Tag Archive for: Freemasons

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Join the morel crusade as Mike Shaw gives the Freemasons new belief

I am still a boy, only occasionally needing to scrape the downy bum fluff off my chin. “So you fancy a half pint of my foaming ale, do you, sonny?” smirks the landlord across the pumps. My school pal Hoppers looks even more callow, so he has pushed me forward to get us served. Only the third pub I’ve ever managed it in and I am still struggling to actually like the forbidden fruit of malt and hops. Ah, the bittersweet joys of under-age drinking long ago…

Fast forward half a century and more and there’s a different sort of epiphany going on in the same hostelry, The Freemasons At Wiswell, these days the very model of a country gastropub. Wiswell rhymes with ‘swizzle’, but you won’t be cheated by the offering at this destination on the fringe of the Ribble Valley.

That stuffed morelo
Chef patron Mike Shaw

The British morel season is vernal and short, April the apogee. Often found clustering under hedgerows, the ridged and pitted fungi are a prized delicacy. I am unsure where chef patron Mike Shaw sources his from. I should’ve asked. The dish he has just served, a morel stuffed with scallop in a vin jaune sauce as part of a six course set menu, is a portal into fantasy Gallic Michelin territory. 

Greenfield-born Shaw has served his time at Raymond Blanc’s two-star Manoir and worked with Richard Neat in Cannes when that maverick Pied à Terre founder  became the first Englishman to win a star in France. The classic training has always been evident in Shaw’s subsequent cooking nearer home. I’ve always been in awe of his patisserie skills. Now his new tenure at The Freemasons looks like taking this acclaimed food pub with rooms to a different level.

Under a previous incumbent Steve Smith it repeatedly featured in Top Gastropubs lists. Indeed it became the 2015 Waitrose Good Food Guide’s Number One Pub in the country. At one point it even leapfrogged the Michelin-starred Northcote down the road in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Restaurants list. Great times, but it has been in the comparative doldrums since. Now the revival is definitely on  the way.

Not that it is forsaking its look of a film set for some Hollywood-imagined country inn It boasts more stag’s heads than you can shake a fox’s brush at and innumerable Dick Turpin meets Jorrocks country prints. You could imagine the Pickwick Club getting exceedingly jolly in the formal upstairs dining areas, which have been tarted up even more. The inn is a conversion of three terraced cottages, one of which was once a Freemason’s lodge apparently. Four beautifully appointed bedrooms have been created out of neighbouring property and remain a huge plus.

We’d have happily hunkered down in one after six fabulous courses for £85`:

 Wye Valley asparagus, miso caramel, miso hollandaise; duck liver, blood orange, golden raisin, heritage carrot; Cornish crab, apple, pickled kohlrabi, preserved lemon, oscietra caviar; stuffed morel, scallop, artichoke, walnut, yellow wine sauce; salt marsh hogget, loin, braised belly, sweetbread ballotine, aubergine, tongue sauce; pistachio parfait poached rhubarb.

Asparagus delight
Lamb fat brioche

All lovely, but the star was that stuffed morel. Hand-dived dived scallops are made into a very light mousse, seasoned with sea herbs, steamed for 8 minutes in the morel,  left to rest and then glazed with a double veal stock reduction. Shaw sits it  on a Jerusalem artichoke puree and serves with a sauce made from a grand cru vin jaune, that oxidised wine speciality of the Jura. It’s finished with walnut oil.

Cornish crab
Salt marsh hogget

This is the chef’s take on the kind of dish you might have found on the menu at Nico Ladenis’ London three-star late in the last century. In Padstow today Paul Ainsworth might stuff his mores with chicken mousse, with cured winter truffle, confit shallots and duck liver. Which all sounds a mite over-rich. In contrast Mike Shaw’s is light and spring perfect.

Freemasons at Wiswell, 8 Vicarage Fold, Wiswell, Clitheroe BB7 9DF
01254 822218.

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The Freemasons at Wiswell: Surely the best value set lunch around?

There’s a fascinating interview in hospitality bible The Staff Canteen, where chef/patron Steven Smith explains how he has adapted The Freemasons at Wiswell for these difficult staffing times. 

We hadn’t read it when we rolled up for lunch at this exemplary gastropub on the fringes of the Ribble Valley. In retrospect it gives a valuable insight into our experience – which was very rewarding. Step forward the Wild Boar Bolognese, Hand Rolled Beetroot Rigatoni, Pickled Walnuts, Aged Parmesan that had me squealing with excitement.

A complimentary Isle of Wight Tomato Tea with a herby whipped curd cone was a delight

It’s a new starter on the remarkable value set lunch (£22 for two courses, £27 for three, also available early evening). ‘Cutting your cloth’ isn’t usually a benchmark for improvement but on the lunch evidence a serious kitchen rethink has paid off.

Steven Smith has adapted his regime to make the kitchen run more smoothly and help his staff’s well-being

He explains in the article: “We always were very mise en place heavy and then service was kept smooth, crisp and clean. but now we have more staff working Monday to Friday doing preparation than we have staff doing Saturday Sundays actually cooking.”

Not only has this helped them redress staffing issues… “We’re also cooking better than we ever have, we’ve slimmed down the menu, we’ve really thought about simplifying a lot of dishes and it’s made the food better.

“The food still has the same Freemasons touch and feel, we haven’t turned away from that, we’re still using all the same sauces we’ve always used and the concept of the dishes is the same, we’ve just refined it and taken a lot of stuff off the plate that didn’t need to be there.”

You’d have to road test the a la carte to properly confirm this. Certainly in the past Steven has seemed to be driven by Michelin aspirations and it has seemed unfair that many of his peers below the Freemasons in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list have secured a star. 

To celebrate 10 years at Wiswell, in summer 2019 Smith took the place up a notch with a big investment. Four luxury bedrooms were attached plus a state of the art kitchen as the hub of a new dining experience called ‘Mr Smith’s’… Here’s my glowing report on our stay for Manchester Confidential.

Our return is more back to basics, but what basics. A running thread through the meal is the vivid presence of in-season peas and broad beans. ‘Summer greens’ feature in a velouté starter and a complimentary Isle of Wight Tomato Tea (with its cute cones of whipped curd and herbs). Equally chlorophyll-rich are the simple accompaniments to a roast salmon loin – samphire, dill and an exquisite green forager’s sauce.

French style peas (not mushy) form a base with a mint sauce for my wife’s Suet Pudding with an unctuous filling of Herdwick Lamb Shoulder, while my rival main dunks Loin of Whitby Cod in a sharp vegetable and herb nage that’s a whole intense harvest of those peas and broad beans. No greens were apparent in that debutant Wild Boar, but it was the true star of the show. 

This half portion of chocolate device was enough – it was decadently rich

We stuck with the two courses but then shared a hard-to-resist Dark Chocolate Delice (£12.95) from the a la carte, a blackcurrant sorbet and cherries giving it a deconstructed Black Forest feel.

The Freemasons Menu, a model of deconstruction in it own right? We like it.

Freemasons at Wiswell, 8 Vicarage Fold, Wiswell, nr Clitheroe, BB7 9DF. 01254 822218.

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