19 hours ago
Truffled rabbit legs, a touch of yuzu* and plates of Granny Erskine's shortbread... how Andy and Kim could swap Grand Slams for Michelin stars
Midway through a hitherto flawless fine dining experience, I wonder if it is possible that the kitchen has gone rogue. I have just been presented with a dish that I did not ask for. Rabbit was the starter on the à la carte menu that I instinctively avoided.
Now, here was a serving of it arriving as a surprise intermediate course, compliments of the chef. It is, I am told, a 'signature dish'. He feels I should give it a try. It is not the first time James Mearing has flirted with danger in matching his culinary artistry with choosy palates. He did it six months ago when the stakes were very much higher.
He was applying for the job of executive head chef of Cromlix, the magnificent mansion house hotel in Stirlingshire owned by tennis star Andy Murray and his wife Kim.
His challenge was to rustle up two courses in two hours and present them to a panel of the hotel's top brass, including the departing chef Darin Campbell and Mrs Murray herself. How was he to know that salmon was not a dish to which she was partial?
With the clock ticking and flying solo in a kitchen he had never set foot in before, he set about preparing his salmon starter, pairing it with cucumber, dill and the Japanese citrus fruit yuzu.
He followed this up with a main course of venison, which highlighted his penchant for 'celebrating the product' by incorporating multiple uses of the meat in the finished dish.
Mr Mearing was the latest in a series of candidates to cook for Mrs Murray and her team in the nerve-shredding final phase of the recruitment process – and he was painfully aware of the exacting standards they were seeking.
Weeks earlier, the hotel was among a small batch of recipients of a Michelin key – a new award recognising the best places to stay across the globe.
Clearly, they would now be shooting for a Michelin star for their restaurant. Could this London-born 41-year-old be the man to earn one for them?
'It's always challenging coming into a kitchen that you've never been in before,' he tells me. 'But this one was particularly fast-paced – having to produce high-level food within two hours.'
He adds: 'I think my nature is probably intrinsic to quite a lot of chefs. We are constantly seeking perfection and our day-to-day is that never-ending search for perfection that doesn't really exist.'
How close to perfect could his efforts possibly be in an alien kitchen, with no one to assist him, a time frame allowing no margin for error and a key judge who, unbeknown to him, did not enjoy salmon? Well, he had given it his best.
The phone call came later that day as he, his Spanish wife Melissa and their two young children began their eight-hour drive home to Dorset.
It was hotel manager Barry Makin – one of the tasting panel – telling him that the job was his. Normally they would have deliberated for a few days and let the process run, he told the chef, before adding: 'But it was clearly you by a long way.'
And the verdict from Mrs Murray? 'Chef James's food is incredible. I didn't used to like salmon, but he has totally converted me with the way he cooks it.'
So who is the culinary wizard confounding his new employer's expectations of dishes she thought were not for her?
Certainly he is no stranger to kitchens dripping with accolades. He was, until he started at Cromlix in February, executive chef at Summer Lodge Country House Hotel and Restaurant in Evershot, Dorset, where he held three AA rosettes.
Prior to that, at the Gainsborough Bath Spa he was instrumental in their securing three rosettes and he worked at the Michelin-starred Wild Rabbit in the Cotswolds.
So how does he fancy his chances of complementing Sir Andy's tennis glories with elite status in the no less competitive world of fine dining?
'Our ambition is to be the best we can be and be better tomorrow than we were today,' he says.
'A Michelin star takes a great level of work and consistency and imagination and creativity and drive and we will put every bit of that into our work. But, ultimately, we cook for our guests, and we cook for each other a bit as well.
'If the combination of all that work and endeavour is a Michelin star then we would be incredibly honoured and thrilled, but we can only hope to reach those heights. We certainly can't presume that we will.'
On arrival for dinner and an overnight stay, the first offering I sample is not in the restaurant but in the bedroom. And the recipe is not Mr Mearing's but Granny Erskine's.
Yes, Andy Murray's maternal grandmother Shirley, 91, is the brains behind the complimentary shortbread which greets every guest. If it was good enough to become a family fixture at Wimbledon and for her daughter Judy to hand round when she was appearing on Strictly, then it is good enough too – easily – to form a delightful personal touch in five-star accommodation.
What she must make of her grandson now becoming an ambassador for a rival operation – Walker's Shortbread – is another matter.
My pre-dinner gin is created with botanicals grown on the 34-acre Cromlix estate – and much that finds its way onto the menu comes from the 'kitchen garden' outside.
Eschewing the rabbit starter with barely a glance, I order the 'cured Mowi Scottish salmon mosaic, teriyaki slaw, ponzu, furikake beetroot, kombu dashi' and refrain from sharing that I am far from clear what some of these ingredients are.
The chef explains: 'We are trying to highlight that produce in a beautiful way, so we cure it and it's just really delicately treated.'
Is the salmon even cooked? I am getting a dreamy sushi vibe.
