This week I had the pleasure of catering for the guests of ila-spa to celebrate the opening of their new spa facility in the heart of the Cotswolds. It’s a holistic healing hideaway that offers the opportunity to relax and restore and boost your inner vitality and energy levels. ila-spa make beautiful plant-based products in their Cotswolds barns. Handmade in small batches, their products contain gorgeous ingredients such as rose damascene sourced from the foothills of the Himalayas, rosehip oil and Himalayan pink salt from Eastern Pakistan.

I wanted to create a raw plant-based menu for the spa opening that reflected the quality of the regenerative high vibrational plant-based ingredients used in their products.

On arrival guests were offered a golden chai latte, a blend of freshly made almond and coconut milk warmed with fresh turmeric and crushed chai spices. This was accompanied by coriander flower toast topped with curried cashew cream and edible flowers.

Lunch was a woodland feast. It comprised cold-smoked shiitake and pastrami mushrooms with a ‘ricotta’ quenelle and truffle cream made from activated cashews. The base notes of the plate came from the balsamic and pomegranate reduction and caramelised onion and turmeric coconut for some crunch. It was served with baby leaves, vale of Evesham asparagus, pickled radishes and fennel.

Prepping the Edible Flowers. I buy my flowers from Maddocks Farm Organics.

Plating up: Photo by Lauren Greenaway

This was accompanied by celery thins, sage and onion activated almonds, sweet chilli cashews, sage and hazelnut crostini bites – all activated for optimum nutrition, dried at low temperatures and lightly seasoned.

A rosewater cheesecake completed the meal. Inspired by the rose damascene so popular in ila’s products, the rose blossom cheesecake was flavoured with distilled rosewater and served with raw cacao soil and strawberry gel.

Rosewater cheesecake, cacao soil, strawberry gel

Guests were given raw cookies to go - pistachio cookies with raw rose coconut cream, dipped in raw chocolate and finished with rose petals.

Pistachio and rosewater creams (apologies for my blurred photo!)

I adored creating and making this menu for ila-spa. It was an absolute pleasure.

To visit ila’s new spa, you can book here https://www.ila-spa.com