Several people have asked to see our Valentine’s Evening Menu which I have attached for your perusal. Our resident Pianist will be playing on the 14th February and will be followed by a wonderful Soul Singer, Mr. Maph, singing some of the classic love songs of Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder and Motown era.

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas Day in Polo House and it was a great pleasure to see so many friends and loyal customers relaxing in the festive atmosphere.We celebrated New Year’s Eve in style with a traditional Piper welcoming our guests and a Masquerade Ball with entertainment from Circque de Polo, followed by dancing until the early hours of 2011 as the champagne flowed! Since the beginning of January, we have been enjoyed days bathed in warm Winter sunshine and the tennis courts and rolling golf greens of Marbella are alive with the sounds of New Year Resolutions.

In the next few months we will be introducing some exciting new entertainment to Polo House, but we are happy to say that our resident pianist will remain with us; the distinctive playing of Eric Duval really has become an integral part of the Polo House experience. Frenchman Eric plays piano with a with unique style, combining chill out, jazz, pop and even house elements to produce his inimitable sounds. A resident of Spain for seventeen year, Eric Duval worked as a producer with EMI for fourteen years and still continues to compose and produce music from his studio here in Marbella. To listen to Eric, click here

As with our food menus, we work very closely with our suppliers to ensure that our wine list offers a varied choice of interesting wines that will perfectly complement our dishes, so we were particularlypleased to learn that three of our listed wines had been awarded Medals at the recent annual Spanish and International Wine Fair held in Torremolinos. Our House Rose, the Orvalaiz Cabernet Sauvignon Rosado de Lagrima produced in Navarra, won a Gold Medal; made from the juice of the first pressing of the grapes, the word Lagrima, which means “tear” indicates this. It is a full bodied, serious glass of very high quality tasty wine and offers excellent value. In the same category, a Silver medal was awarded to the Pinot Grigio Blush, which is produced in the Veneto region of North East Italy. Pale and elegant in colour, this fresh fruity wine is surprisingly full bodied in taste and a style that is very much in fashion. Our delicious House Cava, Masia Dibon Brut Reserve was quite rightly awarded a Silver Medal in the sparkling wines category; in this instance, a sip is worth a thousand words!

We are now taking bookings for Valentine’s Night and will be offering a very special menu, the romantically inclined should book early to avoid disappointment.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy, Healthy 2011 and we look forward to welcoming you to Polo House in the near future.

Dear Friends of Polo House,

The 1st of December saw the introduction of our new Winter menu, created by Our Head Chef, Juan Luis Perez Moeremans, who was born and raised in Marbella and recently joined us from the Two Star Michelin Restaurant, Claude Dupont, in Brussels.  Dishes include:

Starters
Steamed Oxtail and Duck Liver “Dim Sum”
Jasmine and honey ice tea

Air Dried Duck Breast with Truffle Dressing
Black Winter truffle, roasted walnuts and mixed leaves

Tuna Tataki with roasted Cantaloupe Melon
Sweet wasabi dressing and soy jelly

Main Courses
Pan Fried Red Mullet Fillets
Porcini hummus with wild parsley cream

Slow Cooked Suckling Pig with Crackling
Apple and Quince Mousseline with a sherry and lemon thyme sauce

Pistachio Crusted Corn Fed Chicken Supreme
Bacon infused confit potatoes and Jamaican corn pepper juices

Desserts
Iced Saffron and Madagascan vanilla parfait
Mulled wine and Greek yogurt

Wild Forest Berry Crumble
Clotted cream and lemon grass ice cream

We will also be offering a tasting menu on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

The Festive Season is now upon us and Polo House is bedecked in all its festive finery! We are looking forward to a merry Christmas, with a sumptuous five course menu created especially for Christmas day, incorporating choices of innovative dishes alongside the perennial favourites of Roast Organic Turkey and Christmas Pudding.

We have also prepared a celebratory menu for our New Year’s Eve Masquerade Ball, which promises to be an exciting evening.  Guests will be provided with a Venetian Mask and greeted by the evocative strains of a Traditional Piper, with Champagne on arrival to put us all in a joyful mood.  Sancerre and St. Emilion Grand Cru wines will be served with dinner until 1 am. We have “Circque de Polo” to entertain during dinner followed by our Four Tops Band to put us all in the party mood and DJ Mario Z to take us through to the early hours of New Year’s Day 2011!

