Michelin star inbound ➡️
*This post was written just before lockdown so I felt it not quite right to post at that time. As of July 2020, Hjem is back open and accepting new bookings.
If you’ve got this far, I’ll assume you already know something about Hjem (The Hadrian Hotel, Front St, Wall, Hexham, NE46 4EE). It’s been open for a little while now, I’ve slavered over the Insta since day 0, and it’s attracted a lot of national attention. We finally got a Saturday lunchtime table before all this Coronavirus malarkey hit. Expectations high.
It’s a rarity. Chef Alex has worked in some proper kitchens, and it’s obviously Michelin baiting of the highest order. But when it’s in Northumberland, it’s hard not to love. I’ll eat my hat if we’re not talking about Hjem ⭐️ in October. There’s just nothing like it in the NE.
From entering the restaurant, it feels incredibly, well, Hjem-ly. As if you’ve come to someone’s home kitchen. And the service mirrors this perfectly It’s faultless. Friendly & attentive at every turn, and though less wisecracks than if you were at your pals, just as welcoming.
To pigeon-hole the style, I guess it’s Northumbrian-Nordic. Stark plates with simple ingredients which have been sourced incredibly locally including the likes of Doddington Dairy, North Acomb Farm, and a certain Ken Holland’s name makes more than one appearance. Noma x Northumberland?
One menu only, price dependent on what you get that day, but around £75 with £60 wine matching. It’s all about as wanky as I can tolerate these days with judicious use of tweezers, multiple spherifications, foams, and single bite courses. Here’s the full menu we had, here in it’s 12-ish course Feb-2020 iteration.
Snacks come out in rapid succession – prefaced with a crowd-pleasing Lindisfarne oyster with potato alongside a glass of champagne. Nice. Shout out to the soft drink pairing as well. It’s been carefully considered, from funky saffron kombucha to a dandelion & burdock number. £30 is perhaps a wee bit much for what you get, but a great idea – you’ve gotta either stay over here or drive up, so it makes sense.
Next up came powerfully flavoured chicken liver cones cut with tangy blackcurrant. Tiny smoked trout cups were equally intense nibbles with really did amuse la bouche.
Crispy Doddington cheese & wild garlic made a perfect ‘posh Greggs cheese & onion pasty’ that you know you could pile through a dozen of. Food miles = low.
Front of house is back of house here, with the 3 chefs delivering many of the dishes themselves. There’s only about 20 seats so you’ve got the luxury of it, and in this case it does add to the ‘homely’ feel of the service.
Absent flavour of langoustine meant the lango, elderflower jelly, and dill tart missed the mark for me – pretty as it is. Whereas mussels on crunchy (dehydrated & fried?) sourdough topped with the thinnest wafer of chicken skin was an absolute standout. Salty, creamy, savoury, easily my pick of the nibbles. ‘Hot & cold mackerel’ – crispy skin, raw bottom, like some happy accident was great with some creme fraiche.
Destined to be a classic, and by far the most memorable dish is the langoustine course. Also serving as the bread course, it’s a dazzling spin on bread and butter. One of the best brioche I can remember tasting – like the lovechild of butter and cotton, so delicately crusty. Butter is spiked with a sauce made from the langoustine brain which to be honest for something so strongly flavoured, I didn’t get a lot of. Also – a mug of langoustine bisque which is rich, comforting Horlicks-like prawn hug in a mug vibe. Lovely, lovely stuff.
And finally the langoustine itself, flashed in the pan, incredibly soft and sweet, rounding off a prawn lovers dream. Maybe it’s just the overall presentation of this dish – essentially a series of little bites as per the rest of the menu, but it’s all served at once giving some theatre to the course. I wish they’d done the lamb (see below) like this.
King oyster mushroom with pine needles/oyster sauce and was a real surprise for me. Intensely rich with huge mushroom flavour, and a velvety oyster sauce. Carrot & fennel palate cleanser is surprisingly potent.
The ‘main’ today is a three part lamb dish. Lamb from the Northumbrian hills (visible right out of the dining room window) makes up a quail egg crumbed in lamb heart ‘like the most savoury little scotch eggs you could imagine’. It’s followed up with lamb tartare on rye cracker. Equally strong.
Finally the lamb itself, crispy fat like a lamb chicharron and puffed wheat and lamb sauce was a big and indulgent way to end the meal. As ever with multi-course menus, there’s always something you just want more of and this was it. Pros & cons of a 17 course service, I guess.
Desserts typically never stray into sweetshop territory. Firstly a hay-infused cream with bee pollen & honey we disappointingly described as ‘honey water’. There’s pared-back, and then there’s just ‘why’. The accompanying cherry infused mocktail though, a beaut.
But more than making up for it is this cute horseradish ice cream with apple caramel. A spot-on blend of sweet and slightly savoury. It’s deceptively simple, and hits the mark on the ‘three ingredients working in harmony’ approach they’re going for.
So not all of the dishes tickled me just so, and normally with this type of service you find that the ones that do really sizzle so much, you can forgive a few missteps. But for me, even the outstanding langoustine bread & butter course, and the beautiful lamb series doesn’t make up for a few of the courses which were annoyingly just on the wrong side of ‘meh’.
Petits fours, including the most beautiful just-out-the-oven financiers I can ever remember do send you off on a high note.
And on leaving Hjem, you get a warm, graceful and grateful farewell from the full team, again like departing a friend’s house after tea & a catch up. And I suppose it’s like leaving a friend who you know you won’t see for a while. Our bill was £250+ which, if you had to quantify the experience of eating at Hjem, it ticks the box of feeling like a special treat. I’d expect in 6-12 months time, some of the less impactful dishes will be tuned into more refined or more complex bites, and the best ones will become signatures. And like the old friend you haven’t seen for years, it’s popular without you anyway (Hjem is currently fully booked for 3m+) so you do wonder how long it’ll be before you see them again. A lovely experience, if not the life-affirming one we expected.
Contact: restauranthjem.co.uk
Food hygiene rating: Not yet rated
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