Family home, wartime sanctuary, school and timber mill!

When you first approach Milsoms Kesgrave Hall it can take your breath away. An eloquent driveway sweeping past the immaculate lawn, leading to the stunning Georgian features of the main Hall that captures your gaze. Built in 1812 as a private home, Milsoms Kesgrave Hall is surrounded by 38 acres of woodland and during its illustrious history has served many purposes. A family home for the majority of its life, the Hall also served as the main WAAFI bunk house at the start of WW2 before being graciously offered to the USAAF at the end of the War. This was for returning pilots to convalesce before heading home, many from the 359th Squadron who flew P51 Mustangs. Since then it has served under several different school board owners, somehow finding time in-between to operate for a while as the most cutting edge timber mill in Europe!

Milsoms Kesgrave Hall, a prestigious Boutique Hotel

Standing idle for several years, it took the vision and considerable financial investment of lifetime friends, Paul Milsom and Jonathan Hills to create what is now one of the most prestigious Boutique Hotels in East Anglia. Opening in 2008 incorporating the famous Milsoms name, Kesgrave Hall has gone from strength to strength with the restaurant garnering a fantastic reputation. Seamlessly blending excellent food with a buzzing atmosphere helped by the open kitchen. The team really make you feel welcome with their obvious enthusiasm and passion for customer care.

Wedding & Party Venue

The 23 individually designed bedrooms offer our guests levels of comfort and style rarely seen in such surroundings and certainly unsurpassed in Suffolk. With a dedicated Wedding and Party Venue – The Hangar – which can operate separately from the heart of the business, Milsoms Kesgrave Hall still manages to offer unprecedented levels of customer care and service excellence whilst catering for all tastes.

Top class brasserie restaurant

As previously mentioned the true heart of the business is the Restaurant. The Brasserie offers diversity from a menu with dishes that wouldn’t be out of place in a multi award winning restaurant along with the regular fair associated with a Milsoms property. A unique style of operating whereby we don’t take table reservations (food is served all day so no rush) and guests are required to write their own order down to present at the open plan kitchen point christened “The Engine Room”. The Executive Chef Stuart Oliver has been ever present since the opening and now oversees the busy Hangar party venue previously mentioned. To that end we brought in a Head Chef to take responsibility for the main restaurant and since then haven’t looked back. Aaron Skerritt continues to enhance the legacy his predecessor created which leads us nicely into your ‘Quick Fire Questions’;

• What are your customer’s favourite dishes?

Starter would be our unique Milsoms Kesgrave Hall Smoked Haddock Fishcake which contains a soft boiled egg served with a chive veloute on a bed of spinach. Main course is a difficult one as the fish we source locally is always popular so singling one out would almost seem unfair to the others. However, the Beer battered North Atlantic Haddock we serve with fat chips, mushy peas and tartare sauce is by far and away our bestselling dish. As for the dessert, I can absolutely attest to our customer feedback that the warm sticky toffee pudding we serve with toffee sauce, crème anglaise and candied orange peel is to die for.

• What are your customers changing about their eating habits?

Well, this is fairly simple but maybe not what you’d expect to hear. Other than a rise in the desire for different and more diverse fish dishes we are finding more and more customers are requesting the allergens menu. That is to say, we appear to have more dietary requirements than ever before. Gluten free, wheat free and dairy intolerance to name but a few.

• What’s your must eat dish?

Our amazing main course of: Dingley Dell Pork Belly, cauliflower, pearl barley, Lane Farm salami and marjoram
Author
Oliver Richards
General Manager
www.milsomhotels.com/kesgrave-hall/