27 September 2016
AA ANNOUNCES NEW MULTI ROSETTE RESTAURANTS
FOUR NEW AA FIVE ROSETTE RESTAURANTS ANNOUNCED
At last night’s AA Hospitality Awards 29 of the nation’s top restaurants were
celebrating having been awarded new multi rosettes, with four restaurants achieving
the highest rating of five AA Rosettes. In addition, six restaurants have achieved four
Rosettes and 19 have been awarded three Rosettes.
To obtain five AA Rosettes, restaurants have shown that their cooking is equal to the
best in the world with highly individual cooking and breath taking culinary skills. These
exemplary restaurants set the standards to which others aspire. The four Rosette
establishments also show intense ambition, a passion for excellence, superb technical
skills and an appreciation of culinary traditions combined with a desire for exploration
and improvement while restaurants with three AA Rosettes have shown that they are
outstanding and demand recognition well beyond their local area.
The new Five Rosette restaurants are:

Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, London

Casamia Restaurant, Bristol

Restaurant Story, London

Pollen Street Social, London
The new Four Rosette restaurants are:

The Whitebrook, Whitebrook

Winteringham Fields, Winteringham

Number One The Balmoral, Edinburgh

Hampton Manor, Solihull

Paul Ainsworth at No 6, Padstow

Orwells, Henley-on-Thames
The new Three Rosette Restaurants are:

The Man Behind the Curtain, Leeds

The Lamb Inn, Burford

The Cross, Kinguissie

The Grand Hotel and Spa, York

The Cottage in the Wood, Braithwaite

Great Fosters Tudor Room, Egham

The Wild Rabbit, Kingham

Little Fish Market, Hove

The Gilbert Scott, London

The Ninth, London

Sosharu, London

Forest Side, Grasmere

Shaun Dickens at the Boathouse, Henley-on-Thames

The Royal Yacht, St Helier

Cromlix and Chez Roux, Dunblane

Swinfen Hall Hotel, Lichfield

The Pointer, Brill

Ullinish Country Lodge, Straun

Inverlochy Castle Hotel, Fort William
-
Ends –
For images, interviews and further information, please contact the AA Press Office.
Images are available from http://aahospitalityawards.com/2016winners
T: 01256 492895 E: [email protected]
@AAHospitality
#AAawards
@TheAA_Lifestyle
About the new Five AA Rosette Restaurants
Helene Darroze at the Connaught
Hélène Darroze arrived at this blue-blooded true-Brit bastion back in 2008, and has gone on
to secure its place as a world-class dining destination that bears her own stamp. A protégée
of French super-chef Alain Ducasse, who encouraged her to swap the business suit for
chef's whites, Hélène Darroze established her presence on the Parisian gastronomic scene
with her eponymous Left Bank restaurant before crossing the Channel to re-orient the
Connaught kitchen's compass on a more southerly bearing. The principal dining room
received a touch of va-va-voom at the same time. The classy makeover by Paris-based
designer India Mahdavi ushered in a more curvy, swirly, feminine touch - riotously patterned
silver and lime upholstery and colourful abstract artworks - to lighten the Connaught's clubby
Edwardian panelling, and it makes a fine setting for Darroze's exuberant creations. This
woman has cooking in her DNA: Darroze hails from the Landes region of southwest France
and is a fourth-generation chef, brought up with an ingrained respect for quality produce (her
family produces its own Armagnac), and here are all the luxurious ingredients anyone could
reasonably ask for. There's even a bit of fun in the proceedings, when diners choose five,
seven or nine courses from principal ingredients presented on balls on a solitaire board.
Each element of every dish has been carefully thought through.
Casamia Restaurant
The restaurant world was shaken by the tragically early death of Jonray Sanchez-Iglesias in
November 2015. A family affair from the very beginning - as its name attests - when brothers
Peter and Jonray took over their parents' traditional Italian trattoria they began a
transformation the likes of which has surely not been seen before. They created one of the
very best restaurants in the country...or the world for that matter. A move from Westbury-onTrym into the revamped waterside area around the old Bristol General Hospital signals a
determination to continue to grow, develop and astound. The new area will also be home to
a couple of new ventures from the Sanchez-Iglesias family - a tapas joint called Tapas and a
pizzeria called Pizza. The new Casamia has a contemporary simplicity with natural shades,
exposed brickwork, simply stylish tables, artworks that reflect the changing seasons (they
literally change them to fit with the season), and an open kitchen that blends into the dining
area to breakdown the divide between cooks and customers. The chefs work calmly and
deliberately in their immaculate whites, and they join the waiters in taking turns to bring the
dishes to the table - each element described with knowledge and passion. Ordering couldn't
be easier as it's a fixed price and no decisions need to be made, apart from whether to go
for the wine flight as well. The cost is high, but this is exceptional cooking, with set lunch the
best option for anyone wanting to get the experience on a budget.
Restaurant Story
In a starkly modern structure in what is essentially a traffic island at the Tower Bridge end of
Tooley Street, Restaurant Story is one of London's most personal and compelling dining
experiences. Tom Sellers has a CV including stints under Tom Aikens, Thomas Keller in
New York and René Redzepi in Copenhagen, so expect a dining experience that reflects the
new world order, where the waiters and chefs engage with you and generally make you feel
more than a mere paying customer, with the meal very much a multi-sensorial experience.
The whole event takes three to four hours - lunch or dinner - and follows a prescribed route
from the 'snacks' to the excellent coffee, which arrives with a fabulous chocolate-covered tea
cake. The room has a slick Scandinavian charm, deliberately egalitarian and free of
intimidating formality, with floor-to-ceiling windows onto Tooley Street, cool designer chairs,
blond wood tables, and an open-to-view kitchen which shows the kitchen team working with
precision and unimaginable calm. Books line the shelves in meticulous colour co-ordinated
order, and Tom invites you to bring a book to add to the collection (add your favourite story
to the story of Restaurant Story). The menu arrives in an old book, appropriately enough,
and the Full Story consists of chapter headings such as Sea, Childhood and The End.
Things get going with the array of 'snacks' that arrive in quick succession, including a
nasturtium flower filled with oyster emulsion and a wee terracotta flower pot filled with
radishes, edible soil and wasabi yogurt. The imagination, technical skill, impressive flavours
and sheer fun should win over even the most hardened cynic
Pollen Street Social
Jason Atherton has certainly clocked up a few air miles as he now appears on four continents.
With the opening in 2016 of his foray into Japanese cuisine at Sosharu, he's now up to seven
restaurants in London alone, but this sleek Mayfair venue is the jewel in the crown. With its highchair bar seating under globe lights, clothed tables on a wooden floor, glassed-in kitchen views
and a dessert bar that maybe one of the capital's foremost guilty pleasures, the place boasts a
dynamic buzz. Dining here most definitely fits into the 'fine' category, but the vibe is the polar
opposite of what that tag can imply: hushed tones and hovering waiters are out, and fun is
definitely allowed. Every last ounce of energy is devoted to the pursuit of ingenuity in food and
drink, but before you begin, note the menu credits for the provenance of many of the main items,
together with their mileages. For example, that langoustine from Gairloch has travelled 636
miles. The five- and eight-course tasting menus will lure many, and non-carnivores will be thrilled
that they are amply sorted out with vegetarian and vegan options, but you can also stick to timehonoured convention and cherry pick your way through the carte. Of course, Atherton himself
has an empire to run, so the day-to-day cooking is down to head chef Dale Bainbridge, who
interprets the boss's complex, highly-detailed dishes with pin-sharp precision.