South Lodge Hotel unveils new fine-dining restaurant

Catey winner and Pennyhill Park owner Exclusive Hotels has unveiled details of its forthcoming restaurant at South Lodge Hotel in West Sussex.

The Pass will be a 22-cover fine dining restaurant headed up by the hotel’s executive chef Lewis Hamblet.

Its launch comes on the back of the property’s two-year £7.5m refurbishment extension programme, which is scheduled to complete in September and designed to raise the hotel to five-red star status.

The restaurant will be an additional dining outlet at the hotel, next to the Camellia restaurant and terrace under the direction of head chef Matt Gillan.

Hamblet said that The Pass would take the concept of a chef’s table one step further, with the whole restaurant having a sense of being part of the kitchen.

“Plasma screens and glass walls will give guests an unprecedented insight in to what goes on behind the closed doors of a busy working kitchen,” he said. 

“With diners taking an increasing interest in where their food comes from, how it is sourced, how it is prepared, cooked and presented, we will be removing the last layer of secrecy.”

Once refurbishment at South Lodge is completed in the summer it will have increased its capacity from 41 to 85 bedrooms and recruited 35 additional staff.

Built in 1883 the country house hotel is surrounded by more than 90 acres of parkland.

As well as the Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, Surrey, Exclusive owns Lainstone House in Hampshire and the Manor House in Wiltshire.

The group was a recipient of Caterer’s Best Group Marketing Campaign in 2006.

Exclusive Hotels to refurbish South Lodge hotel >>

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By Kerstin Kühn

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