement.

The bathroom had a stone-tiled floor (versus a wooden flooring in the bedroom), twin washbasins and a free standing bath tub. A shower was over the bath, so there was a curtain to stop the place getting soaked.  Toiletries were Hand and Flowers branded, but reminded me of L’Occitane because of their citrusiness. One criticism was the lack of space by the sinks to accommodate all of my own toiletries. Another more serious criticism however, was, as a person with mobility problems, going down the stairs and especially using the shower presented me with quite a challenge and I was very reliant on Mr A’s help and support.  But fortunately there was a toilet and washbasin off the bedroom, so I didn’t have to face the stairs on my middle of the night toilet runs!

Our Housekeeper was a particularly warm and gregarious Liverpudlian, who showed us into the room at the back of Apple House’s ground floor, when we met her the next morning.  That room, Braeburn, would have suited me much better, and not just because it had a private outdoor hot tub!  When I booked our stay I wasn’t asked to specify the room I wanted, so I think they should have checked if I had any mobility issues.  Although their website does say Roxbury is over two levels, it doesn’t mention the potential difficulties to be faced by the less mobile, and as I said, they didn’t offer me any choice in the room allocation anyway.  For that reason, and the fact they used ‘poetic license’ in describing the bed as “massive” when it wasn’t, I can only score our accommodation 5/10  But now onto the “Gastronomic part of our visit….

It was the last Tuesday in April and after the driver picked us up from Apple House to take us the short distance to the Hand and Flowers, my sister Miss J joined Mr A and I for dinner.  This place really looks like a pub – because it is one!  It has quite a low ceiling, wooden beams and floors, and wooden tables without table cloths. There’s no pretension and no flashy modern art to be seen.

Neither are there dainty canapés or amuse bouches; things kicked off with a serving of excellent crunchy and chewy sourdough, served with cultured and pickled butter. 9.5/10 It came with a slice of sausage roll with crisp, flakey pastry and a sweet mustard mayo. Delicious. 9.5/10

I started my meal with a Hand and Flowers signature dish; the glazed omelette of smoked haddock and parmesan (£36).  TBH I only ordered it because it’s a signature dish; I wouldn’t normally choose such a filling dish as a starter.  It was very good, with soft flakes of tasty haddock, but it did rather fill me up. 8.5/10

My main course was Anjou pigeon and foie gras en croute, served with white asparagus and a red wine gravy. I also had a side of pomme Boulangere. This dish was outstandingly good – easily among the very best main courses I’ve ever had! The pastry was crisp and dry and the meats had been perfectly cooked. The side of potatoes were rich and comforting and supported the ‘pie’ very well. 10++/10

For dessert I had a coconut and mango Bakewell tart, with coconut ice cream, which I though was OK rather than anything special. But then I’m not a dessert person, and I was feeling very full at this stage. 7.5/10.  I suppose it’s a good thing to leave a restaurant feeling satiated, and The Hand and Flowers provides good hearty dishes, but I simply ate too much for my cancer-shortened digestive system and my underlying health situation after my chemotherapy, so unfortunatley I threw up as soon as I left the restaurant!   I felt so sad to have wasted the nutritious and delicious food I’d just eaten, especially that pigeon dish!

When we left we were handed a wicker basket to take back to the room. It contained a thermos flask of warm mulled milk and cookies. I kept the cookies for later, but did mange to drink some milk, with was a really delicious and classic bedtime drink. And a lovely touch. But in addition to the cookies already in the room when we arrived (by the coffee maker) I found myself wondering about the amount of sugar we were being given by a chef (Tom Kerridge) who publicly struggles with his own weight, and has done a TV show and book about healthy eating.  9/10 (for it being a nice touch).

Each morning a driver would pick us up at our chosen time, to drive us back round to The Hand and Flowers, for breakfast.  The pub was much quieter than during main meal service, and had a very relaxing vibe.  Everything is A la carte but I found the selection to be a little limited – in terms of hot dishes, there was only a choice between a “full English” and smoked haddock, so I couldn’t have my go-to Eggs Benedict.  I had cappuccino, freshly squeezed OJ, a very good muesli and the “full English”

If you’ve ever wondered how a 2 star restaurant would make a full English look pretty on the plate, check out the image above. I liked it all, except for the bacon, which was too thickly cut for me. I prefer it thinner and crispier.  7/10

On our second breakfast I tried the fish option, which was good, though I’m not particularly fond of the astringency of smoked fish in the morning.

