Located on Midsummer Common, the house is so distinctly a house (not a restaurant) that you wonder if you're in the wrong place, but no. A clever use of space, with the dining room in the now extended conservatory and the ground floor of the house an extended kitchen, means that once inside, it offers a light and airy dining room, and levels of comfort you'd expect from one of the UK's top ten restaurants.
What we would also discover is that Daniel really knows how to get flavour into his dishes with everything from the amuse (Bloody Mary) to the final dessert (Chestnuts) characterised by the intense flavour extracted from the ingredients: there's never a dull moment or a dull dish at Midsummer. As we reflect on this, it's no doubt why Daniel was able to get a chicken dish to the banquet on Great British Menu when no one else before him had ever achieved that, and that's a real talent.
We're so glad we got to try this, it's a truly fabulous dish with the celeriac sweet and smoky from the Green Egg coals. With the ham flavours coming through three ways (hock, stock and fat) and tangy ground elder cutting through the sweetness, it's a wonderful construction.
Midsummer House then is fully deserving of its title as the best restaurant in East of England and a national gem, and after a few false starts, we were delighted to have made the trip there to (finally) experience the cooking of Chef Daniel Clifford. It's simply a 'must go to' restaurant.
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