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AN ARTIST IN BRUTON

10/7/2015

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Cathy Butler, proprietor of At the Chapel.
When I arrive at the restrained cool of At the Chapel, Bruton, Cathy Butler, the owner of the restaurant, hotel, bakery and bar is sitting at a corner table scrutinising macaroons with her new pastry chef.
       'Come and sit next to me,' she says with a warm smile, patting the chair to her right. ‘Try one,’ she offers me the plate. She has penetrating, sparkly eyes.  I bite into the macaroon; it combines the intensity of flavour with a lightness of touch that characterises everything in At The Chapel. 
        A couple of black clad waitresses come by to talk to the boss.  They acknowledge me and then listen intently to Cathy before hurrying off to run the evening service, which is just moving through the gears.  She is the queen of her domain, smoothly running the complicated undertaking that is a successful eatery.
       I love a well-run dining room.  Around us, the diners are just getting comfortable, taking their first sip of wine and checking out the menu.  The hubbub of conversation is gently rising. On the walls there is some cutting edge contemporary art.  Bruton has a reputation for art.  A lot of people go up the road to Hauser and Wirth for a squint at the latest stuff from New York.  My advice is, if you really want to see a decent bit of art in Bruton,  go to At the Chapel and simply stand and watch a busy service in full swing. 
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Other kinds of art can also be found at the restaurant.
          Just study the  staff  gliding between  the tables, attentive  but not  in-securely  inquiring if  everything  is all  right  every  two  minutes,  the  chefs working at the open steel kitchen, the impeccably designed dining room, the sublime baking kiln visible  from the foyer, and  the new staircase that winds up  into  the  gallery  and  down  to  the  bar  and  the  terrace.  The  artistry, co-ordination,  creativity,  beauty,  sensuality  and  value for money beggars anything you will see in the gallery up the road.
          If the art in Hauser and Wirth were food it would be dry toast with a squirt of vinegar and cost seven hundred quid for a starter.  If the food from the Chapel were art it would be a Fragonard of lovely sexy chubby women lying on plumped up cushions with angels fluttering over them.
         ​  I am  writing  this while  eating a croissant  from the  bakery at the Chapel.  It’s light and flaky and buttery and sweet, not rubbery and bitter like the ones in the plastic packaging of the supermarket.  It came in a white paper bag direct from the oven.  Excuse me   while I take a  break to savour another  mouthful,  then blow  the curved  glazed  crumbs  off my keyboard. Mmm.  That is so good.  I shouldn’t write with my mouth  full but I had to tell you  how  good that  was.  This scintillating  croissant  is one   of  the  many beautiful things created by Cathy Butler.
          I get  down  to  business  as I sense  how busy  Cathy is, and ask her about her  childhood.    She was born in the 60s in  Liverpool; her mum  ran a veg stall, and her dad was a ‘politically active’ docker.   I vouch the name Margaret Thatcher was  not  held in high esteem in  the  Butler household. She was bright, and went to college to read law.  There Cathy had a life-changing  experience: a  fellow  student had a father  who owned a restaurant in Corsica, and Cathy went out there  for the summer.
          ‘It was a  deeply  rustic family restaurant,’ she  says, her eyes  almost misting over.  ‘Our clients were  mainly locals, pig farmers and bandits.  And there I discovered a way of life.’
‘I was always looking for people who cared.  Hospitality literally means kindness to guests.' 
​          The  first time a Brit  makes  contact  with the  Mediterranean summer is usually unforgettable.  The heat of the  day,  the chirruping of the cicadas,  the  endless  sunshine, the  warm  stone  under  bare feet, and  of course the  dappled table  loaded  with lovely food and wine.    
Picture'We would always be open and we would have good coffee, bread and wine.'
          ‘Family life was get up and wash the terrace,' Cathy remembers.  'Do lunch.  Go to the beach.  Come back, do dinner, and we would all eat and do it all again the next day.’  It beat Thatcherite Britain.  ‘I never went back to college’.
          Events brought her back to the UK where she ended up working for the Hard Rock café.  ‘I became one of the staff trainers.  Made loads of money though my parents never stopped asking when I was going to get a proper job.’
​           Under Robert Earle she was part of the team that expanded the Planet Hollywood franchise from 4 to 65 restaurants. 
          ‘I  was in charge of staff,’  Cathy tells me.  ‘I was always looking for people who cared.  Hospitality literally means kindness to guests.   You can’t teach people to be nice. I learnt that it wasn’t the customer that was never wrong, it was the team.  And I looked after them. Nobody gets good results with fear.’
       Then one day she sold her shares and walked away from a corporate career. 
            ‘I followed my heart, not my head.’ 
      With  her partner  Ahmed Sidki, a  talented  designer  and  lover of exquisite detail, she discovered Bruton.  ‘We had no intention of coming here, and no intention of starting a business, but again I went with my heart – it hadn’t let me down before – and we bought the building that is now the restaurant.’
           ‘Why did you want to go back into restaurants?’ I ask.
          ‘I remember one weekend driving and walking for an hour to a pub in Somerset and getting there at five past two and being told with some glee by the publican that the kitchen had shut at two.  So I  decided to open At The Chapel to do something properly: we would always be open. There would be no rules, and we would have good coffee, bread and wine.’
          The rest is local history.  At The Chapel is absolutely the preeminent restaurant in Somerset and sets standards that every other place in ​the county should aspire to.  In service, food, design and vibe.  One of the many things I love about the place is that there is something really good to eat or drink for every budget, and locals can and do wander in just for a pint at the bar, while the Bruton swells eat three course dinners and drink 100 quid Burgundy at an adjacent table.  There is a persuasive argument that the hub that Cathy has created at The Chapel is a significant factor in the arty renaissance of Bruton, further endearing the place to me.

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The terrace At The Chapel

          ‘Bruton  has  been  happening  since 1200s,’ Cathy enthuses.  ‘It was the main  stopping off point  between  London  and Ireland.  Plus it’s built on an intersection of ley lines,’ she adds breathlessly.
           ‘Had you ever heard of ley lines before moving to Somerset’ I ask.
           ‘No,’ she laughs, ‘of course not.  But I have now!  We are also over a spring and a well, which were always gossiping points in a community.  You can see the well downstairs in the bar.  So in a way I am just carrying on the tradition.’                   ​
​          When I bid Cathy goodbye  and leave  the hum of the restaurant, I drop by at the  bakery and  pick up the  now, sadly, consumed,  croissant.  As I admire the   burning  embers in  the  beautifully  curved  baking oven  I realise I am looking  at yet  another  work of art  from the oeuvre of Cathy Butler and her team: the real artists of Bruton.


For further information about At The Chapel's bakery, wine shop, cafe, bar and restaurant, click here

​
Words: Guy Kennaway
​Images: Dimitris Koutroumpas
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