Kingsmead Kitchen.qxp_Layout 1 19/10/2015 16:00 Page 1
FROM PASTURE TO PLATE
Melissa Blease heads down to Kingsmead Square to find the much loved Jazz Café is playing some new tunes, as Kingsmead Kitchen, offering street food with rural roots
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t’s a delight to watch Kingsmead Square’s transformation from the mundane thoroughfare that it was when I first moved to Bath 15 years ago to a thriving, vibrant, independent, characterful destination. But despite the fact that regeneration of this historic square has only been given the attention it deserves since the Bath BID team turned the spotlight on redevelopment plans in recent years, a couple of longstanding businesses have thrived on the square for years – the Jazz Café being a case in point. The corner café was once a fruit and vegetable shop which also specialised in game. Piers Milburn’s parents Michael and Penelope, in partnership with his aunt and uncle Ann and Charles, took over at the café in 2008. With head chef Dan Jones, they devised a straightforward menu that appealed to a wide audience – the all day Jazz breakfast in particular enjoying something of a cult status in Bath. But last year, Ann and Charles decided it was time for a change and left the business. By that time Edi Rosic and Geraldine Jacob had joined the team and, with their management expertise and flare for front-of-house skills, Michael and Penelope were able to continue a partnership with them. Then, in July 2015, Piers and his wife Sophia brought their Field, Fire & Feast concept to the square. Piers takes up the story: “The introduction of the Field, Fire & Feast 64 THEBATHMAGAZINE
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concept to the Jazz Café – the Kingsmead Kitchen – is an organic process. We won’t be offering a radically different menu overnight. Seasonal foods will be introduced and this will start properly from next spring. “If you go to the cafe now, there are one or two dishes using Elcombe ingredients but we can’t claim to be completely ‘farm to plate’ yet.” Elcombe Farm, the Field element of the three Fs, lies in the Chalke Valley in Wiltshire, around an hour’s drive from Bath. The farm specialises in homegrown produce, from the beef and lamb raised in the pastures, to kitchen garden fruit and vegetables and the wild food that grows naturally around the fields. It’s a small-scale operation that’s big on the greatest possible care and love in production – and it’s all very much a family affair with a strong Bath history. “My grandfather was a baker from Sunderland who also had a small chocolate factory,” Piers says, “My father took over the family business at a young age but, while working as a cook at the original Hole in the Wall restaurant, he fell in love with a waitress – my mother. The Sunderland company spread south and, during the 1980s and 90s my parents ran restaurants, including those at The Pump Room at The Roman Baths and No.5 Argyle Street. “Sophia and I have been running a very popular fully catered camping experience at Elcombe Farm (Elcombe
Copse Camping) where we host romantic candlelit banquets under the stars and barbecues from our converted Golden Tractor, using our own ingredients and seasonal wild foods. It was only a matter of time before we took this concept to street level; getting involved with The Jazz Café seemed the perfect opportunity.” Sophia adds: “Now the time has come to bring a little bit of what we know, love and go wild for to Bath – a little slice of the countryside to the streets. Field, Fire & Feast will illustrate elements of where we come from and what we’re about. We want to tell the story of the farm and the natural world around it.” “We’ve been serving our camping guests using this approach for a few years now, and eventually decided that the concept would work in the city as well as under the stars in the middle of a field,” says Piers. The pair are putting a whole new spin on their version of street food too: Field Food – street food with a farm twist – courtesy of the Field, Fire & Feast Golden Tractor BBQ has already proved to be popular for weddings, parties and festivals. “When we did the Secret Garden Party festival in July we took five whole lambs from the farm and sold out,” says Piers. “The tractor will be outside the Kingsmead Kitchen four times a year for the Kingsmead Square seasonal markets, serving full pasture-to-plate dishes such
THE THREE Fs: Piers and Sophie Milburn, pictured with the Kingsmead Kitchen team at the newly revamped Jazz Café Opposite page, cafe culture is alive and well outside and inside the Kingsmead Kitchen Photography by Laura Mallet Instagram and Twitter: thelauralamb Website: laurarosemallet.wix. com/lauralambphotog raphy