Castle Cary is just up the road from us - and we love it. The beautiful little High Street is dotted with lovely gift shops. A friendly 'hardware' store sells pretty much everything you could ever need. There's a small-but-perfectly-formed food emporium and basically, it's a nice place to potter around on a weekend!
Something's always been missing for us though... a really cool place for a nice coffee and a bite to eat, so we were pretty excited to hear about 'Home' - a vegetarian restaurant that just so happens to be 'soft opening' next week. And, it's going to serve great coffee and cake. Hallelujah and a big hell yeah! :)
If you know Castle Cary, Home will be in the former Roderick Thomas building and it's the creation of husband and wife team Paul and Fiona Mattesini. Here they are signing the lease on the building! :)
We caught up with Fiona this weekend to ask her a few questions about the new restaurant and here are her Four Thoughts - including the usual 'secret' question we ask all our Four Thoughts victims!! :)
1. What inspired you to create Home in Castle Cary?
For a long time I've wanted to curate a space and a menu to showcase the kind of food I cook at home. The menu is small and I guess a little niche but (I hope!) good - with a focus on freshness, seasonality and flavour. As a freelance food writer, I guess I've also become a little jaded by developing supermarket-style recipes for corporate clients. I want to cook food that (without sounding arsey) genuinely comes from my heart.
The original concept was just one dish, daily (a 'this is what's good today' type of thing) inspired by our many trips to Italy where we've found fantastic little rural set-ups like this, run by one person and their kitchen. We've not been brave enough to do that, but the menu is still very small and therefore really fresh. As an Italian, Paul is also inspired by good ingredients - and of course decent coffee!
2. What can we look forward to when you open the doors?
First and foremost, a really warm welcome. The place is called Home, not only because it's the kind of food we cook at home but also because this is very much 'our place'. Good service, for me, is paramount. I'm also hoping to bring a bit of a London juice bar vibe to Castle Cary.
3. What are you the most excited about?
Working with all these amazing Somerset suppliers! Our coffee is brewed by Bean Shot Coffee just down the road in Bruton and I'm now chatting to Charles Dowding about his famous salad leaves.
4. Tell us a secret about you or about Home that no-one else knows!
When I'm in Italy, I'm not always vegetarian :)
So... a hopefully really cool vegetarian place just down the road from us, owned by lovely people with a bit of a juice bar feel... we might move in! ;)
Go and try out Home. We will be!
The soft opening starts from Wednesday and we can't wait to taste Fiona's cooking. Here's her Tabasco spiced summer salsa as a bit of a teaser... just add tortillas!
Oooh and I really wanna try this lavender hot chocolate! Swoon!!
Comments