Beaverbrook’s Chef Wojciech Popow Always Strives to Create Something New
Once home to Lord Beaverbrook, the vast Surrey Hills estate now known as Beaverbrook has become one of England’s most renowned country house hotels. Less than two hours outside of London, Beaverbrook is known for its expansive spa, tasteful guest rooms and high-end Japanese restaurant. It’s an unexpected culinary experience in the middle of the English countryside, especially since most similar hotels in the area feature the requisite British-inspired dining. But The Dining Room, open to hotel guests, members of the Beaverbrook golf club and day visitors alike, serves up some of the best Japanese dishes outside of London, thanks to head chef Wojciech Popow.
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Popow, who hails from Poland, has helped to develop an innovative menu that celebrates Japanese techniques and styles in a way that is also inspired by Beaverbook’s surroundings in Surrey. He’s interested in evolving dishes and flavors, and continually tries new ways of expressing himself in the kitchen. The Dining Room—formerly Lord Beaverbrook’s actual dining room—is almost entirely gluten-free, for example, even though it took Popow nearly two years to find the right blend for tempura flour.
“I like understanding why things happen and why they became as they are,” Popow tells Observer. “One of my culinary idols is Heston Blumenthal, and he said, ‘Question everything.’ That is what I’ve always been trying to do. To question every technique and] everything we do. Why things become like this when we cook them or when we don’t cook them. I think this opens the mind a bit and lets you juggle with the ingredients much better.”
Popow recently added donburi bowls as a more affordable lunch option, and in the summer, the restaurant serves a set menu to diners at tethered hot air balloons lined up on the estate’s........
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