In the middle of a sentence, Matthew Freud stops himself, and starts over. “Human connection, I think, is the most powerful of drugs, the antidote to so much,” he says. Freud is explaining the idea behind Bull, his Cotswolds coaching inn on the sash-windowed high street in Burford.
It’s a country hotel, sure, but it’s actually also a kind of tonic, a remedy for an over-stimulated world. “What I’m trying to do is get people to unplug a bit, to connect with others.
”Connection is a Freud specialism; he is chairman of Freuds Group, the public relations giant. If PR supremo to innkeeper seems somewhat an avant-garde career move, Freud’s four decades on the job have helped hone his tastes, especially when it comes to food and drink. It has helped him shape what he likes — and what he doesn’t.
“My biggest pet peeve, the thing I hate most, is being interrupted with canapés at a drinks party,” he says. “I get to the point I want to stab the eleventh person who presents a fig wrapped in Parma ham. I’ve already told 10 others I don’t want it.” This is not the result of some childhood trauma — the psychoanalysis is best left to his great-grandfather, Sigmund — but an irritation with interruption, which thwarts potential relationships. “I think people crave human connection, but we avoid it. And the restaurant experience, the traditional one, is set up to be quite avoidant.”
What does he mean? “You’d think people would sit down and talk and talk and talk, but really, you sit down, there’s an interruption with the menu, then someone comes back and interrupts to take the drinks order, then someone comes back to take the food order — which can get competitive, you’re clocking what other people are having, it gets weird and alpha with ‘I want this but not this on the side’ — and then…” he pauses, catching breath. “Then the starters arrive; interruption. Then the mains; another one. Then pudding; another interruption. By the end of the meal, that’s maybe 16 interruptions.”
The aim, then, is to remove all that. “Compare it to going around to a friend’s. You might say — once! — ‘this is lovely, can I have the recipe?’ but otherwise, people just talk, they connect.” And at Bull? “I wanted to strip people naked, give them less distractions. I want less of a hierarchy of the master/servant thing between diners and their waiter or waitress.”
How this plays out at Bull is most obvious in the 30-seat dining room of the Horn, where “all the food just arrives in the middle, people help themselves, they serve others, it becomes communal. It’s about people coming together to eat, rather than celebrating the chef or a concept.”
Besides Horn is Wild — a lively but small, open-fire grill where “a chef goes from squid to prawn to chicken to beef and on until you surrender”, as well as the Herd and the Terrace, where an all-day menu is served, and Vincent’s Bar. In the spirit of Freud’s dedication to conviviality, a 24-hour pantry is offered for grazing — gratis.
But where things get clever is with Hiro, an omakase experience limited to 10 at a time, headed up by Hiromi Wada. Hiromi is a rare thing — a female sushi master. Sushi masters aren’t common as it is, each requiring at least 10 years’ training under an already established master. And Hiromi appears to be one of just two female sushi masters in the country (the other is the celebrated Miho Sato of the Aubrey in Knightsbridge). “And actually, Hiromi willtell you she isn’t one, because she doesn’t come from a family of sushi masters. But she did 18 years under Nobu Matsuhisa!”
But hang on, hang on. Omakase? Where guests sit at a counter and the chef, er, interrupts every few minutes to explain the dish? How does that fit in with the “connections” vibe? “Well,” Freud explains, as if revealing a trick, “Hiromi doesn’t speak. She’s this extraordinary, almost saintly presence. She’s this tiny woman with an enormous knife, working in this remarkable room. It’s covered in fossils, there are mosaics, there’s a dinosaur bone in the corner. Everything is entirely ceramics and stone and copper. And in the middle of this, is Hiromi, almost on a stage.”
Though there is no menu, guests are promised 11 courses; these might include Scottish scallops or razor clams or crispy rice or bites of sushi. Hiromi focuses on her work and plates food in front of guests. Drinks are served from behind. Here, Freud says, both the dishes and drinks can be explained, or not. The team know how to play it. “We don’t push, and people can engage as much as they want, or not at all.“
The concept of Bull generally is to allow people to explore and make connections that feel incredibly natural, as opposed to contrived and false. And in theory, you could come without talking to another soul for the entire time — though the reality is, you’ll probably find yourself at a poker table having the time of your life.”With the food, Freud came to the idea after working with Endo Kazutoshi, who is often taken to be London’s greatest sushi chef.
“There’s something, I think, that’s fantastic about the discipline of omakase. It you took the 11 courses and tipped them into a bowl, it wouldn’t be a massive meal; if you ordered it all together in a mishmash, it would probably only take between, say, four and 10 minutes to eat it, and then you’d feel slightly gluttonous. But because it’s spread over somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours, you’re eating in this very prescriptive way, and there’s something very conducive to unwinding when you’re at this much more leisurely pace; and there’s no spike of a starter, main or pudding.” The vibe is one of serenity.
But taking that nib of inspiration and developing it into what it is now took time — and not a little detective work. “I thought the idea of a female sushi master was great, and I heard whispers of Hiromi. She was like a rumour to start with — but all rumours are true. Eventually I found she’d been a head chef for Nobu for 10 years, and had looked after Nobu Ibiza.” In fact, she was Nobu’s first female head chef.
Though Hiromi has an air of the mythic about her, Freud explains how intense the restaurant’s preparation was. “I think when I hired her, I thought maybe it could be Nobu’s greatest hits or something. But then, we had six or seven months of planning and menu development, and I saw her work with the gardeners and change what we grow here — we now have this collection of exotic radishes — and she was able to dictate the planting, so everything in the garden could be incorporated into the menu. And I saw she really was the real deal.”
Of the dishes, Freud names the yellow tail with a lightly pickled radish and a kale and yuzu dressing as his “favourite, has to be”, alongside a tuna and salmon tartare. It will not be what might be considered a traditional omakase, which is a deliberate choice; dishes will move seasonally, and there are more playful courses, like the wagyu burger, paired with edamame chips in a salt and vinegar batter.
Is some of this playfulness down to location? The Cotswolds might be known for its famous faces, but its food scene is… “Look, Cheltenham probably has a restaurant or two,” Freud says lightly. “And if you want sushi around these parts, I’m fairly sure they’ve got a Yo! Sushi there… but outside of gastro pubs, there isn’t… there isn’t…” Yes, I say. There just isn’t.
Besides cooking, Hiromi is teaching guests how to hand-roll sushi — a sake pairing is part of the fun — and a masterclass may follow. “There’s something therapeutic in these classes,” says Freud. “They quieten the brain.” But for now, the restaurant is the thing. Is the Cotswolds crying out for this? Or is he aiming for Londoners looking to shed their city skin on the M25?
“Burford is a little bit over an hour from London, which is why it’s called the gateway to the Cotswolds. But I think there’s a community of people here who are coming to eat. And we’ve had people coming out going: ‘that may be the best meal of my life.’ Hiromi really is world class. And I mean, to stumble across a world class omakase restaurant around here…”
He lets out the lightest of laughs. “Look, it’s definitely surprising. I suppose I’ll either be proven to be an idiot, or not.” Given his confidence in Hiromi, the money’s on not.
