Profile: Interlude Restaurant
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Michelin Star Restaurant Interlude and Accommodation
Executive Chef Jean Delport’s inspiration for Restaurant Interlude’s multi-course tasting lunch and dinner menu is the Grade II Listed woodland gardens at Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens, with ingredients foraged or grown on the estate, or sourced from selected local farms. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin Green Star in 2024, the first in West Sussex to receive this accolade. It recognises Interlude’s outstanding sustainable practices and ethically sourced seasonal cuisine crafted by Delport and his team.
Restaurant Interlude Sample Menu.
The ambience at the Michelin Star restaurant in West Sussex is of an intimate dining experience within the estate’s Grade II Listed Italianate mansion, built in 1855. Since 2022, guests can enjoy a luxury overnight stay in the restaurant hotel. It features ten charming en-suite bedrooms, newly created on the first floor. They are accessed by the magnificent hallway and galleried landing, which is bathed in natural light from an original domed atrium.
Restaurant Interlude guests experience a seasonal menu that might include estate rabbit, winter purslane, hogweed cider and charcoal; also, fallow deer venison with local braai and sour raspberry, or oyster, foraged greens and juniper.
The restaurant features award-winning wines from the owner’s South African vineyards at Benguela Cove Lagoon Wine Estate. Guests can also book wine tastings and tours of the vineyard that was planted in 2017, with the first wines ready from June 2024.
Chef Jean formerly worked with estate owner Penny Streeter OBE at her restaurant in Somerset West, Cape Town, for several years. He trained and won awards at the prestigious Zevenwacht Chef School in South Africa.
With a background in classical French and English cooking, including several seasons in Ireland, he has built an international reputation as an innovator, changing and improving upon his own menus and selection of ingredients.
Penny Streeter OBE brought Executive Chef Jean Delport from his native South Africa to open the restaurant in October 2018. He is only the second South African chef to win a Michelin Star and says:
“Interlude connects lovers of fine dining with the very spirit of Leonardslee. Every dish in each seasonal, multi-course tasting menu is designed to a hunter-gatherer concept of food that’s foraged, cultivated and raised on the estate or close by. It is savoured and enjoyed as an intimate dining experience, almost a dinner party within the estate’s beautiful mansion house.”
The Michelin Star award organisers said: “It’s quite an achievement to hold both a Michelin Star and a Michelin Green Star, but that’s exactly what the team at Interlude have managed thanks to their continued efforts towards sustainable gastronomy.
“The restaurant sits within the 240-acre Leonardslee Gardens, from which a sizeable chunk of the kitchen’s produce is sourced – including honey from their seven beehives and sap from their birch trees. These ingredients are crafted into creative dishes on a singular, regularly changing menu, designed to reflect the estate and the seasons, as well as to reduce food waste. Vines have been planted too and an orchard is on the way next.”
Restaurant Accommodation At Leonardslee House
The restaurant hotel was completed in 2022 and takes its theme from the beautiful Grade I Listed gardens, created by the great Victorian plant collector Sir Edmund Loder. He purchased the estate in 1889 and planted the extensive gardens and exotic flora that create the estate’s charismatic charm, offering guests a holiday break to remember.
The ten bespoke bedrooms feature the fabric and wallpaper style of ten quintessential British interior design houses, overseen by the Johnston Parke Interiors studio and architects Gould Baxter. This creates an immersive experience for guests, with classic themes by some of the best-known and loved British designers.
Owner Penny Streeter OBE has focused with her design team on British-based suppliers, many of whom print their fabrics and wallpapers in the UK, with a strong focus on sustainable and artisan composition.
The designers have sourced antiques to reduce any environmental impact and commissioned furniture suppliers who make their products in the UK. This includes David Seyfried for upholstery, Hypnos for beds, BTC Original for lighting, as well as Edward Bulmer, and Farrow and Ball for paints.
The rooms feature superb views over the extensive lawns, down to the 240-acre historic woodlands and across to the South Downs. Guests can also tour the Sussex Wine vineyard and enjoy wine tastings, tour the extensive sculpture park and enjoy other attractions and a year-round entertainment programme.
“The new accommodation extends the range of visitors who can visit and now stay overnight, to enjoy the full Leonardslee experience - the beautiful gardens, classic afternoon tea, wine tastings and dinner at Michelin Star Restaurant Interlude. Perhaps too to take in a round of golf at our neighbouring property, Mannings Heath Estate,” says Penny Streeter.
Restaurant Interlude Brochure PDF
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Editors notes
Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens is a family-owned vineyard estate, near Horsham in West Sussex, which features ‘the finest woodland gardens in England’, Grade I Listed, as well as a Michelin Star restaurant and luxury vineyard accommodation.
The 240-acre estate was established by Sir Edmund Loder, the great Victorian plant collector, and now includes a Sussex Wine vineyard, with the first release of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier sparkling wine in 2024.
The estate features outstanding displays all year round. In the spring this includes rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, magnolias and bluebells. The collection is exceptional in its diversity and maturity, with several rare ‘champion’ trees, threatened in their natural habitat.
The gardens offer a protected ecosystem for rare wildlife such as Emperor Dragonflies and Damselflies, White Admiral and Purple Hairstreak butterflies and migratory and native birds - Kites, Great Tits, Tree Creepers, Nuthatches, Woodpeckers and Nightingales.
The estate reopened in April 2019, following acquisition and two years’ intensive work by entrepreneur Penny Streeter OBE to restore the woodland gardens after eight years of closure and neglect under previous ownership. It was the largest garden restoration project in the United Kingdom since Heligan 30 years before.
Since further restoration work in 2021, visitors can also stay in the luxury vineyard hotel after dining at Restaurant Interlude in Leonardslee House, the Grade II Listed Italianate mansion house, to experience the Michelin Star multi-course tasting menu created by chef Jean Delport.
The estate offers a great family day out and is one of the top places to visit in West Sussex. Visitors can view a magical world in miniature at the Beyond the Doll's House exhibition, which depicts the Edwardian estate and neighbouring villages at 1:12 scale. There is also an exciting new 2,500 sq m play park designed to mix recreational play with the natural attractions of the Grade I Listed woodland gardens, and a spectacular winter festival annually when the gardens are illuminated, attracting many thousands of visitors.
For great days out, there is an extensive programme of entertainment that includes winter garden illuminations and light trails, wine and beer festivals, photo and art exhibitions, live music events, cooking and gardening demonstrations, arts and crafts fairs, modelling and toy shows, and children’s events and adventure trails.
Leonardslee Family Vineyards in numbers
· Acquired 2017
· Total Estate 750 acres
· 38 Acres of vineyard, 73,000 vines
· 2017 First vines planted
· 170 Tonnes of grapes, 2023 harvest
· 100,000 bottles annually produced
· Sparkling wine cultivars 60% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir and 10% Pinot Meunier
· 2024 First release of wine