'It's actually just really gently poached… and it's seasoned with some spring onions and spring produce that we are having through the door and that's what gives that kind of mosaic effect.'
The effect for me – unlike Mrs Murray, a salmon lover – is exquisite. How is it possible to have eaten this fish so many times and yet be discovering it anew?
And so to the dish I never ordered: duo of rabbit, stuffed saddle, truffled leg terrine, BBQ leek, pickled walnut, truffle jus.
'Generally, in a menu, rabbit is not something you see too often,' says the chef. 'So that is an important part of what we do – to try to offer our guests something they can't just do at home or see every day.'
It was a former mentor who helped start him on his rabbit epiphany.
'I remember vividly the turn that my experience in the kitchen took when I had a great chef and we were so passionate about the food we could talk about it and say, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could do this?' He was like, 'Do it. Put it on a plate. Let's give it a try. It might work.''
Well, in the same spirit, I am giving it a try – and now trying more and more. Suddenly I am gushing with gratitude for this extra dish, the bounty of unexplored flavours it has unlocked, the panache of the presentation. His twist on it is a running theme in his cooking. He uses the whole animal – saddle, shoulder, legs, carcass, the lot – and creates terrine and jus accompaniments whose root ingredient is the creature itself.
As Mrs Murray before me was converted to salmon, so I am converted to rabbit – from this kitchen at any rate.
We move to the main event – 'salt aged St Bride's duck, poached rhubarb, baked kohlrabi, red chicory, five spice duck jus'.
Mr Mearing presents it in person at my table and, as he explains the dish, gently pours some of that five spice duck jus onto my plate. The root ingredient here is a roasted mixture of the wings and carcass.
'The duck is another great one where we use the whole bird,' he says, almost superfluously.
Of course they do. It is the Mearing way – 'celebrate the product'. And, in doing so, perhaps, reintroduce it to those who assume they know it already.
I was duly enchanted by this delicate melange of the finest Scottish produce, garden grown delights and the lightest tickle of Asian influence that is a recurring theme in his cooking.
What, then, is Mr Mearing's management style in the quest for perfection. Does he turn the air blue in the kitchen like some chefs we know?
'Certainly far from Gordon Ramsay,' he says. 'Very calm. That goes into my approach to cooking and managing my team as well.
'I want Cromlix to be an incredible experience for our guests, but I really want it to be an incredible journey for the people that come and join the team here too.
'I'm trying to create a space of nurturing and creativity so that it will be a part of their story that they can say 'I was at Cromlix' and they wear that like a badge they are proud of.'
Clearly, the hotel near Dunblane where the Murrays used to go for family celebrations has also been on a journey since the tennis star bought it for £1.8million months before winning his first Wimbledon in 2013. He and his bride had their wedding reception there in 2015 and, in recent years, she has played an increasingly prominent role in shaping it.
Apart from its tennis court – complete with an umpire's chair once used in a match between Murray and Roger Federer – there are few nods to the illustrious sporting career of its co-owner.
The feel is of a luxury woodland retreat, an oasis of calm and rural opulence just two miles from the A9 dual carriageway which you soon forget is even there.
Laid out on the floor and on pegs in the entrance hall is a selection of Barbour wellies and waxed jackets for anyone who fancies taking a stroll around the grounds. There is a croquet lawn and garden chess. The rooms are named not after tennis tournaments but wild flowers growing on the estate.
I was in Allium – whose enormous bathroom is justifiably described as 'show-stopping' – and next door was Fennel. All were given the personal Kim Murray touch in a 2023 refurbishment. And she has not finished yet.
In January the hotel will close for four months while a new 70-cover restaurant wing and three ground-floor bedrooms are added.
The stately 'garden room', meanwhile, will be transformed into an intimate, fine dining 'tasting menu' restaurant and the glasshouse – where meals are currently served – will be given over exclusively to afternoon tea.
For Mr Mearing, the owners' sense of ambition was a key reason why he wanted the job so badly, even if it did mean uprooting his family from the south coast of England. He says: 'If you've got owners that are so passionate and pouring so much into the place then you know that you're on a journey and it's going somewhere, and that's great.'
Now that he knows the hotel is on their radar, does he think he'll know the next time Michelin experts are in his midst?
Well, he says, the hotel had no idea anyone had been there prior to its award of a Michelin key.
'That's the beauty of it because, every day, you have to set out to reach that level. That's why, as I say, we just try to be the best we can be for our guests. You can't just put on a show for one day, knowing that someone is coming.
'You just have to operate at that level and see what comes.'
Although Mr Mearing has cooked on a number of occasions for Mrs Murray, the challenge of catering for her other half – a sushi and Asian food lover – awaits. The two have yet to meet.
When they do, the tennis star may advise chef on which school to choose for his children, Molly-Jane, three, and Matteo, one. Currently their mum is looking at Murray's old one, Dunblane Primary.
I can already advise Murray on what to choose when he next swings by Cromlix for a bite. Go for the salmon, Andy. And the rabbit. And the duck.
They're gamechangers.
