Les Bouviers

To say that Les Bouvi­ers is a res­taur­ant with rooms is like say­ing Shakespeare was a bit of a poet. This is a first class res­taur­ant with six of the most lux­uri­ous, indi­vidu­ally designed bed­rooms and its qual­ity is recog­nised with five AA stars and two rosettes. It reflects the vis­ion and hard work of hus­band and wife team James and Kate Cow­ard. Their sur­name is a cor­rup­tion of the term “cow herds­man” which, trans­lated into the French, gave rise to the restaurant’s unusual name. Opened just over a year, this is the second ven­ture to carry that name, with the first hav­ing been estab­lished in a loc­a­tion not a mile away for over 16 years.

Set in 5½ acres of green belt land with giant wil­low tree and a wooden foot­bridge invit­ing you over a pic­tur­esque lake, Les Bouvi­ers is at Can­ford Magna in the heart of rural East Dor­set, not a stone’s throw from the Medi­eval town of Wim­borne Min­ster, with Poole har­bour only 15 minutes dis­tant. James and Kate’s inspir­a­tion for their them­ing was fine art. The rooms, includ­ing the bed­rooms, are resplen­dent with paint­ings, each named after a fam­ous artist – Krasnyansky and Le Kinff being two of the bed­rooms with the main res­taur­ant named after Charles Lee.

The short move to these new premises meant that Les Bouvi­ers was able to keep its local cli­en­tele but, today, its repu­ta­tion has spread through­out the land and even fur­ther afield with guests from Europe and Amer­ica. The kit­chen is James’s domain. Hav­ing worked in France for two spells that included exper­i­ence in two 2-Michelin starred res­taur­ants and five one-starred res­taur­ants, it is hardly sur­pris­ing that his cuisine is French influ­enced, but as he puts it “with a hint of Medi­ter­ranean”. He keeps an eclectic 400-bin wine cel­lar, sourcing inter­est­ing and unusual wines with choices ran­ging from £10.50 a bottle to a Dom Perignon 1993 vin­tage Jera­boam at £5,400!  His 7-course “menu sur­prise” with wine at £65 is a real treat, but he cites as his per­sonal favour­ites “Double baked cheese soufflé with horseradish and water­cress sauce”, fol­lowed by “Medal­lions of high­land ven­ison with juni­per berry and black­cur­rant sauce”.  Tangy lemon tart and brûlées are always on the menu.

The open­ing at the new premises promp­ted a change of cof­fee ser­vice, with Café du Monde now sup­ply­ing not only the cof­fee, but also tea and hot chocol­ate, too. The res­taur­ant uses a free on loan cafetière sys­tem, whilst for two func­tion rooms, cof­fee is brewed into thermal jugs. Kate and James are just about to install Café du Monde’s innov­at­ive bed­room bever­age ser­vice, ‘Ser­vice en Chambre’.

After a year, Kate assesses her exper­i­ence thus: “We are delighted with the qual­ity of our cof­fee and receive so many com­pli­ments from our guests, we simply daren’t change now! From the friend­li­ness of  Car­oline, our con­tact, to their effi­cient ser­vice back-up, we just can­not fault them”

| testimonial | Tags: chocolate, serviceenchambre