No Inelegance
A Waitrose opening used to be the sign a place is going places. Now it’s The Ivy. Chains like The Ivy (Grade II Listed Building) are architecturally elevated in Chichester: the building housing Pizza Express has two Palladian windows and four blind parapet windows. Zizzi has three blind windows under a pediment dated 1791. New Look is in old architecture – a neo Grecian temple. The city has plenty of independent restaurants as well. Jorge Kloppenburg recommends fine dining at Purchases on North Street or Piccolino on South Street.
The Barn restaurant on the corner of East Street and Little London has a notice on its flank wall: “All Goodwood produce can be traced every step of the way from field to fork. They are totally committed to the care of their livestock and to the preservation of the countryside. They use no pesticides of fertilisers at Goodwood Home Farm, ensuring that the wildlife, hedgerows and centuries old natural ecosystem is protected. Goodwood Home Farm is four miles from here and therefore as local as you can get. The farm is set at the heart of the 12,000 acres Sussex estate.” You guessed it: Goodwood Farm Shop is its number one supplier. A plaque on the façade of The Barn is dedicated to fabulous clientele including Lawrence Olivier and Elizabeth Taylor. There’s still plenty of fabulosity in Chichester.
Jorge should know about good food: he’s been cooking since age 12. After a successful international sustainable business career, three years ago he bought East Walls Hotel which he runs with his wife Anywhere Thompson. “We don’t call it a hotel it’s a home from home,” Jorge relates. “In Germany I trained in Chinese, Indian and Thai cooking at night classes. We personalise breakfast here. One New Yorker guest likes her scrambled egg made with cheese. After spending 2,000 nights in 30 years staying in hotels across Europe I recognise what I like and dislike.”
He reckons, “A nice bathroom and excellent breakfast are crucial – that’s what you need to start the day.” The bathroom products are Elysl. Bedding of course is also important. All the beds are fitted with Mitre Linen’s Savoy Collection. “Fresh flowers on the dining tables are a must. I would describe our cooking as bespoke international food.” On cue, delicious halibut and salmon (with the subtlest hint of spice) is served alongside fresh greens and Finger Post wine. “Everything is freshly made. You need 35 minutes for potato dauphinoise. Air frying not deep frying is much heathier. Our breakfast homemade bread is 50 percent brown 50 percent white – fluffy, not too heavy. We buy food at the market two to three times a week.” The tomatoes and herbs were picked two metres away two minutes ago. Forget farm to fork. This is patio to plate.
There are chillis in the garden. “We have a 37 acre chilli farm in Zimbabwe near where I was brought up,” shares Anywhere. “It provides employment for locals and supports 50 children in education. We are in the process of buying another 37 acres. We are both very committed to our philanthropic endeavours. Education is so important whether you end up as a doctor or truck driver. We want to give others a chance in life to do well.”
East Walls Hotel gets its name from the turn of last millennium Roman city walls. Its Grade II Listing dating from 1950 states, “Suffolk House, 3 East Row. 18th century. Three storeys. Four windows wide. Red brick. Eaves bracket cornice. Sash windows in reveals in flat arches; glazing bars intact on ground and first floors; rubbed brick voussoirs. Doorway with Doric columns, pediment and semicircular fanlight. Six panel moulded door with four panels cut away and glazed; door in panelled reveals. Stone coat of arms over the doorway.” A blocked Gothick arch on the first landing and a blind rounded arch on the landing above hint at structural alterations down the centuries.
Anywhere explains, “We can’t keep up with demand! So we’ve bought 1 East Row, the house next door, to expand our guest accommodation.” Its Grade II Listing, also dating from 1950, states, “18th century. Two storeys and attic. Three windows and extension of one window on ground floor. Red brick. Brick stringcourse. Wooden cornice. One dormer. Sash windows in frames, those on ground floor with slightly curved headings; glazing bars intact. Doorway with Doric pilasters, pediment and semicircular fanlight. Six panel moulded door set in panelled reveals.”
There’s no escaping the influence of Goodwood. The hotel was once the townhouse of the country house estate owners the Dukes of Richmond. A chubby Duke’s face cast in plaster protrudes over a French door on the rear elevation. “We always have guests staying for Goodwood Festival of Speed,” says Anywhere. “And businesspeople from Rolls Royce – their plant is only two miles away and employs 1,700 people. Our repeat guests book now for next year.”