For further information and Reservations, please call Heidi Goldson on +34 952 900 380.  We hope to see you during the festive Season, and in the meantime we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We marked the end of October in Polo House in a fun and appropriately ghoulish style with a tremendous Halloween Party! Now in a particularly clement Marbella Autumn, we are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau; this wine is always released on the third Thursday of November, regardless of the start of the harvest and it is mandatory that all the grapes in the Beaujolais region are picked by hand. This month has also seen the reintroduction of our seasonal Game dishes, with Specials available on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in addition to our A La Carte Menu, choices that proved to be very popular last year.

Our latest Sunday Lunch menu, which incorporates the finest traditional roast meats from our gueridon, carved at the table, has met with unanimous approval from our regular customers, who seem to be particularly pleased with the inclusion of time honoured favourites such as Eggs Benedict and , Their dining experience is enhanced by the gentle sounds of a harpist, cellist or pianist providing perfect Sunday background music throughout the day.

We are absolutely delighted to have received a nomination for best International Dining Restaurant in this year’s Essential magazine awards as well a nomination in the Best Nightlife category; so if you agree, please do honour us with your vote! (Click here to vote).

We are already taking bookings for Christmas and New Year’s Eve so please contact Heidi Goldson for Reservations and further information.

Ladies of a certain age might need to reach for the smelling salts. A year after severing his ties with Britain and declaring that he felt more European than British, James Hewitt is coming home.
But, thanks to a remarkable transformation in his fortunes, the copper-haired cad is coming back not with his tail between his legs but as a partner in a successful business.
Princess Diana’s former lover has been based on Spain’s Costa del Sol on and off for the past five years and last year opened a polo-themed bar and restaurant in Marbella.

Smiles again: James Hewitt is to launch a Polo themed restaurant in London

After a slow start it has proved a popular spot and Hewitt, whose previous commercial adventures ended in disaster, has turned out to have a business brain after all.
Buoyed by their success, Hewitt and his partner Ram Nandkishore plan to bring the Polo House to London and are looking for properties in Mayfair and Chelsea.
‘We are also looking at Los Angeles and Dubai. Since I know London so well, it makes sense for me to be doing it there,’ says former cavalry officer Hewitt.
He previously invested in a Docklands golf driving range and a riding school before some tacky adventures in reality television and cashing in on his relationship with Diana by selling his memoirs.
‘I have made mistakes, of course I have,’ Hewitt tells me.
‘I know I said I was quitting Britain, but that was because I felt I was hated there.
‘What I have been struck by is the reaction from our customers, who are predominantly British.
They say to me ‘Well, we don’t hate you’ and ‘Why don’t you open a place like this back home?’ ’
Last year, Hewitt likened himself to a gypsy when he melodramatically told me he had been ‘cast out’ by the world and felt he didn’t belong anywhere.
Two years ago, Hewitt sold his Chelsea flat, but is now looking to start again.
A friend of the Life Guards officer — mentioned in dispatches in the first Gulf War — says: ‘He took a huge gamble out in Marbella, but against the odds it’s been a success when people said it was mad to open a restaurant at a time of recession.
‘James realises he is not quite public enemy number one any more and is coming back not as a loser but as a winner.’

Read more

A balmy September proved to be a busy and eventful month for us; on Friday 17th we hosted the after party for the Tennis Masters tournament that had been played at the Puente Romano Hotel. That evening, we enjoyed  the company of Pat Cash, Martina Hingis, Richard Krajicek and Mansoor Bahrami amongst others, who had all played so well during the previous week, not only giving us tremendous entertainment but also the inspiration to practice a little harder on the courts! A Rat Pack Tribute provided a great soundtrack to the night and everyone then took to the dance floor until the early hours….

The second Polo House Golf Tournament took place on the beautiful rolling greens of the Rio Real Golf Course on the 30th September.  After a glorious sunny start at 9am, the morning progressed well, followed with lunch and prize giving at Polo House.  The winners, the Mega Mobile Team, won a week’s stay in the stunning Karma Kandra Resort in Bali. Other prizes were generously donated by Veuve Cliquot, The Marbella Club and Puente Romano Hotels. A fine time was had by all!

