Famous Beef Dinner at The Farmers' Arms, Combe Florey
So let me get this straight, Sir: you want beef for your starter, then beef for the second course and beef for the third, fourth and fifth courses? You also want beef for your pudding?
This article is a memory fro a couple of years ago - a recollection of one of the most extraordinary meals I’ve had here in the West Country. And I add it to the website because it is a fond memory and because the Farmers’ Arms at Combe Florey is one of the best pubs in the county….
A waiter didn’t actually say those words to me one night this week, but he may as well have done so as I sat down to a special celebratory dinner at the Farmers’ Arms at Combe Florey in West Somerset.
Jane Bishop and Tim Young - landlady and landlord of The Farmer’s Arms
We were, after all, celebrating beef. Exmoor beef, to be precise. And landlord Tim Young had arranged a special guest-chef night in order to do the celebrating as part of the annual Exmoor Food Festival.
It was, as my mythical waiter suggests, a six-course dinner in which every single plate of food served featured excellent prime Exmoor beef. And the diners knew it was prime Exmoor beef because the farmer who raised it and despatched it in his own small north Devon abattoir was there to tell us all about it - as was the man from Philip Dennis, the well known Ilfracombe-based food wholesalers.
Chris Lerwill, a fourth generation farmer from the hills above Combe Martin, told diners… “We are extremely proud of what we do - indeed, tonight is a pinnacle of what we do. All the animals are fed on grass - they’ve got fantastic life - and it is a very short distant to slaughter. I see the whole process through from start to finish.
“When it comes to food-miles - we’ve probably got the lowest you’ll see in the country. From my farm to the slaughterhouse it’s about one-and-a-half miles.”
The Combe Martin abattoir closed at the end of 2016 under its previous owners, but neighbours and farmers Chris and Kingsley Nicholas reopened the business in 2017 after seeing how much the local community depended on it.
Farmer Chris Lerwill
“I get to see every body of beef that goes through the system,” Chris told the folk at the Farmers Arms. “Because I quarter the beef, I get to see exactly what fat content there is. In essence, I don’t think you are going to get better beef anywhere else - there is a lot of work that goes into this.
“If we do everything right on our side - if the husbandry is right, if the feed is right, if the slaughter process is right… If I’ve got all those boxes ticked and taken it to Philip Dennis, then these chefs have got the best chance to have the best product they can cook with.
Customers of this excellent local abattoir range from smallholders wanting to be self-sufficient, to farmers having their animals slaughtered and butchered to sell on, to the owners themselves putting stock through to sell privately or through the trade.
Tim Herman, who is in charge of butchery services at the Philip Dennis wholesalers which purchases much of the abattoir’s meat, told guests: “Chris is really passionate about what he does. He’s always looking for a new angle on the beef to show his skills off. Chris bought the only slaughter-hall left in North Devon so that he could do the best for his own beef. It’s in his tractor, down the road for a mile-and-a-half - and then over to us which is just eight miles.
Chef Mike Griffiths and Tim Herman
“When it comes to tonight’s consommé (prepared by guest-chef Olivier Certain of the Duende Restaurant, Wiveliscombe) - I know that 120 pounds of beef bones were ordered in and I know the stocks were rolling for four days.
“The dry-aged carpaccio (prepared by Anita-Clare Field, chef patron at La Petite Bouchee, Witheridge) comes from the fillet of beef, which is the most expensive thing on an animal,” said Tim. “The four (fillet) barrels here tonight is all you can get off two animals - which is why it is so expensive. It’s the only muscle on an animal which doesn’t really have a job, so that is why it stays so tender.”
He continued: “For the beef and oyster course Mike (Griffiths, head chef at the Farmers Arms) has asked for Jacob’s ladder or beef short rib… It carries lots of marbling and when it is slow-cooked people say it’s one of the best pieces of meat you can get.
“The Josper roasted rib of beef (also cooked by Mike Griffiths on the Farmers Arms’ amazing super-hot, charcoal-fired, Josper oven) is the pure rib-eye. For purists, it is the best steak,” said Tim. “For the person who loves a roast dinner, it is the best steak - because it carries a lot of marbling.”
“The trio of beef course (prepared by Pete Mundy, chef patron Ginger Peanut, at Bampton) features beef cheek, which has become very popular. Times have changed,” added Tim. “People are looking at different cuts of meat - look at lamb shanks - they now cost more than a leg of lamb - but years ago they’d have been thrown out.”
He concluded: “I’ve never had a beef desert so I don’t know what to say about it. But this dinner is great for Exmoor and its food festival, and great for the Farmers Arms.”
And it was indeed great. So great that I, like the other guests, must have become a great deal more great around the girth by the time we’d finished, having washed the six beef courses down with an excellent choice of wines supplied by Paddy Magill of Somerset-based Vine Wine.
Apart from anything else, it was a virtuoso display of the versatility of beef. Yes, there was the classic roasted rib (which probably was the best bit of beef I’ve tasted in a decade), but each and every course accentuated just how much you can do if you really use the entire carcass of an animal - which surely is the only good and sustainable option when it comes to something that has died so that humans can put it on a plate.
Olivier Certain’s consommé was made of humble beef bones, but it was one of the richest and best balanced soups I’ve tasted in ages. The dry aged fillet carpaccio prepared by Anita-Clare Field was a triumph that would have found a place in the very best Italian restaurants anywhere in the world.
The simple but amazingly delicious beef and Porlock oyster dish prepared by Mike Griffiths would be on my list of dishes if anyone was charged with showcasing the very best of West Country produce. You could say the same for Pete Mundy’s rich and joyous trio-of-beef.
As for that sweet course made of beef, well I am afraid that Tim Zekki (chef patron of the up and coming Duende Restaurant in Wiveliscombe) had vanished into the night before I could ask him what exactly was in it and how it was prepared. It had the body of a creme caramel, but I was told Tim had dehydrated some prime beef then ground it up into a salty powder which lent a real hit to the sweetness of the set, creamy, custard.
Maybe I’m wrong about that. Perhaps I will have to go to Duende to find out more - because the small bowl of sweet wonder was 100 percent delicious. But what I do know for certain is that you can do an awful lot with good, prime, grass-fed, West Country beef. Especially if it comes from farmers and butchers who have a passion for their product and know what they’re doing.
