Slice the meat at an angle and arrange at the head end of the shell, claws angled from the body; pour the sauce over the meat. In a small pan, sweat the onion, celery and carrot in the olive oil for five to 10 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic, sugar and vinegar and reduce on a low heat for approximately 10 minutes. Add the roasted plum tomatoes, tomato juice and vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes Season Blend, pass through a fine sieve and chill.
A main course roast steak of monkfish, had been caught that morning. This was followed by zingy home-made sorbets (and a taste of fuchsia-red summer pudding, embracing local redcurrants, raspberries, strawberries). Lastly, a fine cheese tray of south-western specialities.CHILLED PLUM TOMATO SOUPServes 4450g/1lb fresh plum tomatoes1 large onion (chopped)2 small carrots (peeled and chopped)1 stick of celery (washed and chopped)1 garlic clove (crushed)2 tablespoons virgin olive oil300ml/12 pint vegetable stock300ml/12 pint tomato juice1 tablespoon white wine vinegar1 tablespoon vegetable oil1 tablespoon demerara sugarsalt and pepperHeat the vegetable oil in a roasting tray; add the whole plum tomatoes and roast in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes at 350F/180C/Gas 4. Allowing that some visitors will stay for a full two weeks, Peter has to meet the challenge of producing 14 different dinner menus (each with four choices for each course).My meal there was ambitious but not pretentious. A ravioli was generously stuffed with masses of fresh lobster, and served with a small amount of intense sauce, a reduction made from the shells (he sells 70 lobsters a week). Chilled tomato soup made from the freshest of plum tomatoes, an original touch being a blob of avocado and basil sorbet. As a teenager he left catering college at the top of his class and was thrown in at the deep end Here he presides over a young and good-humoured staff.
Because the hotel closes for four months over the winter, Ivan hires new staff every year, advertising for people who might like to work on a privately-owned island. In the last two years he’s had as many as 1,400 applications.The atmosphere in the hotel is somewhat akin to that of an ocean-liner cruise, says Ivan’s wife, Su; people thrown together for a short duration, with mealtimes representing social occasions. He promptly hired a chef from the renowned Imperial Hotel, Torquay, who brought Hingston with him as sous-chef Peter took over two years ago. The Imperial was once the south-west’s chief centre of excellence, hosting gastronomic festivals every year. Then it stumbled into the modern world and a staff of 40 classically-trained chefs was slashed to a dozen or fewer.Hingston, now 28, is the last to carry the torch from this era. Clotted cream comes from Cornwall, as does humanely-reared veal, best lamb and beef.The cooking was manager Ivan Curtis’s number one priority after he took over seven years ago When he arrived, the food was frankly appalling.
“It was disgusting and there was too much of it” (unlike food at the Jewish holiday hotel described by comedian George Burns, where customers complained “the food is disgusting and the portions are too small”).Ivan was shocked to find a kitchen equipped with a wall-to-wall stack of tinned consomme and canned ratatouille. All these mixed with clumps of scarlet fuchsia, yellow evening primrose, white marguerites, purple heather. The Smith family (Hertfordshire businessman Augustus Smith acquired the lease to Tresco in 1834) managed to introduce the spiky, globe artichoke-shaped protea from South Africa and bottle-brush plants from the Australian bush.But this is the thing: never a single exotic vegetable or fruit. So the young chef at the Island Hotel, Peter Hingston, has had to struggle to complement a larder full of lobster and crab. “The growers who cultivate daffodils have started producing fruit and vegetables; asparagus, courgettes, mangetout peas, good new potatoes, and raspberries and strawberries.”The local fisherman bring in fresh monkfish, brill, sole and plaice, but to feed 100 people daily, Peter has to order fish in from Newlyn, the south-west’s major fishing port, 40 miles away on the mainland. Within this dense band of foliage grow exotic plants which have emigrated from the botanic gardens a mile and a half away.
