FIRST VIEW: The Pig – New Forest, UK

The New Forest hotel is the baby sister of the nearby Lime Wood Hotel & Spa, and has been created in collaboration with Hutson’s partners in Lime Wood – ex Starwood marketing guru David Elton and co investor Jim Ratcliffe.

The team see this first property as a prototype for “a completely fresh and imaginative approach” to the traditional three- or four-star country hotel.

"It's really a restaurant with rooms," says Hutson of The Pig's focus on home grown garden food, true to the micro-seasons and influenced by the forest. Food is either grown in the hotel’s own walled garden or locally sourced within a 15 miles radius.
 
Immediacy from garden to plate is the remit of  a ‘team of three’ – chef, gardener and forager, over seen by Head Chef James Golding formerly of Le Caprice, J Sheekey, and Soho House New York. The menu is inspired by the likes of Skye Gyngell at Petersham Nurseries and Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, both pioneers of the philosophy that cooking should be based on the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally.

This down-to-earth ethos is reflected in the design. Food is served in an authentically reproduced Victorian greenhouse dining room, complete with bare wood table tops and mismatched bone handled cutlery.
Judy and Robin Hutson have designed The Pig in a style described as “confident and uncompromisingly comfortable in its own skin”: shabby chic homely furnishings, muted colours, comfy chairs, big sofas and roaring fires.

The Pig’s 26 bedrooms are a continuation of a theme - evolved rather than designed, with eclectic furnishings, great beds, oversized showers, ‘larders’ stocked with snacks anddrinks, espresso machines and, with every room having a forest or garden outlook, naturally beautifully views.

Outside the main building are the Stables and Piggery - little duplex suites and rooms with their own private courtyards and plenty of original features.

Massage treatments are offered in the ‘potting shed’ by the lake, staffed by therapists from the Herb House at Lime Wood.

www.thepighotel.co.uk