This month we are introducing our new Sunday lunch menu which encompasses the most delicious brunch dishes with traditional roasts from our gueridon, carved at your table.  Opening from 11am, and taking our inspiration from the Savoy in London, we are introducing the “Arnold Bennet” open omelette to Marbella, (which is perfectly complemented by a sparkling Bucks Fizz or a stiff Bloody Mary mixed and served with finesse to your taste by our expert bar staff!).  Essential Sunday “comfort” foods include classic Eggs Benedict, Polo House Fish and Chips and of course, select cuts of finest quality roasted meats, served with all the necessary accompaniments with the soothing background sounds of our resident Sunday harpist gently easing you through the day.

Marbella gourmets will be thrilled to know that this season, we will be sourcing the finest truffles directly from Perigord and Alba. We will be using them in “Specials”, and our customers will be able to purchase them to take home or by the gram, freshly sliced upon request, onto your favourite dishes; a sublime flavour with our Wild Mushroom Risotto or transforming humble Sunday morning Scrambled eggs into an exquisite dish.

We would also like to take this opportunity to invite you to our Halloween Party on Sunday 31st October; there will be special cocktails, Eric Duval on piano, a Halloween themed Theatrical show followed by DJ Mario Z as well as a prize for the most innovative outfit, so please come “Dressed to Kill!”

As if this were not enough, and with no time to rest on our laurels, November is fast approaching and with it the arrival of Beaujoulais Nouveau and our eagerly anticipated Game Dish Specials….a return to the tennis courts beckons to prepare for all this activity!

Click below to download the interview pages or browse issue 14 in it’s entirety.

Part 1

Part 2

OK! Magazine October 12th, 2010

Beneath the same blue sky, a family of four from York had one last dinner in an old plaza fringed with orange trees, a man sold cocaine on the beach, the deputy-treasurer of the Conservative Party shot 92 in a morning round of golf, women gyrated in lap-dancing clubs, a group of school leavers from Brighton snorted happy gas in a nightclub owned by Gary Lineker’s brother and the First Lady of the United States of America went for a walk around town.

Even by its own standards, this was a remarkable week for Marbella.

The city on the Costa del Sol has an exemplary record of accommodating the most disparate notes within a sort of harmony, managing to be both glamorous and seedy, the resort of princes, the last resort of criminals and quite a good place to go for a stag weekend.

Still, the coming of Michelle Obama pushed this tendency to the limit, causing a great deal of excitement in town and a great deal of astonishment everywhere else.

The Hotel Villa Padierna, where Mrs Obama checked in on Wednesday, lies in a private estate in the hills west of the city. Sitting in a pub in town, Ian White, 51, thought it a sensible choice for a First Lady. “There’s only two roads in to that particular village,” he said. “Good for security.”

His wife, Evonne, 51, with whom he retired to Marbella after selling his construction company, said that the hotel offered the best suckling pig in the whole of Spain.

Half an hour later I was discussing Mrs Obama’s hotel with James Hewitt, the former Household Cavalry officer and sometime reality television stalwart, who rose to prominence after it emerged that he had had an affair with Diana, Princess of Wales.

We were in his dining establishment, Polo House, which is frequented by various European aristocrats, Arab sheikhs and, occasionally, a hen party. (“We do get them, but they are all very well behaved ladies from Gloucestershire”.) In Mr Hewitt’s opinion, Villa Padierna has the best spas on the coast. “One of them is a salt steam room,” he said. “There is a big bowl of salt in the middle of the room and you grab a handful and rub it into each other.”

His drinking companion, Charlotte Fisher, night club promoter and “holiday facilitator” for various Arab potentates, raised an eyebrow over the pair of sunglasses which she wears at all hours.

“Into each other, James?”
“Isn’t that what you are supposed to do? It exfoliates you. God, I sound like a real queen. But if you stay in there long enough you understand what a sea bass feels like.”

I had visited the hotel with a Times photographer in the afternoon. Spanish police guarded the gate but let us pass. Beyond, a labyrinth of lanes climbed over the hillsides to private villas, some of which were still under construction and three golf courses snaked through the valleys. A cobbled road led down towards a lake and swung round to a pink colonnaded building like a Tuscan villa.

