Andrew Clarke to oversee food at Hertford House Hotel plus trio of new ventures

The former St Leonards and Brunswick House chef will head up the new food offer at the hotel as well tapas bar Anexo, provisions deli The Storehouse, and Hole in the Wall takeaway.

Clarke is partnering with managing director Daniel Shipton who has spent lockdown acquiring new sites in the town centre in a bid  to rejuvenate the high street

Anexo, located a short walk from the hotel, is a small two-floor tapas and pintxo bar housed in a Grade II listed building with Egyptian style façade – one of only three examples of such architecture in the UK.  

The tapas bar will serve a menu of small traditional Spanish dishes with a menu that will focus heavily on wood fire cooking. Dishes will include grilled asparagus, fermented pepper, garrotxa and migas; grilled Ibericopressa with broad beans, Amalfi lemon and caper butter; and grilled sardines with tomato escabeche.

There will be a fresh day-boat fish counter where customers will not only be able to choose their ingredients to be cooked on the grill, but also take home fresh to cook themselves.

Downstairs will be Basque country charcuteria with a wooden bar and wine cellar. Menu items will b a variety of pintxos, charcuterie and cheese, including hand carved Jamon, Iberico salchicon, and Manchego.

At Hole in the Wall Clarke will collaborate with guest chefs to developing limited-edition takeaway menus from around the globe. The venue will have space for 28 seats for outdoor dining and will kick off the series with Sichuan and regional Chinese cuisine delivery Little Wu’s. Dishes will include vegan mapo tofu; Xinjiang style lamb and cumin skewers; and char siu Tamworth pork spare ribs.

Clarke’s a la carte menus at Hertford House will champion local produce and wood-fired cooking with dishes set to include BBQ lamb, courgette, mint and crispy lamb fat potatoes; steamed cod, white crab, creamed potato and horseradish; and roast truffled chicken breast and chicken offal ragu. The kitchen will be headed up by Simon Ulph, who previously worked at Smokehouse in Islington and alongside Clarke at St Leonards in Shoreditch.

To accompany the food, wine expert Bert Blaize – previously at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Clove Club and also St Leonards - has created a list of New and Old-World Wines, as well as those from lesser known, local British vineyards. Blaize will also oversee the drinks menu at Anexo.

“I’m very humbled to be able to work with the team at Hertford House by developing these diverse menus with them,” says Clarke. “They’re a fantastic bunch of people and it’s been wonderful to be a part of multiple openings in this beautiful historic market town and bring great food to the people of Hertford.”

The Store House will sell locally-made cheese and goods as well as pizzas and breads that are baked freshly each day. Food will be available to take away or eat at one of the 20 seats on the pedestrianised square directly outside the shop.

“With everything that has happened over the past year, fewer people are travelling into the city on a daily basis. I think a lot of people appreciate being able to work more flexibly but also miss some of the things that London has to offer,” says Shipton.

“What we wanted to do was bring some of those inspiring food concepts that you normally only get in bigger cities to people in Hertford. The vision was that we worked with a really great chef to develop innovative and evolving menus to capture some of that sense of excitement about dining out that we’ve all missed so much.”
 
Hertford House Hotel will reopen on 17 May with Anexo to open on 18 May. The Store House and Hole in the Wall will open on 31 May.