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We were about halfway up the hill when the 1950s gun bus carrying me and nine other guests across Guy Ritchie’s Wiltshire estate slowly stuttered to a halt. We had just finished the headline dinner of a weekend-long culinary retreat hosted by London restaurant Carousel, which invites acclaimed chefs to take over the director’s private countryside estate for intimate fire-cooked feasts. After dining beside a serene lake, we were being ferried back to our accommodation when our host, the delightful Rebeca, began wrestling with the antiquated transmission.
With each attempt to get her started, we rolled backwards before lurching to a halt. Mercifully, Rebeca gave up before we ended up back in the lake and we made the short walk back to our lodgings for a well-earned nightcap with an adventure to add to our unique weekend.
Formerly the home of Cecil Beaton, Ashcombe Estate was purchased for £18m by Ritchie and his then-wife Madonna in 2008. Now, it is hosting one of the country’s most exclusive foodie getaways: a collaboration with Carousel that transforms the director’s private countryside retreat into a weekend-long feast for just a handful of guests at a time.
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Spread across more than 1,000 acres of rolling chalk downland, Ashcombe feels less like a hotel and more like an eccentric aristocrat’s playground. Guests spend their days wild swimming in Ritchie’s lake, sweating it out in a wood-fired sauna, wandering through ancient woodland and grazing on exceptional food and drink before gathering around the estate’s famous WildKitchen — the director’s copper-clad temple to live-fire cooking, which eagle-eyed viewers may recognise from Netflix’s The Gentlemen.
The concept is wonderfully simple: every weekend, a different acclaimed chef takes over the lakeside kitchen, serving an intimate feast cooked entirely over fire. Guests stay in either the converted farmhouse, which houses six en-suite double bedrooms starting at £375 a night, or the four more spacious Hayloft suites, offering towering views over Cranborne Chase for £750 a night. My partner and I were staying in the latter and were charmed by the beautiful design details and artwork. The interiors were designed by Edward Hurst to give the feel of an inn in Colonial Williamsburg, or “American inn meets English pub”, as the designer put it.
Since there are only ten rooms, Ashcombe feels intimate. Meals are served in Ritchie's cavernous converted brewery beside the farmhouse, where each couple initially seemed content to occupy their own corner of the vast room.
The food more than made up for the subdued atmosphere, though. Our first dinner consisted of Maldon oysters swimming in gooseberry hot sauce; a zesty sea bass aguachile; lemon sole cooked with cockles, wild garlic capers, lemon and chili butter; all polished off with a few glasses of Eau de Provence rosé.
Any lingering social awkwardness quickly evaporated the following morning, when we were taken down to Ritchie's swimming lake. We did not have the weather, but that did not stop several of us from leaping into the frigid pond for a swim before returning for a restorative steam in the bespoke sauna, which is fired by the estate’s own ash trees. Conversation quickly flowed over glasses of Bollinger in the hot tub (wood-fired, of course). Guests could also take part in a morning yoga session or indulge in a massage provided in the lakeside wellness retreat.
After freshening up back at the farmhouse, there was time for a quick cocktail before the weekend’s main event: dinner cooked by Pablo Díaz, chef-patron of Mercado 24 in Guatemala City, a regular in Latin America’s 50 Best. Dining at WildKitchen is a truly breathtaking experience. Part hunting lodge, part open-air dining room, the lakeside structure is centred around an enormous copper-clad communal table, with wood fires built directly into its heart and chimneys rising overhead to keep diners warm. It is exactly the kind of place you can imagine Ritchie entertaining his VIP guests.
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Díaz opened with a delicate tuna tostada, setting the tone for a menu that leaned heavily on seafood and vegetables rather than meat. A bright scallop ceviche followed, before grilled endive was paired with smoky mussels dressed in chilli and wild garlic. Then came the showstopper: half a lobster grilled over fire and lacquered in adobo chilli, served with salsa, black beans and handmade corn tortillas. Eaten around the glowing copper table as flames crackled beneath our feet and darkness settled over the Wiltshire countryside, it was one of those rare meals where the setting rivals the food — yet the food still wins.
Yet what makes the experience memorable isn’t just the food. It’s the sense that you’ve briefly stepped inside Ritchie’s world: one where luxury comes wrapped in tweed and wood smoke, whiskey cocktails are served in converted brewery buildings, and transport between dinner and bed may or may not involve a temperamental military vehicle threatening to roll into a lake.
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By Sunday morning, after a breakfast of strong coffee and local produce overlooking the estate’s mist-covered fields, I understood the appeal. Ashcombe is no polished five-star country house hotel. It’s stranger, more playful and infinitely more personal — a place that feels as though its owner has built it entirely around the things he loves: good food, the great outdoors and a healthy dose of adventure.
Tom stayed as a guest of Ashcombe Estate
The Ashcombe Estate x Carousel series runs from May to September 2026, with en-suite double rooms available from £375 per night (for a minimum two-night stay), with breakfast included. The guest chef dinner in the WildKitchen is priced at £175pp, excluding drinks and service.