The supper club movement reaches our village.
Supper clubs, part of the Slow Food movement have arrived from Italy and entranced the glitterati of Islington and Camden Town over the last decade. Now these pop-up dinner parties have migrated eighty miles up the canal and reached Braunston.
Anita and Andy Lowe open up their High Street dining room or fairy tale Scheherazade’s 1001 Arabian Nights gazebo to between six and ten villagers once a month for a delicious, and often adventurous dining experience.
We got to know our fellow guests over welcoming mojito rum cocktails and delicious crunchy bruschettas as with trepidation we pondered “Just what is a pop-up supper club? Why am I at this one? and who are these people here with me?”
Perfectly spiced chilled cucumber and walnut soup got us off to a good start with crusty breads to clean the bowl.
The main course was exotic chicken with pomegranates and other fruity delights. Both the summer potatoes and the imaginative salad packed a surprise or two.
Gooseberry and elderflower fool and raspberry pavlova, all made from garden grown fruit, arrived at the same time as the heavy rain, but by now we were cosy in the tent and the rain drumming on the canvas added a taste of boy scout adventure to what is anyway a fairly adventurous project in eating out.
And still the courses came. Warm goat’s cheese was next, sitting on a nest of various leaves and, no surprise there were exotic breads for those who wanted them. Like so many of the night’s ingredients we discovered that those leaves had been growing in the garden just an hour or so before. No food miles here. Here we have food inches!
Finally coffee and chocolate salami; yes, I did say chocolate salami, and that led to a round of applause for our amazing hosts Anita and Andy.
The amazing £22.50 price of the meal didn’t include wine but most people bought a bottle or two and even the couple who hadn’t read the instructions and came empty handed drank well. It was that kind of dinner party with those kind of guests.
Eleven diverse Braunston villagers got to know each other a little better. Nine of them ate as well as anyone should ever hope to eat anywhere. Anita and Andy’s imaginative pop-up Braunston Supper Club popped up another notch.
If I was you I’d try to get booked in, but August is already full and future dates filling fast.
All in all it is hard to think of a better way to spend a gourmet evening in Braunston or indeed in Islington or Tuscany either.
Give Anita or Andy a call on 07775 902333 or email [email protected] or even ask Mr. Google about braunstonsupperclub. You will be surprised by just how much he knows.
More information can be seen on the Braunston Supper Club profile on this website.