A £65 roast dinner box from Mindful Chef and Michelin Green Star restaurant Pythouse Kitchen Garden promises a restaurant-quality Sunday roast at home – but one thing was missing.
After months of sweltering weather, where it has simply been too hot to even contemplate firing up the oven for a Sunday roast, it's an absolute joy to be back in the kitchen rustling up proper comfort food. I can't be the only one who has been yearning for those cosy evening meals - warm pies, toad in the hole and hearty stews back on the menu.
But those indulgent meals, particularly a full Sunday roast, come with a mountain of prep work that frankly, I could do without. For me, there is nothing more stressful than trying to time multiple components of a meal so they all land on the table perfectly at once. It's precisely why I pursued a career in journalism rather than finance - I've always been far better with words than numbers.
What was the prep and cooking of the Mindful Chef box like?
So when a company comes along and promises to strip away all that stress and logistical headache, without compromising on taste, you could say they had my full attention. This autumn, Mindful Chef has joined forces with Bib Gourmand and Michelin Green Star restaurant Pythouse Kitchen Garden in Wiltshire, to launch a limited-edition seasonal roast dinner box, priced at £65.
Pythouse Kitchen Garden is celebrated for its plot-to-plate philosophy, and Mindful Chef have truly run with that ethos by ensuring every ingredient in each box is locally sourced from across the UK and of outstanding quality. The box promises a hearty restaurant-quality roast at home, with the added bonus of giving cooks more time to enjoy a relaxed Sunday, rather than fretting about the logistics.
As a busy mum with a toddler usually glued to my ankles, asking "Mummy, what's this?" every 10 seconds, I felt I was perfectly placed to put this box to the test.
My box arrived on Friday and was neatly packaged with all of the meat, vegetables and sides I would need to put together the generous feast. I was able to pop all of the ingredients, which arrived in perfect condition with no damaged packaging, straight into the fridge ready for the weekend.
When Sunday finally rolled around, I took the box over to my parents' house and began preparation and cooking at 10.30am while my daughter watched Frozen with her Grandad - perfect. The box came with a handy little magazine that walked you through everything step by step, making the prep work incredibly straightforward.
The box I chose included Norfolk Black Chicken paired with golden baby potatoes, orange, purple and white skin-on roasted carrots, roasted cavolo nero, candied beetroot and kale salad, and a chicken sauce. While prepping the veg, the quality of the produce was impossible to ignore — and it really shone through once dinner was on the table.
Plating up the Mindful Chef roast in a box
Everything was vibrant, fresh, and an absolute pleasure to prepare and cook with. All the prep was done and dusted within 30 minutes, after which it was simply a matter of keeping an eye on the trays going in and out of the oven.
There was the usual hovering over the hob towards the end — as my Grandma always taught me that 'gravy boiled is gravy spoiled'.
Once everything was out of the oven, I was genuinely taken aback by just how much food the box produced. If I had one gripe, it would be that there were far too many carrots in proportion to the roast potatoes.
I'd have loved to have seen a few more roasties on the plate — for me, they're an absolutely essential part of a proper Sunday dinner.
As a northern girl, one thing that many dinner kits tend to overlook is just how much gravy is needed to serve four people. Thankfully, this wasn't an oversight in the Mindful Chef x Pythouse Kitchen Garden box — there was more than enough gravy for four people to absolutely smother their plates.
However, had I followed the box instructions to the letter, there would have been one glaring omission - Yorkshire puddings. I appreciate it's a contentious subject in the roast dinner world, but in my view it's an absolute travesty to serve up a roast without one - so thankfully my mum was on hand to whip up her legendary puds.
What did the Mindful Chef x Pythouse Kitchen Garden taste like?
The first thing I tried on the plate was the Norfolk Black Roast Chicken, which was wonderfully soft and tender, even through the thickest part of the breast meat. With one bite of the leg, the meat simply fell straight off the bone and was incredibly succulent.
While cooking, I did have my doubts about serving beetroot and red onion alongside a Sunday roast, but as the accompanying magazine explained, after sitting beneath the chicken throughout the roasting process, it turned gloriously sweet and 'candied'. I can honestly say I'll be tucking beetroot and red onion under my chicken in the roasting tray on a regular basis from here on in.
When I first clapped eyes on the baby potatoes included in the Mindful Chef box, I'll admit I was a touch deflated as a devoted Maris Piper fan. But how wrong I was... The potatoes, which were smashed flat with the bottom of a bowl after boiling and before roasting, were absolutely delicious.
The vegetables needed little in the way of seasoning, nor did they require it. Both were perfectly crispy on the outside yet tender within — and served alongside the roasted cavolo nero, they felt almost virtuous.
The same could be said for the generous heap of carrots, where it was fascinating to discover how distinctly each variety differed in taste. The white carrot carried a sweeter note, reminiscent of a parsnip, while the purple variety offered a more earthy, subtly peppery flavour.
A salad alongside a Sunday roast isn't something I'd ever encountered before, but if you're going to give it a go, the fresh kale salad with pickled shallots and a maple and mustard dressing brought a bright, tangy lift to the plate.
And then there was the gravy. This was the sole let down on the plate for me. Compared to everything else on offer, it was woefully lacking in flavour and just felt like gloop in your mouth.
Final verdict on the Mindful Chef roast dinner box
The gravy aside, the meal as a whole was nothing short of spectacular — genuinely rivalling the kind of dinner you'd expect from a top-end restaurant, enjoyed from the comfort of your own home. And at £65, working out at £16 per head, it's hard to grumble.
Some of you may well be thinking: "I could make that for half the price", but that entirely misses the point of this box. For me, it delivered precisely what it promised, at a fraction of the cost of dining out at a Bib Gourmand restaurant.
I'd absolutely buy this box again as a treat, and feel like you get far more out of it than simply a meal. It's boosted my confidence in the kitchen and introduced me to new techniques that I'll carry with me for years to come.
The Mindful Chef x Pythouse Kitchen Garden box is available online with deliveries arriving every Friday in October. There are also two additional options for the box, including a Grass-fed Aberdeen Angus Beef Sirloin and a Tenderstem, Artichoke & Cheddar Gratin. New Mindful Chef customers can get 30 percent off their first four boxes and free delivery on the first, which would bring the roast dinner box down to £45.50.
