Lemon and Mint
A Cotswold private chef who will cook for you at the cottage, or deliver dishes ready to slide into the Aga.
A Cotswold private chef who will cook for you at the cottage, or deliver dishes ready to slide into the Aga.
One of the loveliest ways to spend an evening at Well Cottage is to not cook at all. Lemon and Mint is Sophie, a private chef who has recently moved to Ledwell — the very hamlet Well Cottage sits in — so she now prepares her food barely a minute from the door. She will either come and cook in the cottage kitchen or drop off a table's worth of food ready to serve. She trained at the renowned Tante Marie School of Cookery and has spent more than twenty years cooking in some remarkable places: eight years as head chef to H.R.H. Princess Haya in Dubai, and stints on luxury yachts, in Mediterranean villas and Alpine chalets, on Scottish estates and film sets. That pedigree lands very quietly and very deliciously on the plate.
Her cooking is, in her own words, classic with a modern twist — rooted in a rural British upbringing, sharpened by professional training, and coloured by years spent cooking around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Everything leans on locally sourced, seasonal, high-welfare ingredients, and it shows: generous, colourful, properly seasoned food that looks as good as it tastes. The photographs on her site are worth a browse, but a few give the idea.
You work with Sophie to design a menu around the occasion and any dietary needs, and then choose how hands-off you would like to be:
The menus roam happily between contemporary British, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern: think burrata and braised beef cheeks with dauphinoise, salmon en croûte, mezze and flatbreads, dukkah-roast chicken, a jewel-bright fattoush, and puddings like a berry-piled pavlova or a rosewater and pistachio cheesecake. It is the sort of food that makes a night in feel like the treat, rather than the compromise.
A handful of dishes from recent tables. Tap any to take a closer look.
Sophie now cooks from her own kitchen right here in Ledwell, a minute from the cottage door, so Well Cottage could hardly be more within her patch. It is worth getting in touch a little ahead of your stay, especially for a special occasion or a larger group, so there is time to plan a menu together. An arrival-night supper waiting in the fridge, or a birthday dinner cooked while you sit by the fire, turns a good week away into a memorable one.
“The dream after a long drive down: someone else's cooking on the table, no shopping, no washing up, and food this good. That slow-roast lamb alone is worth the booking.”
Get in touch with Sophie directly to plan a menu: sophie@lemonandmint.co.uk or WhatsApp +44 7894 904147.
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.