Nestled at the foot of the Malvern Hills, the Victorian spa town of Great Malvern has long been a popular tourist destination with visitors travelling from far and wide to take the Malvern spring water for medicinal purposes. In more recent times the town has become a foodie hotspot with numerous high quality bakeries, cafes, restaurants and breweries springing up around the town. These have become so popular that Visit The Malverns have put together a series of Foodie Itineraries creating tours around local businesses so we decided to drive over to Malvern and follow a couple of them ourselves.
Getting there:
Great Malvern is located a short distance from the M5 motorway, accessed either via Worcester or the M50 spur from the North and South respectively. The town also benefits from good rail connections with direct Great Western Railway services to Birmingham, Oxford and London making it an ideal destination for a weekend break.
Breakfast
We arrived into Malvern bright and early and started following the All Day Fine Dining suggested itinerary by heading to the Malvern Hills Hotel for breakfast. The hotel is a ten minute drive out of town located in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Breakfast is available for non residents between 9.30 and 11.30 a.m. each day following service for hotel guests and is offered in a light and airy dining room, with its floor to ceiling windows offering stunning views.
With a varied menu featuring both continental and cooked options, breakfast at the Malvern Hills Hotel is the perfect way to start the day ahead of a morning’s walk in the surrounding hills. We helped ourselves to fresh fruit and yoghurt from the buffet before moving on to eggs Benedict and a full English which were cooked to order and served to the table.
Eggs can be cooked any way preferred and ours were just to our liking with soft, runny yolks. We didn’t have any room left to sample the freshly baked croissants but they did look very tempting.
After a second cup of coffee we were ready to set off for a walk to British Camp which is an Iron Age fort and with the start of the trail being just across the road from the hotel we couldn’t have been better placed.
An information board located on the edge of the car park outlines the history of British Camp. This Iron Age Hill Fort dates from 200 BC and occupies much of the Herefordshire Beacon, which this walk climbs and explores as the starting point is on the county boundary between Worcestershire and Herefordshire.
The trail is signposted through a wooden gate which leads up a gravel path and a flight of stone steps to the earthworks of British Camp. The undulating ground offers stunning views of the entire area. After exploring the lower sections of the fort ramparts we continued further uphill to the flat summit of the Herefordshire Beacon.
It was very windy up there but was well worth the effort of climbing up to enjoy the panoramic views of the Malvern Hills with glimpses of the hotel down below. We returned to the car by a slightly different route with our walk taking approximately 90 minutes including stops to admire the views.
Afternoon Tea at Stanbrook Abbey Hotel
Back at the car, the next place on our mystery all day dining food tour was a 20 minute drive through the countryside to the Stanbrook Abbey Hotel. The abbey was the former home to the closed order of Benedictine nuns from 1838-2009. Nuns have lived at Stanbrook Abbey for 170 years but with their numbers having dwindled in recent years they decided to move as maintaining the Victorian abbey became time consuming and too expensive hindering their monastic life. The abbey was deconsecrated in 2009 with the remaining nuns relocating to a new purpose built convent in Wass, North Yorkshire which retains the original name.
Moving forwards, the Worcestershire abbey has been tastefully refurbished retaining many of its original features and is now a luxurious four star hotel set in extensive grounds. As we parked our car we spotted a row of Morgan cars which are manufactured locally in Malvern. These sports cars are all hand made and quintessentially British.
As we’d arrived quite early for our afternoon tea we had ample time to wander around the hotel which retains its ecclesiastical heritage superbly with its long corridors lined with Gothic stained glass, ornate ceilings, alabaster statues and even a knight in a gleaming suit of armour.
Contrasting with the centuries old abbey, a new addition to the hotel is a contemporary styled spacious entrance lobby and George’s Bar. Nods to the abbey’s heritage abound with modernist takes on Gothic windows in sacred shades of purple.
After exploring the hotel we made our way to the hotel’s restaurant for our afternoon tea. Aptly named The Refectory, this newly refurbished restaurant is a restoration of the nun’s original dining room. We were shown to a cosy booth in a slightly elevated section of the restaurant. Seated at a circular table with starched napkins we were handed menus and requested pots of Earl Grey tea from the extensive selection of teas and coffees available.
After sipping our tea and glancing around the restaurant where some diners were enjoying Sunday lunches which looked irresistible topped with giant Yorkshire puddings, we waited in excited anticipation for our afternoon tea to arrive. Served on a contemporary styled three tier cake stand we tucked into freshly prepared finger sandwiches comprising egg and cress, tuna and sweetcorn, ham and mustard and cream cheese and cucumber. Our other savoury treat was a small quiche which was light with a crispy casing.
More cups of tea followed as we moved up a tier to enjoy one of the scones which we topped with berry and tonka jam and clotted cream. Sweet treats from the top tier included strawberry rose tarts, lemon and poppyseed sponge, double chocolate choux buns and miniature vanilla and blueberry cheesecakes. There was no way we could manage to work our way through everything but one of the delights of afternoon tea is being presented with a box to take some back with us to enjoy later. Not only were we provided with a cake box but also two small tubs to hold our surplus jam and cream which was an added bonus and not something that we’d been offered before.
Before leaving the hotel we enjoyed a stroll around the grounds which gave us a feel of what life would have been like in the days when it was a convent, closed to the outside world. A drive around the countryside followed before returning to where we had started the day at the Malvern Hills Hotel to enjoy dinner. The hotel seemed to be just as busy as earlier as it’s such a popular spot for either a meal or a short break.
Dinner at the Malvern Hills Hotel
Dinner is served in the Vu Restaurant which really lives up its name boasting panoramic views of the surrounding hills. After being shown to a window table we relaxed over glasses of Merlot whilst perusing the menu. Wine is very reasonably priced from £6.75 for a medium sized glass to £25 for a bottle. The restaurant prides itself in its commitment to sourcing local produce with an extensive menu to match. Service was friendly yet unobtrusive and with a large number of dishes to tempt us, it took awhile to decide. Eventually I opted for a starter of whipped goats’ cheese and yoghurt red onion tart whilst across the table my son enthused over his sticky oriental beef. I was especially impressed with my tart as it was very light and tasteful.
Moving onto mains, I couldn’t resist the pan fried sea bass served with parmentier potatoes and a mango and chilli salsa which tasted even better than my already high expectations. Our other choice of main, the slow roasted pork belly in a local cider sauce also got a big thumbs up and was declared tender and bursting with flavour. Hats off to head chef Stuart and his team for creating such a superb menu utilising farm fresh ingredients. Desserts looked very tempting but after a full day of dining we couldn’t manage anything else.
So there you have it, some super ideas for all day fine dining in The Malverns. Coming soon, detailed reviews of both the Malvern Hills and Stanford Abbey hotels.
We were guests of Visit The Malverns and as always, all views and opinions are entirely my own.
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