Celtic Manor Resort — Ryder Cup 2010

No apo­lo­gies for fea­tur­ing in these columns for the third time, the mag­ni­fi­cent Celtic Manor Resort, venue for golf’s pres­ti­gi­ous Ryder Cup in 2010. Set in 1,400 acres of pan­or­amic park­land in the beau­ti­ful Usk Val­ley, the five-star Resort is already a world-class lux­ury golf, leis­ure and busi­ness des­tin­a­tion. Now a fur­ther piece of the Ryder Cup jig­saw has slot­ted into place with the open­ing of the Resort’s new Twenty Ten Club­house. This purpose-built facil­ity matches the prestige of The Twenty Ten course itself – the first course ever to be designed and con­struc­ted spe­cific­ally for host­ing The Ryder Cup.

The Club­house, part of a £16m invest­ment in build­ing the new course, fea­tures Rafters Res­taur­ant, with its floor-to-ceiling cedar beams and con­tem­por­ary din­ing; a Mem­bers Lounge with leather chester­fields, high-backed chairs and a warm­ing open hearth; and lux­uri­ous, oak-panelled locker rooms, where it will be pos­sible to order a drink from the Spike Bar as you kick back and relax after your round. Long bal­conies take full advant­age of a stun­ning loc­a­tion on the hill­side over­look­ing the 18^th hole with the scenic Usk Val­ley serving as a backdrop.

Such a lux­uri­ous facil­ity calls for some­thing new and spe­cial in the culin­ary line and The Celtic Manor has appoin­ted Simon Searle as head chef at The Twenty Ten Club­house. Simon’s influ­ences are French as he trained in France before return­ing to the UK to a vari­ety of posts includ­ing the Michelin-starred Hun­strete House Hotel. Under his aus­pices, the new menu at Rafters Res­taur­ant will have a mod­ern European fla­vour, but using the very best ingredi­ents sourced loc­ally. Mouth­wa­ter­ing spe­ci­al­it­ies include his Baked Pant-ys-Gawn Goats’ Cheese wrapped in Car­marthen­shire Ham starter, fol­lowed by a main course of Nav­arin d’Agneau Printan­ier, a Spring lamb stew.

With over four years exper­i­ence of serving the Resort with all its cof­fee, it was a vote of con­fid­ence in sup­plier, Café du Monde when they were invited to extend their remit to include the new Club­house. In all, three new Gag­gia XD2 espresso machines were installed — in Rafters, the Spike Bar and the Mem­bers Lounge, serving cof­fee using 100% Arab­ica Grand Cru beans. In addi­tion, Café du Monde’s innov­at­ive cafetière sys­tem is used, offer­ing mem­bers and guests an altern­at­ive style of cof­fee ser­vice, served from eleg­ant stain­less steel cafetières.

The install­a­tion was over­seen by Club­house Man­ager, Mat­thew Lewis: “The new Club­house has been built with lux­ury as the watch­word and it is import­ant that every detail matches that qual­ity. We knew from our pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence of Café du Monde at Celtic Manor that we could rely on them to provide the right taste as well as a reli­ab­il­ity of ser­vice. They were the obvi­ous choice when it came to equip­ping The Twenty Ten Clubhouse.”

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