A black and white photograph of Goodwood Tourist Trophy 1959 hangs in the bar next to pictures of Aston Martins and prints of Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor. “This is a men’s space,” Jorge suggests. “We’ve 75 whiskeys and 15 gins to choose from.” Burgundy chesterfield armchairs bolster the masculine ambience. The adjoining Art Deco style restaurant is more feminine. “The collection of teapots on display – Twenties, Thirties, Seventies, Nineties and 2000s – shows how time goes on.” This year is the centenary of Art Deco: the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was held in Paris in 1925.
One of the many cultural highlights of Chichester is Pallant House Gallery, a Grade I Listed early Georgian house famous for its modern art collection. Here’s a random sample of delights. Frank Auerbach’s Reclining Head of Gerda Boehm (1982), a lesson in portraiture. Jean Metzinger’s L’Echaffaudage (1915), a diagonally determined dynamic scaffolding. Tracey Emin’s Roman Standard (1949), her first public art project. Standing tall in the courtyard, this cast iron variation of a Roman standard is topped by a small songbird rather than a triumphant eagle. Lucien Freud’s Portrait of a Girl (1949), a study of skin surface. John Piper’s Redland Park Congregational Church (1940), a rich hued and black lined depiction of the collision of the pastoral past with the brutal bomb wrecked present.
Five minutes away from East Walls Hotel – everything is five minutes away actually – lies Priory Park. This open space is a layering of history from medieval walls on Roman foundations to a Norman mote to the 13th century Guildhall, formerly the Chapel of the Franciscan Friary. The spire of the 11th century Chichester Cathedral can be seen from the second floor bedrooms and garden cottage suite. The cathedral and its precincts are a beautiful pocket of civilisation.
“We really believe in living in the hotel and doing the cooking ourselves,” confirms Anywhere. “That way the quality becomes how it should be.” She has a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science and a Master’s in Medical Biotechnology both from the University of Portsmouth, now balancing a career as a clinical pathologist with co running a hotel. “All 12 of our rooms are different but they all have antique pieces and beautiful bathrooms. Work hard – it pays off.”
Chichester: England’s finest small city. East Walls Hotel: England’s finest small hotel.
Black Mulberry Blue Colorado Spruce Cabbage Palm Cedar Deodar Chitalpa Copper Beach Cotoneaster Dawn Redwood Dogwood Eucryphia Evergreen Magnolia Fastigata Beech Fig Tree Flowering Cherry Flowering Crabapple Green Beech Handkerchief Tree Hawthorn Holm Oak Honey Locust Hornbeam Hybrid Elm Hybrid Lime Indian Rain Tree Italian Cypress Irish Yew Japanese Hackberry Japanese Red Cedar Judas Tree Laburnum Liquid Ambar Loquat Magnolia North American Indian Bean Tree Persian Ironwood Purple Maple Purple Sycamore Rowan Quince Red Leaved Prunus Sweet Chestnut Trachycarpus Palm Tibetan Cherry Tulip Tree Tupelo Variegated Sycamore Wellingtonia Redwood Wollemi Pine Yellow Buckeye.
Such is the arboretum that is the Bishop’s Palace Gardens of Chichester.
Day dancing to Constant Craving, Don’t Speak, Gloria, Music Box Dancer … in the voluted and cartouche’d and scrolled pedimented city that has a bar called The Ghost at the Feast and a street named Little London and a hotel called East Walls run by Jorge Kloppenburg and Anywhere Thompson. There’s a lot to unpick and unpack. “When there’s a challenge I say bring it on,” declares Anywhere, “and with faith you can do anything. We’ve expanded our chilli farm in Zimbabwe to 65 hectares. Here in Chichester we shop several times a week in the local farmers’ market. Everything is fresh and in season in our hotel. We only serve strawberries in July and August. We specially source Finger Post white wine and Vista Plata red wine for guests.”
Anywhere has three degrees. She seeks to be a role model for young women like her daughters, “I was working 40 to 60 hours a week and studying 40 hours a week. That’s how I achieved those degrees and I was running other things in the background. I want to be a voice and I will speak up no matter what it takes. My voice may not be heard today but it will resonate in time. Your colour does not and should not matter. What matters is in the inside.” She puts her beliefs into practice: the chilli farm provides employment for dozens of families and helps fund schooling.
Her foundation degree was in physiology. “We were introduced to a morgue where I had to dissect a body,” Anywhere explains. “It’s about studying how organs, tissues and cells work together to maintain health. Then I did a biomedical science degree for four years. You learn about so much such as oxidative stress and how it is involved in age related conditions. Portsmouth University where I studied was the first in the country to introduce biomedical science. It’s known all over the world and so they invited me to specialise in clinical pathology. I now practise this medical specialty which focuses on diagnosing, treating and preventing diseases through analysing bodily fluids, cells and tissues.”
Nothing is a chimera to Anywhere.
