Eat at Crumplebury
Our loyal customers, it’s time for a new chapter…
Twelve years ago, we started offering set menus in our posh pigsty and Green Cow Kitchens was born. After six happy years of serving seasonal fare on Friday and Saturday nights, we took the plunge and embarked on an ambitious building project to create a beautiful events venue and a dozen fancy bedrooms. We were excited to build on the success and loyalty of our Green Cow fan base and emerge as a fully-fledged hospitality business. Finally, Crumplebury had arrived.
When things started to get back to normal after the pandemic, we were delighted to be able to use our facilities to their full potential, and in 2022 had a busy summer honouring the many weddings that had been rescheduled in the months and years before. We are grateful to all our couples for their grace and good humour as some were rescheduled for the third time. Our Covid-friendly woodland feasts were a triumph – especially when the weather was good – and it was a joy to host nationally notable events like Christmas with the English Symphony Orchestra.
As for so many in the industry – and particularly acutely for us as a new business – the past few years have not been easy. It has been difficult to make the restaurant and hotel bedrooms commercially viable. We are truly sorry to any of you who have been disappointed in the past few months by our having to cancel or reschedule events when they haven’t been sufficiently subscribed and are so thankful to those of you who have loyally supported us throughout.
We have taken the decision to close Green Cow Kitchens and the Drinking Trough at the end of December, and from then on will no longer be offering a restaurant service or individual bedroom bookings. The decision has been far from easy, but one we are sure is right for Crumplebury.
Instead, we are embarking on a new partnership with one of the UK’s leading events management companies, who will apply their expertise and focus to what Crumplebury does best – exclusive-use events. We are so proud to have been able to get Crumplebury to where it is; one of the best-respected venues in Herefordshire. We know that the business will go from strength to strength.
Please continue to think of us for your events needs: our sole focus will now be on exclusive-use events including weddings, corporate events, product launches and private parties, with the very same values and care that have got us to where we are today. If you already have an event booked with us, we look forward to hosting your event to our usual high standards.
We will be hosting a number of final foodie nights before the end of the year, bookable, as usual, on our Events page. Please join us to help us mark the end of a very happy era and the start of an exciting new chapter. We would love to see you.
Joe and Keeley
10 years ago, founders Joe and Keeley Evans had a dream – to open a restaurant celebrating the seasonal bounty of the estate they called home. It started life as a pop-up for friends and family in the old piggery, where guests came in their finery, slipped off their wellies at the door. Now, 10 years on, still with the beautiful old, 18th century red brick building at its heart, Green Cow has an army of loyal followers and is beloved for its organic food by dedicated foodies and food critics alike.
The latest incarnation of Green Cow is Our Chef’s Table – a set menu celebrating the best of the organic home farm and Whitbourne Estate. From our Kitchen Garden to our game shoot, each monthly menu reflects the estate in all its seasonal, culinary glory. And there will be delicious surprises along the way – inside and out – to delight even our most regular diners.
Chef’s table starts at 7.15pm. Book your space here.
Organic meat from the home farm
We work in partnership with our tenants Tim and Lara Roberts who farm extensively, sustainably and organically.
Tim and his family keep Green Cow Kitchens and the Drinking Trough supplied with exceptional organic beef, pork and lamb. Visit the estate in spring, and you’ll be surrounded by Lleyn and Hampshire lambs. They are the next generation the flock started decades ago by Great Uncle Pat. The cattle overwinter in barns and calve in the spring – ready to be turned out onto the lush, green pastures they’ll call home for the next year.
Jocelyn and Boris, our resident Tamworths, will hopefully soon get round to raising some piglets among the ancient oaks of Longfield Wood. Take a stroll and you’ll spot them rooting amongst the trees…
Serving seasonal food year-round
Seasonality and sustainability are the beating heart of Crumplebury. Food here is front and centre – local, seasonal and organic: a celebration of the bounty of the home farm and historic Whitbourne Estate. Rooted in the land, food miles are, for the most part, zero – our meat, game, fruit and vegetables are all grown right here in the rolling Herefordshire countryside.
Drive down the winding track to our front door and you’ll pass our herds of Shorthorn, Saler and Hereford beef cattle. Our flock of Lleyn ewes graze our rolling pastures as they have for generations. Pheasants, partridge and muntjac roam the woods. And in the ancient apple orchards, our Gloucester Old Spot and Tamworth pigs root happily.
Foraging for fresh ingredients
The fields, woods and brooks on the estate are a rich source of culinary treasure, and you’ll often see our chefs out on foraging missions.
In spring, wild garlic is in abundance. By summer, the hedgerows are groaning with wild plums and damsons, and the nettles are ripe for picking. And if we’re lucky, Uncle Chris will rustle up a brown trout from the Sapey Brook. In autumn, it’s the turn of blackberries, crab apples, puffballs and field mushrooms. After the first frost, we look for sloes – they make a delicious gin to go into our cocktails in the Drinking Trough.
Seasonal vegetables, herbs and fruit from the Kitchen Garden
Head Gardener Mark and his team work tirelessly year-round to keep our kitchens supplied with organic fruit and vegetables.
As winter turns to spring, the green shoots of leeks and onions will be bursting through the bare earth and the artichokes and chard will be ready.
Then it’s the turn of early salad crops – heritage tomatoes, radishes and leaves – fennel and broad and French beans.
In summer, he’ll deliver vibrant heritage beetroot, carrots and potatoes to the kitchen.
And as the autumn mists roll in, parsnips, onions and artichokes will be on our menus.
The raised vegetable beds are flanked by espalier apple and pear trees – old English varieties planted to fruit in sequence so there’s always a ready supply.
Traditional game shoot on the estate
For more than a hundred years, the estate has been home to the Whitbourne Shoot.
By late summer, the woods are full of partridge and pheasant, darting across the fields and tracks with their iridescent plumage.
Muntjac – small and stocky, and richly camouflaged – keep themselves to themselves, living alone until the winter months when you might be lucky enough to spot one on the fringes of the bare woodland.
In autumn, when the shooting season dawns, the game keepers deliver venison, partridge, pheasant and duck straight to the kitchen door, ready to be expertly butchered and hung by our chefs.
Local, seasonal, sustainable; food miles zero.
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Crumplebury Ltd ® in England, Company Number 11374838. Registered address Whitbourne, Worcester WR6 5SG
Call now 01886 821632
© 2020 Crumplebury and Green Cow Kitchens
