Venison ragu, homemade parpadelle and French onion soup

This week’s specials

10th-12th January, 2025

Venison ragu with homemade parpadelle topped with pecorino

£15.95

The café looks out over the farm, and it’s fantastic to use ingredients that have literally come from metres away. We have the berries and vegetables during the summer, and our herb garden all year round, but this week I am making the most of some venison that was shot here.

The café relies heavily on the Rhynd garden.

 A few years ago, I worked at a restaurant in Sydney, Australia called Ormeggio at The Spit. It was voted the best Italian restaurant outside of Italy in 2019 and it has been awarded two Hats (the equivalent of a Michelin star). I learned my pasta making there, and I love it, who doesn’t?!

The great thing at The Rhynd is that I also get to use the eggs from the farm. The hens we have are fed on layers pellets and spend the whole day outside, scratching around in the grass. The yolks aren’t yellow, they’re orange! You really notice the difference when you use them in pasta as it has this wonderful golden colour.

The farm eggs have wonderful orange yolks.

The venison ragu will be from the roedeer here and I’ll finish it with some chocolate, a classic Lombardian recipe. Italian chefs have used chocolate in savoury dishes since the 1500s when cacao beans first arrived in the western hemisphere. It’s only the sugar that makes it sweet and it has been a key ingredient with venison and wild boar in Tuscany since it first arrived. Much like wine, vinegar or lemon juice, chocolate provides the right touch of acidity.

The Rhynd Café's herb garden is used all year round.

 Classic French onion soup served with toasted focaccia and Gruyère cheese

£9.95

There are few things more warming on a cold winter’s day than a classic French onion soup. Its origins go back to the Romans, who used lots of onions in their cooking, and then, in the 14th Century, Taillevent’s Viandier cookbook has a recipe for thinly sliced onions, cooked in butter and then topped with pea purée and water.

The recipe we all know and love, though, appeared in the 18th Century when the dish arrived in Paris: caramelized onions in beef broth, toasted bread and melted cheese. Much like tiramisu in Italy (it literally means ‘pick me up’), onion soup is a popular hangover cure in French households. You know where to come on a slow Sunday morning after a heavy Saturday night now…

The Rhynd hens enjoying the grass.