TOM OGG visited Guernsey with his family last month, staying at Les Rocquettes Hotel in St Peter Port. Cue five days of fun, tiny chapels, singalong train rides, octopus toothpicks and afternoon tea with ‘Oggie the bear’
THERE have been many famous rivalries throughout history, from the footy-based sparring of Celtic vs Rangers and the chart-bothering argy-bargy of Blur vs Oasis to the star-studded feuding between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
There are few rivalries, however, that can match the centuries-old dispute between Jersey and Guernsey.
Ever since the two bailiwicks supported opposing sides during the English Civil War in the 17th century, the inhabitants of both islands have taken to routinely poking fun at one another, with semi-affectionate nicknames – “donkeys”/”ânes” (Guernsey) and “toads”/”crapauds” (Jersey) – and a general tendency to downplay the merits of the neighbouring isle with tongue planted only partly in cheek.
However, upon visiting Guernsey for the second time last month, I was struck not by the similarities between the two islands, but rather by how completely different to one another they are. Appearance, culture, vibe – everything in Guernsey feels uniquely Guernsey-ish, much as everything in Jersey feels quintessentially Jersey-y. Comparing the respective merits of the two, therefore, is very much a case of apples and oranges, or rather Bean Crock and Guernsey Gâche. As John Horton, general manager of Guernsey gastro pub The Pickled Pig, put it: “Guernsey is the countryside and Jersey is the city”.
Anyway, on with the travel write-up…
Arriving at Guernsey Airport on Monday 16 February, we – we being me, my wife and our two sons (aged five and three) – headed straight to the Hertz Car Hire desk. The company had kindly agreed to loan us a car for the duration of our visit and we collected the keys for what would be our mode of transport for the following five days: a lime-green Ford Puma.
Without wanting to come over all Jeremy Clarkson, the car was an absolute dream to drive: smooth, light and airy, with plenty of space for excitable children to wave their arms and kick their legs, and with ample room for luggage in the boot. When entering and exiting the car at night, the famous “Puma” logo lit up on both the driver and passenger side, which had two advantages: 1) it enabled us to see what we were doing in the dark, and 2) it looked really cool.
Contrary to their name, Hertz are very reasonably priced and – Jeremy Clarkson voice – hiring a vehicle from them isn’t going to “hurtz” your bank balance.
We had arrived in the island early so, rather than heading straight to our hotel, we instead made our way to the nearest chapel. No, not because I felt the need to confess my sins (we were only in Guernsey for five days and I’d need at least three times that), but because the chapel in question is the smallest chapel in the world.
Fittingly known as The Little Chapel, the miniature building is a mere 9 x 4.5 – that’s 9 x 4.5 feet – and would likely be a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare, but I found myself moved almost to tears. I’m not a religious person, but even a heathen like me can be left awestruck by the artworks, structures and buildings created by people of faith. That is true of the Sistine Chapel – and it’s true of The Little Chapel.
Incredibly, the church was primarily the work of one man, Brother Deodat Antoine, who arrived in Guernsey in December 1913, and, for reasons best known to himself, decided to set his sights on building a church that was really, really, really small. It took three attempts in total, with the third and final church – the one which stands to this day – completed sometime in the 1920s.
It is one of those utterly one-of-a-kind locations that reminds you that, for all the ugliness and horror in the world (war, famine, modern art, James Corden), mankind is capable of creating the most beautiful things you will ever see in your life.
The chapel is only a couple of minutes drive from the airport so do yourself a favour and visit when you’re next in Guernsey. And be sure to have some coins and notes for the donations box. No fancy-pants card machines here.
Feeling spiritually uplifted, we then made our way to our home for the next four nights: Les Rocquettes Hotel Guernsey.
A wonderful family-friendly hotel situated on the outskirts of St Peter Port, the building was originally a country mansion, built in the 16th century, and became a hotel in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Today, it is one of the most popular hotels in the island, and it is easy to see why. Although officially a three-star hotel, everything about Les Rocquettes suggests at least a four- or even five-star venue, from the health suite and the food (about which more shortly) to the various dining and bar areas. There is the Oak Bar and Bistro, which is split into two restaurant-sized rooms, and the adjacent third room which is reserved for breakfast; there is the warmly decorated bar at the opposite end of the ground floor, which is furnished with the sort of sofas and chairs that all but demand a mid-afternoon snooze; and there is the open-plan area beside this bar, which has an indoor pond, a water fountain and a snazzy-looking set of spiral stairs. This is top-tier hotel stuff.
