-EAT-

By Luke

I have been compelled to feed people since I learned how to make an omelette in a tent in Brittany when I was nine. I was then and remain a people-pleaser to my very toes and I depend, in a very real sense, on making people happy by cooking for them. I very much need to see people eat and enjoy my food and if I couldn’t do it anymore I’m not sure what I’d do.

I have spent 20 years learning how to feed people – this is very much distinct from learning to be a chef – some chefs don’t know how to feed. Or they forget.  The greatest meals of my life haven’t been cooked by the greatest chefs. I seldom crave truffle veloute or lobster foam; but a fish,  grilled over fire by someone who understands the transformative power of salt and lemon will linger in my memory like a first kiss.

At High Grange I have been invigorated and inspired by the local larder. Deer strut through our wood, neighbours leave wild mallard and pheasant at our door and wild rabbits frolic on the lawn. Mackerel and bass, stiff  with rigour,  glistening alongside hand-dived scallops the size of my son’s fist from Lyme Bay make cooking a compulsive feeders dream. We’re digging over the long-abandoned High Grange fruit and vegetable garden and each day our 2m square patch of fake grass in South West London becomes a dim and distant memory.

If you come to one of our feast nights, our Sunday lunches or our weekend brunches, you’ll eat only local and seasonal food. Join us on one of our cookery classes or retreats and you’ll learn how to feed before you learn how to cook. If we cater for your wedding, whether at High Grange or elsewhere with our mobile fire pit, we will feed you and your guests with generosity and abundance. I have always cared more about that smile, that nod of quiet appreciation than I have about the bottom line. Come hungry, leave happy.

FEASTS

We are lucky to have a beautiful room at the Shippen at High Grange to feed 20 guests. The first feast took place on Saturday 1st February 2020 and they continue roughly monthly after that. We can also host a private bespoke feast if you prefer - please email us to find out more. Some photos from our feast nights are below.

To book a feast please click on the links below. Please note that these are sample menus and some or all dishes may change due to availability of local ingredients.

Sample Menu

On arrival

High Grange Bay Martini

Nibbles

Popcorn chicken with fermented chilli glaze

Beetroot, cheese curds and tarragon

Dinner Menu

Fire roasted Hispi cabbage with XO sauce and sesame brittle

Burnt mackerel fillets with pickled rhubarb

Lyme Bay Brill with Dorset chorizo butter

Smoked rack of lamb with Lyme Bay clams and salty fingers

Quince and Dalwood walnut ‘Bakewell’ with clotted cream ice cream

And for our vegetarians, here is a sample vegetarian feast:

Vegetarian Menu

Salt roast carrot, yeast, celeriac and chestnut

Grilled cep with truffled parsnip crisps

Delica squash and pearl barley arancini with sprout tops

Fried paneer, crisp potato and beetroot raita

Burnt Miso cream, walnut brittle and High Grange apples

CAN’T DECIDE ON A DATE OR WANT TO BUY A PRESENT? BUY A VOUCHER VALID FOR ANY 2020 FEAST!

Following demand, we are also launching our 2020 feast vouchers. Each voucher will allow the recipient/s to come to any feast throughout 2020 and you can buy seats for as many people as you want. Each feast will include welcome drinks and nibbles by the fire pit, followed by a BYO 5 course locally produced, seasonal meal all served in our Shippen room (or outdoors when the weather allows).

The voucher with bespoke booking code costs £45 per person and will come beautifully wrapped with an explanatory note about the feasts. Please book via Paypal below or contact us at hello@highgrangedevon.com if you wish to purchase more than 4 seats. Make sure you let us know the name of the recipient/s!

TO BUY VOUCHERS (VALID FOR ANY 2020 FEAST) - PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK BELOW. TO BUY TICKETS FOR A SPECIFIC DATE, PLEASE CLICK ON THE BUTTONS ABOVE!

COOKING CLASSES

Luke teaches private and group cookery classes. He has decades of experience of this - from the London Barbecue School and the Borough Market demo kitchen as well as organising bespoke events.

Inspired by Luke’s love of all things fire and smoke, we have an outdoor forest fire pit and kitchen, as well as our slightly more refined indoor cookery school in the Shippen or our farmhouse kitchen complete with traditional Aga, for our guests to prepare and cook all sorts of food, to be eaten either outside or in the Shippen.

Please sign up to our newsletter for further details.

PRIVATE CATERING AND EVENTS

We can cater all events from an intimate dinner for 2 or a wedding for 2000, and everything in between. You can choose to either eat outside in our woodland during Summer months, or within the Shippen in our feast space. We can also come to you if you prefer.

We can provide all cutlery, linen and furniture as well as waiters, waitresses, cocktail bar staff and event managers if required. Luke cooks simple food, perfectly, using the best ingredients from the best suppliers, and can flex the ‘fine dining’ muscles if you like too. In the past he has cooked for significant dignitaries including Bill Clinton, Raymond Blanc and Pippa Middleton.

In a review of his restaurant The Hour Glass, Fay Maschler wrote of Luke in The Evening Standard in her 4• review:

‘Mackay is an unusual animal, a cook who understands rather well the great scheme of things and can express it cogently. In a blog on the Guardian’s Word of Mouth inveighing against an incident of customer bullying by Michelin-starred chefs, he writes furiously, “It’s cooking. I do it, you do it and my 90-year-old nan does. It’s just cooking.” In another piece he hopes the “the next foodie fad is less about the chef and more about the customer”. As you might imagine, this bodes well for punters ……’

To find out more, please contact us or sign up to our newsletter below.