THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Quay Theatre, Sudbury
New Talk at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury
Darren will be presenting a brand new talk on March 12th, 2017 at the beautiful Quay Theatre in Sudbury.
Visit the Quay’s website for details!
The theatre itself is just past the cricket ground, next to the river, and not only provides Suffolk with a range of theatre, music, comedy and talks (like Darren’s new one!) but every Friday and Saturday night it opens its top floor to Carl Shillingford.
Carl is a Michelin trained chef and something of a Sudbury secret. He forages and prepares a range of ‘wild’ foods, creating his own recipes, before serving a small number of covers each evening.
It feels like a strange business model, because where do you go from there? Neither the restaurant nor the kitchen are big enough to expand into, so each week Shillingford’s can only do the same work. We mentioned it is a strange business model, but actually it is just different – you are there to do good work, put your name on it and take responsibility for it, thrill people every week. You earn enough money and you get to do it again.
It is almost the Anti-Trump way of working – growth is not the point, doing something amazing is.
Considering the waiting list is months long for a table – Shillingfords at the Quay Theatre are doing something right!
We met Carl briefly at an event we did about 18 months ago, where he demonstrated some of the food he cooks (this was foraged mushrooms, yummy and divine!) and when we popped into the Quay to sign some paperwork ready for our talk, we took a brief look upstairs at the restaurant.
It looked fab, tucked away on the top floor. On the menu board were a choice of 3 starters, 3 mains and 3 desserts. One of the desserts was a local, Suffolk cheese board. How fresh and good does that sound? All the dishes were reasonably priced, like £8 or £10….
They currently have 126 reviews on Trip Advisor. 123 of these reviews are excellent, 3 reviews are very good.
New Talk at the Quay, Sudbury
As we mentioned, March 12th we will be presenting our new talk at the Quay Theatre in Sudbury. We think the place is beautiful and offers lots to try out – whether food, a show, or just sitting by the river – so do take a closer look on their website and plan your visit.
EBTS Boxwood Growers Forum
Through the European Boxwood and Topiary Society I worked with Chris Poole and Sue Mesher, members of the EBTS board, and we set up a Boxwood Growers Forum. This was to discuss how to make sure this wonderful topiary plant stays in the public conscioussness – we know many growers, suppliers and distributors have stopped selling it as the cost of replacing boxwood that has blight, or is nibbled by the boxwood caterpillar, makes it unviable to offer to clients and gardeners. But Boxwood is a phoenix plant, and there are ways to deal with the problems associated with Buxus. …
Modern Topiarist @ Garden Masterclass Poland
My video on Modern Topiary for Garden Masterclass has been translated into Polish, for the keen gardeners (and happy pruners!) of Garedn Masterclass in Poland. Tickets for the first showing and q and a were available here. But it will become available on the Garden Masterclass Poland website at some point in the near future – so if you are a keen clipper and want to know more, but speak Polish and not English, then I suggest you visit the website and get watching. (Of course, if you don’t speak English, you may not be able to read this…. hmmm… …
Topiary Hotline
The European Boxwood & Topiary Society are to run a Topiary Hotline for keen gardeners and people who love to clip. Date is tomorrow, April 16th 2024, and you can get a ticket for the Zoom meeting here – Topiary Hotline. Run by Chris Poole and myself, we set this up as an antidote to the huge amount of questions we have to answer about topiary throughout the summer. The plus is that their is an excitement around topiary and pruning. The problem is we need to help people in a better way… … so we will be giving people …