Limewood is situated in the middle of the idyllic New Forest. Miles away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the hotel is a newly renovated regency country manor house surrounded by greenery as far as the eye can see. Driving up to Limewood it feels as if you are in a scene from a period drama and the inside of the hotel is equally as grand. Angela Hartnett and her partner Luke Holder took the helm in the kitchen here in 2009 and haven’t looked back.
The hotel offers various cooking schools from pasta making to cakes to Christmas, but this one was rather special, being the first in a series of guest cookery schools followed by pop up dinners in the evening. Today the star of the show was Jeremy Lee, the Dundonian master of British cuisine who now runs the kitchen at Quo Vadis after an eighteen year spell at Blueprint.
We arrived to a welcome of teas, coffees and bacon sandwiches and were duly given our name badges (which I am secretly grateful for as I am terrible with names) before being shown downstairs to the cookery school. The room is equipped with a number of workstations with induction hobs and ovens along the walls and a large central station for demonstrations. In the centre of the room is a beautiful long wooden table which was adorned with the produce for the day ahead.