When Steve and Jules Horrell bought their house in Sparkford, a village in the gently rolling landscape of rural Somerset, eight years ago, the crumbling structure with the curved corrugated-iron roof at the bottom of the garden was in total disrepair. They set to work making it structurally sound, put up wood-panelled walls, replaced doors, installed windows. Since then, it’s played host to their children’s birthday parties and plenty of dinners. During lockdown, Steve fulfilled a long-term ambition of building his own wood-fired oven to cater to his love of cooking over coals. Little did he know he’d end up using it to make meals for paying customers.
Horrell & Horrell is a supper club for all seasons. I first visited in October last year when the wood burner was ablaze and cosy woollen blankets were tidily folded over the backs of chairs. Now that spring has sprung, the chestnuts, gourds and pumpkins that previously dotted the long communal table have been replaced with cherry blossom, dahlias and cow parsley, cloud-like in a vase. Four-course set menus are served for up to thirty people three nights a week, followed by Sunday lunches, according to what’s local and fresh. All you have to do is bring something to drink after the welcome cocktail; Steve and Jules will take care of the rest.
Husband and wife have been collaborating since they first met while working at the newly opened Hotel du Vin in Bristol in 1999. Since then there’s been a stint at Bruton’s buzzing restaurant At the Chapel, and a ten-year stretch at Roth Bar & Grill, which they opened at Hauser & Wirth gallery’s pastoral outpost on nearby Durslade Farm in 2014. Always with Steve in the kitchen, Jules front of house. At Horrell & Horrell, which hosted its first supper club last May, the family effort has expanded at various points to include their son and daughter, Harvey and Lauren.
To begin with, they thought it would be temporary, something to tide them over in the summer months before they turned their attention to another restaurant. But then people enjoyed it, and kept coming, total strangers who’d travelled to be there as well as supportive neighbours, and by the autumn they’d decided to make it a permanent fixture on the Somerset drinking and dining scene.
From the start, the couple have championed local growers and suppliers. Montgomery’s Cheese is close by and a regular feature on the menu. Rose Adams, who lives in a thatched cottage up the road, has a small herd of Guernsey goats and during spring and summer makes cheese in the next-door telephone exchange turned dairy. Fresh produce from Cam Mays’ Off-Grid Organics and Tia Cusden’s Wild Garden supplements the vegetables, fruit and nuts that Steve and Jules gather from their own smallholding and small orchard of apple and quince trees. Last year the family reared their own lambs. And then there’s the countryside at large: the hedgerows, home to plump and juicy blackberries when the time is right; and the woodland currently covered with a carpet of wild garlic, blooming white and green.
The homegrown focus extends from the food to the interior design, which Jules tells me mirrors that of the main house. Reclaimed wooden dressers and chests of drawers are topped with candles and a jumble of ceramics and clear and coloured glassware, while wicker baskets and leafy plants in terracotta pots hang above the trestle table. Fresh flowers and greenery (always foraged, never bought) bring the outside in, and patterned bunting adds a celebratory feel. The family have been collecting vintage furniture and antiques for years, and are lucky to have one of the biggest fairs in the south of England nearby: the Giant Shepton Flea. Other favourites include Glastonbury Reclamation and Frome Reclamation.
All of which comes together to create the kind of convivial environment that you might expect to find at a friend’s house – and that’s precisely the point. The Horrells’ hope for their homely supper clubs is that they’re an extension of the very many dinners they’ve hosted in the past for their own family and friends. So, what are you waiting for? Bring a bottle and settle in for an evening of fine food and conversation.
Steve wears the TOAST Selvedge Cotton Chambray Shirt, Arlo Garment Dyed Herringbone Jacket and Jules Point Collar Indigo Denim Shirt Dress.
Words by Chlöe Ashby.
Photography by Rebecca Dickson.
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