We were greeted on arrival by manager Etienne Van Schalkwyk, who, like all staff at the hotel, was unfailingly courteous and welcoming, and then shown to our family-sized hotel room. The room included bunk beds for the boys (cue “ip-dip-doo” over who would have the top bunk), a balcony overlooking the beautiful hotel gardens and, best of all, a bottle of champagne. That didn’t last long.
I’m a lifelong cartoon enthusiast and so I was delighted to discover framed Giles cartoons and old Guinness adverts dotted along the corridor walls throughout the hotel. My kids loved stopping and looking at them almost as much as I did.
That evening we hopped into our Ford Puma and headed to our first restaurant of the week: The Pickled Pig.
Situated within The Duke of Normandie Hotel in St Peter Port, the family-friendly gastro pub is managed by John Horton, who moved to Guernsey from the Southern Lake District in Cumbria in 2022, and who runs The Pickled Pig alongside Gerry Boyle and Faith Wangui, with head chef Steven Steele and his wife, Danni, overseeing the kitchen.
Even without the friendly welcome from John and his team, The Pickled Pig would be an instantly inviting location, with lighting that is just right (not too dark, not too bright) and decor that combines humorous artworks (my kids loved the purple pig photos) with olde-worlde dark oak beams.
The menu was equally inviting. For my main course, and perhaps inspired by the venue name and the aforementioned purple pig pics, I chose the slow-cooked belly pork, which was served with apple purée, lemon thyme, savoy cabbage and “Rocquette cider-glazed fondant”, and which was the best pork belly I have ever tasted, and I write that with not a single smidgen of hyperbole. The soft pork belly – a sizeable rectangular chunk – was served with the hard skin on top and the combination of tender pork, crispy rind and sweet apple purée couldn’t have been bettered.
My wife chose the “Signature Pie”, a slow-braised Guernsey beef pie with creamy mash, cavolo nero (kale) and carrots, while the boys both had hot dog and chips from the children’s menu, which they polished off within seconds of the plates making contact with the table, although not before I was able to nick a few chips from them both. And very nice chips they were, too. Proper old-school chunky chips, as they should be. (Too many establishments these days promise “chips” on the menu and then serve skinny French fries instead, a deception which is particularly common on children’s menus. Nothing wrong with French fries, of course, but they ain’t chips.)
I had read that The Pickled Pig was famed for its octopus, which, despite my love of seafood, I had never eaten. It wasn’t on the menu when we visited, but Steve and Danni kindly agreed to prepare a plateful especially for me. I’ll admit to having been a little apprehensive – I’ve watched Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, a 2003 Korean action-thriller in which actor Choi Min-sik devours a live octopus on camera (as in, he eats it for real – no simulated CGI trickery or otherwise). In the event, the octopus that arrived at our table was very much dead, diced into delicious bite-sized pieces and served with a spicy-sweet Korean glaze, although there remained a slither of tentacle on the size of the plate, which made for an unorthodox toothpick. My eldest son likes seafood as much as his dad and, much to my eternal pride, he tried some of the octopus in-between mouthfuls of hot dog. That’s my boy!
It was late when we returned to Les Rocquettes Hotel for a good night’s sleep in what proved to be a supremely comfy family-sized bed. In the morning, we headed down for the first of four breakfasts (eaten on four separate mornings, I should add – I’m greedy, but not that greedy).
The daily Les Rocquettes breakfast would prove to be one of the highlights of the trip. It was always a high-quality brekkie experience, both in terms of the variety and quality of the food, and the presentation and service (a special mention to staff member Jed, who was great with the kids).
Many of the dishes on the Les Rocquettes breakfast menu feature salmon – a personal fave – and I particularly recommend the “Eggs Royale” which offers oak-smoked salmon, two poached hen’s eggs, toasted English muffins and hollandaise sauce, and which is pictured below.
Most mornings I opted for something containing salmon, although I did try the “Full Guernsey Breakfast” on the Wednesday (superb), while my wife swore by the “Oak Vegetarian Breakfast”.
The kids? They tried the “American-style pancakes” with Nutella, banana and candied hazelnuts on the first morning and refused to even contemplate eating anything else from the menu for the remainder of the week. “How about some Bran Flakes today?” “Pancakes!” “Who wants a bowl of fresh fruit?” “Pancakes!” “I’ve got a suggestion…” “Pancakes!”
After breakfast, we enjoyed a swim in the hotel pool (another morning ritual) and then made our way to Oaty & Joey’s Playbarn, which is the largest indoor softplay facility in the Channel Islands, and which we last visited in early 2023. On that occasion, it had proven to be quite ridiculously good fun. Would the boys still love it as much now that they had reached the lofty ages of three and five?