Marbella is full of places like this: luxurious, self-contained worlds secure enough house a First Lady and her entourage. Higher up into the hills lies La Zagaleta, an estate of giant villas priced between £4 million and £30 million.

Charlotte Fisher’s father, Graham, 66, originally from Cheshire, lives in the Caribbean but spends a few months each year at his villa in La Zagaleta. He met us at the gates of the complex and apologised that we could not be allowed in. As we spoke, a man in a lime green convertible pulled up beside us and waved. It was Stanley Fink, co-treasurer of the Conservative Party, a man credited with building up the world’s largest hedge fund and sometimes referred to as the godfather of the British hedge fund industry.

“A few people here are in the Caribbean as well,” said Mr Fisher, who once ran a family chemical firm with his brother but sold up to Tarmac and emigrated. He discerned a sort of circuit among the members of Europe’s wealthiest class: “The Caribbean, London, Marbella”. “Also, Cheshire,” he added. “And do you know Abersoch? In North Wales? There too.”

He has been coming to Marbella for 50 years, since Spain was ruled by General Franco, when the fishing town was being transformed into a holiday destination for Europe’s wealthy.

The prime mover in this process is generally thought to be Prince Alfonso de Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the Bohemian aristocrat and businessman, who founded the Marbella Club in 1954 as a private residence and meeting place for the grand families of Europe and the stars whom he encountered in Hollywood.

Shaun Leleu, who is chief executive of the Marbella Club Hotel, led the way through perpetually sprinkled gardens, past white villas screened by fig trees. “We get an amazing mix of people,” he said. “Pop stars, people like Mick Jagger, various footballers, Zidane, Ryan Giggs comes every year. Hugh Grant takes a suite on the beach.”

Outside the exclusive enclaves, worlds collide. The gold-leaf menu of a restaurant on the beach offers truffles and a full English breakfast. A Louis Vuitton store in Puerto Banus, where a vast fleet of power boats is moored, stands beside an Irish theme bar that seeks the patronage of hen groups and stag parties.

Many different elements meet on the golf course, for Marbella has more fairways per head of population than almost anywhere in the world. “Golf is still seen as the common denominator,” said John Horsfield, 59, a semiretired IT professional who resides further along the coast in Spain but dreams of living in Marbella. On sprinkled fairways across the resort, Mr Horsfield has battled hedge fund managers, professional footballers and actors from Coronation Street.
“That Stephen Gerrard is very good at golf,” Rosie, his wife, said.

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never played him,” he said.

Going out in town is a bewildering experience. Outside a club where a girl in her underwear was dancing on the bar sat a well-dressed couple whom Ms Fisher introduced as a divergent branch of the Spanish royal family. A party of Englishmen who had spent the day forcing one of their number, the stag, to walk around wearing only a thong, complained of being continually pestered by prostitutes. “It’s constant,” Graham Kay, 34, an accountant from Middlesbrough, said. “Girls keep coming up to you and talking, then saying ‘€100 to go back to my room’”.

As Marbella has developed it has faded in and out of fashion, seeming by turns glamorous and seedy. Trendy in the Sixties and Seventies, after 1978 the collapse of an extradition treaty between Britain and Spain made it a haven for criminals on the run who occupied villas in the hills and gave Marbella a reputation as the Costa del Crime.

Residents are often deeply protective of the resort and its reputation. After years of being sneered at, they hope to see it rise once more as the destination of choice for the world elite. Or at least those who can’t make the journey to Abersoch.

It’s wonderful to see many friendly old faces and welcome new acquaintances here on holiday, including America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama who stayed with our good friends at Villa Padierna.

We have live entertainment every night during the summer season, with exciting atmosphere and dancing until dawn. It´s most rewarding to hear all the positive comments about our menu and from those who enjoy Polo House traditional cocktails lovingly produced by our expert bar staff; ” The best outside London”. Come early and sip your “Manhattan” as you listen to Eric on piano.

The Backgammon Club meets every Tuesday at 8 o’clock.

We are holding our Golf Day on Thursday 30th September at Rio Real Golf Club, followed by lunch at Polo House. With many beautiful prizes to be won this is already attracting interest.

Please contact Polo House on +34 952 900 380

Happy holidays.

With Kind Regards,