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”