Answer: yes, with freshly polished brass knobs on.
An essential port of call for parents with pre-teen children, Oaty and Joey’s Playbarn is located in the lovely Oatlands Village and boasts an absolutely enormous multi-level play frame in which both boys happily ran riot for hours: climbing up and down, running in and out, swinging on ropes, whizzing down slides, tossing plastic balls into air-powered launchers – and all with their mum or dad (usually the latter) following closely behind.
After a few hours indoors, we then made our way to the outdoor area, which includes a child-friendly racetrack, golf (both crazy and sane) and trampolines.
A special mention to Oaty & Joey’s manager Hilton Ruch, who is always a terrific host, and employee Harry Bourgaize, who was calm, polite and helpful even when faced with two over-excited pre-teens (“Harry is a superstar” as Hilton put it).
After hours and hours whizzing around at Oaty & Joey’s, we were all fairly exhausted and so decided to eat in the Oak Bistro at Les Rocquettes Hotel rather than dining out.
It was a good decision, with dinner in the hotel matching the quality of breakfast. I opted for fish and chips (“traditional battered fillet with hand-cut chips”) and it was marvellous. There was even a pickled onion on the side of the plate – a lovely pickled onion-y touch.
Sacrilege perhaps, but I am often disappointed with fish and chips in Jersey. Given that we’re an island famed for the quality of our seafood, and given that everything else seafood-related in Jersey tastes incredible, I find the fish and chips are almost always slightly underwhelming. Only Entwhistles in Gorey consistently matches the standard of a typical chippy on the Yorkshire coast. But the fish and chips at Oak Bistro? They were pretty damn good.
My wife had the beef and Guinness pie (“slow-cooked beef and vegetables in a rich Guinness gravy, topped with flaky golden pastry and served with cheesy champ potato”), which she described as “hearty and wholesome, pure comfort on a plate”.
Although the weather forecast had been shocking for the entire week, the anticipated rain was nowhere to be seen during our first two days in Guernsey and it had mostly been sunny, with periods that even bordered on the warm. Alas, the heavens opened on the Wednesday and it poured with rain for most of the day. This didn’t stop us from venturing out and exploring, however, and we began with a candle-making workshop at Guernsey Candles.
Owner Peter Martel has been running the business for over five decades, having founded Guernsey Candles in 1973, but he clearly still loves the work and his passion shone through throughout the interactive workshop.
With Peter assisting, the boys began by dipping their grey-coloured waxy things into various differently coloured waxy liquids – sorry, I don’t know the technical terms – before then using a blunt carving tool to carefully whittle eye-catching patterns onto the sides of the resultant candles. We took both candles home and, although tempting, we still haven’t lit them, choosing instead to keep them as mementos.
The afternoon was spent exploring St Peter Port, including borrowing ye olde key from the Guernsey Museum and then climbing to the top of Victoria Tower – a somewhat nerve-shredding experience when done with two small kids in tow. Those 200-year-old stone spiral steps are steep.
In the evening, we made the first of two scheduled visits to The Old Government House & Spa in St Peter Port, in this instance to enjoy a three-course meal in The Curry Room.
Situated in what feels almost like a converted drawing room, the restaurant is compact and cosy in the best possible way (it seats just 18 diners). The tasteful dark red furnishings are warm and add to the sense of intimacy, while the paintings, ornaments and memorabilia ensure visitors are never short of something interesting to read, inspect or discuss.
We were shown to our table by Zama, a chef de rang who moved from South Africa to Guernsey last summer, and who tended to us throughout the evening with charm and good humour.
On the recommendation of Zama, I chose lamb sheesh kebab with fragrant spices and mint chutney for my starter, followed by “Aloo Palek” for my main. For differing reasons, I wouldn’t typically eat either lamb or aloo, but – perhaps inspired by my octopus-munching escapades two evenings prior – I decided I wanted to be adventurous and try something different. To paraphrase that old knight out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I chose… wisely.
The lamb was phenomenal – phenomenal – while the Aloo Palek, super-spicy at my request, was packed with such flavour that it came close to toppling the mighty Madras as my go-to Indian dish of choice.