On our second evening we had dinner in the 1 Michelin-starred pub, The Coach. With it being very close to Apple House, we didn’t have a driver to pick us up or return us home.  Mr A and I last ate at the Coach back in February 2018, when we had a stool at their counter. The interactions with the brigade really added to our enjoyment of a very good meal. But on this visit we had a normal table on the other side of the pub.  Instead of a kitchen we had wall-mounted TVs showing golf to look at.  I found the TVs very odd; OK it’s a pub, but everyone there in the evenings comes for the food and I found the TVs to be an unnecessary and inappropriate distraction. The Coach offers a “small plate menu of refined British classics that Tom Kerridge is renowned for”.  But the very concept of ‘small plates’ confuses and frustrates me because they’re often promoted as “ideal for sharing”.  So just how small are they? The plates range in price from £6.50 to £32, and as noted earlier, our package offer was for 8 dishes to share between us.  We made our selection and were reminded that “dishes will come in the order they’re ready” which was OK with us in theory, but proved quite frustrating in practice, when we were in fact brought several dishes together at once.

First up was a crisp, fresh, tangy and umami-laden Caesar salad. 10/10 But it was served at the same time as two warm dishes, so we had to work out which dishes to eat in which order.  In the image above a ‘nosotto’ inspired by Claude Bosi and a cup of mussels in stout fight for attention.

The ‘nosotto’ (made with small diced mushrooms and vegetables instead of rice) is a favourite of mine, and this one was rich, creamy, cheesy and delicious. 10/10

Mussels mariniere with warm stout and brown bread is a Tom Kerridge signature dish. It was good because it wasn’t as bitter as I thought it might be, but presented in a coffee cup sized vessel it wasn’t that easy to share. 9/10

Next came a terrific piece of turbot, deep fried in a crispy batter and served with tartare sauce and aioli. The fish was flakey and perfectly cooked, so we enjoyed this a lot 10/10 But once again it was served at the same time as seabass on top of a crab raviolo, fennel and a butter sauce with trout roe.  It was a lovely dish, but hard to cut in half to share. 10/10

Next we had roasted hispi cabbage with parsley aioli, crispy puffed potato, and onion.  This was an interesting and tasty presentation of a very tasty piece of cabbage. 10/10. But I would have enjoyed it even more if it hadn’t been served at the same time as the two fish dishes.

For our penultimate dish we went for an old retro classic which is rarely seen on menus these days, but brought back into vogue by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Chicken Kyiv (complete with the newly accepted spelling of Kiev!).  For the flavour, the cuissant and the nostalgia I scored it 9/10

Our final dish, which was served with the Kyiv, was a whole rotisserie stuffed quail with satay sauce and pickled red chilli, topped with a fried quail egg and sesame seeds.  It was the most expensive plate on the menu that night, at £32, but it was very pretty, succulently cooked and very tasty. But a real challenge to half and share!  9.5/10

Whilst we enjoyed the food served to us we had a real issue with the service style of bringing too many things out together.  And although they knew we were sharing everything they didn’t provide us with extra plates on which to put the other halves of the dishes.  So despite scoring each dish between 9 and 10 I’m going to deduct 2 points for an overall score of 7.5/10.

As on the previous night we were given a wicker basket of spiced warm milk and cookies when we left.

Mr A and I had an enjoyable couple of days in Marlow. We walked in the park, along the Thames and in the pretty High Street.  Our accommodation was well maintained and styled, though I wasn’t happy with our split level room “Roxbury”. The King bed would be perfect for most people, but I much prefer a super-king. That’s just me.  All of the staff we came across were charming, warm and friendly.  Even if you can’t get to stay in their rooms, every foodie should go to Marlow to try Tom Kerridge’s food!  It’s tasty, filling, “lush” in his words, but yes it can be quite costly. In early 2022 he was criticised for serving steak at £85, but the little quail we had in The Coach, at £32 was very expensive IMHO.  So the Gastronomic Getaway deal brought us better value for money than buying everything individually.  I do think the Coach should improve its service style by thinking more about how the guests feel when several dishes arrive at the same time, rather than just about how convenient it is for the kitchen.  After we checked out we went to the Butchers Tap and Grill to use our meat voucher, so that I was able to enjoy Kerridge’s quality meats again when I got home. The whole operation is excellently run, with great attention to detail and service.  Overall, with the odd grumble here and there I would still score our Getaway 9/10