With big flavours and locally sourced ingredients, Forelles restaurant at Fishmore Hall is a great choice for Sunday Lunch.
The Shropshire town of Ludlow is famous across the world for its slow food and artisanal food producers. And the 3 AA rosette Forelles restaurant at Fishmore Hall is a fantastic place to visit for a relaxing Sunday Lunch.
I was invited to visit the restaurant after spending a relaxing afternoon in the spa at Fishmore Hall.
I was delighted by the high quality of the food we enjoyed, and it made a fitting end to a wonderful afternoon in Ludlow.
How to Find Fishmore Hall
Fishmore Hall is a luxurious boutique hotel in an elegant Georgian house just outside the town of Ludlow in Shropshire.
The hotel 15 bedrooms with individual styling, and stunning views across the Shropshire countryside. Guests can relax in the luxury spa, and enjoy fine dining in the Forelles restaurant.
Birmingham International is the nearest airport to Ludlow, and you will then need to travel on to Fishmore Hall by car or train.
Ludlow can be easily reached by car, with the drive from Birmingham takes around 1.5 hours. The town is ideal for a day trip from Birmingham, or alternatively you could spend a few days here after visiting the city.
Reaching the hotel by train will take around 2 hours, and you will need to take a taxi to the hotel from Ludlow train station.
I travelled to Fishmore Hall by car from my home in Newport, Shropshire. The journey took around an hour through country roads, past Ironbridge and down to South Shropshire.
Forelles Restaurant at Fishmore Hall
We visited Forelles restaurant after spending a relaxing few hours at the hotel’s spa. But as the restaurant is open to all, you don’t need to be a guest at Fishmore Hall to experience the fine dining on offer here.
Under the guidance of Head Chef, Joe Gould, this restaurant takes high quality local ingredients and delivers an impressive menu.
Joe sources the majority of his ingredients from within 30 miles of the hotel. The exception to this is the fish and seafood, which comes from Brixham and the Isle of Skye. There’s not a lot you can do about sourcing seafood locally when you live in a landlocked county!
A variety of regularly changing lunch and dinner menus are available at the restaurant. There’s also a nine course tasting menu on offer, with wine pairings available for a supplement.
The high standard of food presented by Joe Gould and his team has been recognised by the AA inspectors, who awarded Forelles three rosettes in 2018.
Sunday Lunch at Forelles
The conservatory at Forelles is a beautiful place to sit on a sunny day, with views out into the garden of the hotel.
The menu has a small range of food, with just four starters and four main courses to choose from. But each of them sounded so good that it took a little while to decide what to order.
Once we had made our choices, this delicious selection of breads was brought over to our table.
Slices of savoury griddled bread and onion bread were served with glossy pats of plain and Marmite butter. And there were pots of flavoured salt and sea salt flakes alongside.
The onion bread released a sweet heady scent as I broke it apart and slathered the Marmite butter thickly over it. It was a wonderful start to our meal.
The butternut risotto starter was served with a goats cheese bonbon, balsamic jelly ‘caviar’ and pea shoots.
The combination of flavours and textures was delicious: the risotto was creamy, and the tang of goat’s cheese really complemented it.
My starter was Confit Cod, served with red onion and carrot bhaji, spiced figs and a swirl of sweet potato puree. A scattering of coriander shoots completed this very pretty dish.
I’d never had Confit Cod before, and really enjoyed it. The subtle spices of the other elements on the plate really complemented the soft texture and sweet flavour of the fish.
Forelles has an excellent wine list, but not all of the wines are available by the glass. I didn’t want to order a full bottle, so I chose a glass of a crisp Pinot Grigio to go with this course.
The other starters on the menu when we visited included a Trout Tartare with avocado, cucumber and wasabi tapioca, and Celeriac served with fennel, truffle and pickled celery.
On to the main course, and we both decided to go for a traditional Sunday roast.
I picked the roast beef, which was meltingly tender. Alongside the beef were perfect crunchy roast potatoes cooked in duck fat, crushed carrots and swede, crisp vegetables, and a pile of rich jammy red cabbage. Not to forget a massive Yorkshire pudding and a sumptuously rich red wine gravy.
It was sheer happiness on a plate – full of big flavours, and cooked to perfection. I ordered a glass of Malbec to go with this course and it’s hard to imagine a nicer Sunday Lunch.
Although the Roast Pork might come close!
The pork was cooked perfectly without any hint of dryness, and the crackling was excellent, both in flavour and crunch.
The Roast Pork had the same accompaniments as my Roast Beef, but with the addition of apple sauce alongside.
Forelles restaurant at Fishmore Hall: The Verdict
By the time we had finished our main course, we were both completely full and unable to even squeeze in a shared pudding. So we finished off our meal with an excellent cup of coffee, served with a cube of creamy fudge.
Everything that we tasted at Forelles was cooked beautifully, and packed full of flavour. And the pleasant and efficient service made for a very enjoyable Sunday Lunch.
Our meal was complimentary, but the bill would have come to around £75. This included the bread selection, two courses, two glasses of wine and two soft drinks plus the two coffees. While this isn’t a cheap option for Sunday Lunch, the standard of food and service make it well worth the cost.
Whether you are celebrating a special occasion or staying as a guest at Fishmore Hall, I thoroughly recommend trying the Sunday Lunch at Forelles restaurant.
The Details…
Fishmore Hall
Fishmore Rd
Ludlow
SY8 3DP
www.fishmorehall.co.uk
Tel: 01584 875148
The Forelles Restaurant at Fishmore Hall looks so elegant and the food looks amazing! What was your favourite dish?
The roast beef was beautiful, it was probably one of the best Sunday Roasts that I’ve had
I would love to try that butternut risotto. It sounds like a great sunday lunch for you.
The risotto was gorgeous – I’d love to have that as a main course, to be honest!
That food all looks so delicious! This looks like such a lovely place to visit for Sunday lunch.
It was amazing, definitely somewhere I’d highly recommend
That Sunday roast looks so tasty, and it’s nice that there were so many choices of starters x
It really was, everything was cooked beautifully
That looks so good!! I love finding new places to eat out, the Sunday dinner looks delicious! That’s always my favourite thing to eat!
Ooh, this looks like a damn good Sunday lunch! I love eating at restaurants that serve good quality produce instead of the usual processed stuff :)
Louise x
Wow, what an amazing sounding place and I love the thought of onion bread…yum!!
Oh that butternut risotto looks amazing!!
Oh my, the food looks amazing, so wish we lived closer!!
What a lovely restaurant. The food looks incredible!