The boys both had pizza and chips from the children’s menu (they have yet to develop a taste for Indian food), while my wife – an Indian lover like me – enjoyed vegetable pakora (starter), butter chicken (main) and rice pudding (dessert). My own dessert was “Bea Tollman’s baked vanilla cheesecake with seasonal coulis”. The Old Government House is part of the Red Carnation Hotels chain and is thus owned by the Tollman Family. Beatrice Tollman was the founder of the business and also an incredible chef, and “Bea Tollman signature dishes” are featured on Red Carnation Hotel menus across the world, cheesecake included. And… well, just look at it (below). Now that is a cheesecake!
Thursday began with another stunning Les Rocquettes breakfast (for me, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and malted wheat bloomer), before we headed down to the St Peter Port harbour to meet Andy Furniss, owner of Petit Train Guernsey Ltd.
Cornwall-born Andy had kindly offered us free tickets for one of his regular “Toddler Train” singalong rides, which our youngest was especially keen to experience. Songs included The Wheels on the Bus, Wind the Bobbin Up, Five Little Speckled Frogs and, of course, the ubiquitous Baby Shark. Along the way, the boys devised a game whereby they had to see who could get the largest number of passers-by to wave at them as we weaved our way around the St Peter Port streets. I can’t remember which of them won, but the entire experience was great fun. And Andy was a good laugh!
In the afternoon, we returned to The Old Government House & Spa, this time for afternoon tea – and not just any afternoon tea, ladies and gentlemen, but afternoon with Oggie the Bear! Yes, that’s right – Oggie. My nickname since childhood has been “Oggie”, much as it has been for my siblings, and much as it will no doubt be for my sons as well. At least once a week I will hear “Oggie” shouted across the street or out of a car window by a friend or former colleague, or even – as happened on one particularly surreal occasion – a complete stranger.
Much like his human namesake, Oggie the Bear was handsome and stylishly dressed – in fact, there were two Oggies, one Oggie for each of the Ogg boys to take home. A lovely gesture.
The afternoon tea itself was equally lovely. Believe it or not, I had never previously experienced afternoon tea prior to our visit to The Old Government House – in fact, I had never even drunked a cup of tea in my life. Not so much as a sip. And this despite having been born and raised in Yorkshire, home of Yorkshire Tea, Tetley’s Tea and Betty’s Tea Rooms.
I’m not sure I’d say I’m now a tea convert, but I will say that the tea that was served during our afternoon tea was wonderfully flowery and flavoursome, and very much poo-pooed my hitherto strongly held belief that tea was just “hot milky water in a cup”.
The accompanying sandwiches were uniformly delicious, especially the Scottish smoked salmon sarnies, which were served with chive crème fraîche on brown farmhouse loaf, and the cucumber and Croxton Manor cream cheese sandwiches on white farmhouse loaf.
There were also a selection of sweet treats, four for each of us, and homemade fruit and plain scones – which, for the record, are pronounced “scones”, not “scones” – all of which were served with homemade berry jam and Devonshire clotted cream.
The boys were both given a special child-sized afternoon tea, with a chocolate milkshake in place of a pot of tea. Suffice to say, both of them ignored our instructions to eat the sandwiches first and leave the chocolates until last.
It was yet another wonderful experience in a week of wonderful experiences. I’ve still never had a coffee, mind.
Footnote: both boys accidentally forgot their Oggie bears when we left, leaving them in the Sir John Coward Lounge in which we had enjoyed our afternoon tea. An employee from The Old Government House promptly drove to Les Rocquettes Hotel and left the bears in reception for us to collect. How kind is that?
Friday arrived, our final day, and we went for one final Les Rocquettes breakfast and a farewell swim in the hotel pool before checking out.
If you like to sound of what you’ve just read then why not take advantage of the offer below, which the Les Rocquettes Hotel team are kindly offering to all JEP readers.
Forget about any preconceived prejudices or stereotypes about Guernsey. It’s a lovely island – the people are lovely, the food is lovely and there is no Reform Jersey. What’s not to love?
Islands Unlimited will be running daily ferries between Guernsey and Jersey, starting from Friday 20 March. For more details, or to book, visit islands-unlimited.com
Les Rocquettes Hotel is kindly offering 10% discount on all stays booked before Thursday 30 April and one child stays free when staying with two adults. Be sure to quote “JEP” when booking: lesrocquettesguernsey.com
Les Rocquettes Hotel Guernsey: lesrocquettesguernsey.com
Le Petit Train Guernsey: petittrain.gg
Hertz Car Hire Guernsey: hertz.co.uk/p/car-hire/uk/guernsey
The Old Government House & Spa/The Curry Room: theoghhotel.com
The Pickled Pig: dukeofnormandie.com/pickled-pig
