Stepping in for AA Gill this week, Kate Spicer visits chefs Tom Sellers and Graham Squire’s take on an independent British pub, the Lickfold Inn in Petworth, West Sussex.
“Sellers is a young star on the fine-dining scene; Squire was once head chef at the fantastic Trinity, in southwest London. Yes, please. I was there like a shot, with the dog and my boyfriend,” she writes in the Sunday Times.
“There were immediate clues that this is no longer a booze-centric ‘wet pub’. There are real-ale pumps, but no bustling informality. Through a glass wall, I spied a large, expensive professional kitchen. The wines by the glass are suited to food and much better than the yawningly predictable bottles in most pubs. Instead of ubiquitous Argentinian malbec, the Lickfold has cahors, made from the same grape, but grown in wet French limestone. The resulting inky-dark and dry wine is perfect for rich food, and we were going to need it here.
“Deep-fried breaded whitebait and home-cured salami came as canapés, chicken wings with trendy onion ash (less oniony, more ashy). It was an edible metaphor for the changing times. Where once there was Silk Cut debris, now this. The Lickfold is a pub in name alone.
“The starters were great. Wild garlic, soured milk curds and mushroom made an intense velouté poured over a pile of curds with something crunchy and savoury, cut through with a compelling acidity and bitterness.”
The town has a breed of cattle named after it, so it makes sense that Hereford should also have a decent burger joint. The Observer’s Jay Rayner visits Burger Shop by a Rule of Tum.
“That £9.50 Hereford Hop is topped with long-braised “pulled neck” of beef, cheese, deep-fried pickled onion rings, mustard mayo, ketchup and fresh, crisp leaves of baby gem, there to give the impression that this might be healthy eating. I throw in extra bacon to mitigate all the greenery, and it’s the real thing: a deep dry cure with dense pigginess. The brioche buns hold together for only half the eating time, but that’s OK. By that point you already have half the sauce down your shirt and your forearms. Or is that only me?
“As well as the beef options, there’s a pulled lamb burger, leftovers from which go into crisp croquettes so pungent you can practically hear them bleating as you bite in. On the side there’s a fine dipping sauce of salsa verde. This is more attention to detail than is strictly necessary at the £4.50 price. It turns out that tiny florets of cauliflower cheese also make terrific croquettes. From the specials board we try the mackerel burger, a breaded and deep-fried fillet of fresh mackerel, topped with smoked mackerel and one simple masterstroke: batons of pickled rhubarb, the sharpness of which puts all that fishiness in its place.”
The Times‘ Giles Coren talks about his sheep farming exploits but just about finds time to review the Horse and Groom, Gloucestershire.
“Let’s call this a review of the Horse and Groom in Bourton on the Hill, which I have now visited twice since it won the Good Pub Guide 2016 Pub of the Year award.
“The cooking is exemplary, no question. I like it mostly for the fish, which is almost impossible to buy fresh as a general punter in this most sea-shy of shires, and most recently had delicious fishcakes of smoked haddock, trout and leeks in a mustard cream sauce and a gleaming roast fillet of Cornish hake with roast fennel. Esther had their home-cured Dexter salt beef, sliced very thin with gherkins and soft-boiled quail
eggs, followed by salmon fillet, grilled with brown shrimps.
“It is a very sound spot. Lovely view, big garden, friendly (quite casual) table service, top beers, hearty puddings, and an attention to detail in the provenance (recorded at length on a blackboard at the bar) which fair gladdens the heart of an old farmer like me.”
One mouthful of the sausages at Pitt Cue in London EC2 and all Marina O’Loughlin hears are choirs of angels.
Writing in the Guardian, she says: “News of Pitt Cue’s move to a bland development in Spitalfields didn’t thrill me to the blackened and seasoned marrow. Yeah, yeah, another barbecue joint, even a good one: whatever. But I couldn’t be more wrong.
Yes, it’s the City, so the large space is rammed with bellowing blokes; and yes, the textbook exposed ducting, wooden floors and open kitchen decor is so clattery, you wind up braying along with the best of ’em. But one mouthful of their sausages, and all I hear are choirs of angels.
“Pitt Cue is, of course, overwhelmingly carnivore. One pal has just recently started eating meat again and the occasional item defeats her, notably crumbly black pudding topped with a sludge of pear ketchup and glazed with fruity, sour-sweet gastrique. I’ve never liked that word “gastrique” – sounds like stomach acid – but to me the dish is murky perfection. There’s even fish: we have a crackly skinned mackerel brushed with oil and lemon; this with a fennel, apple, and toasted almond salad is an absolute love match.
“Pitt Cue is sophisticated, thoughtful, surprising; it offers chic cocktails and interesting wines. They brew their own beer. This isn’t a barbecue joint, it’s a restaurant that barbecues: and a thunderingly good one.”
Rowley Leigh has created a brasserie menu with a dash of daring for Soho House at its new Cafe Monico restaurant on London’s Shaftesbury Avenue, says the Evening Standard’s Fay Maschler.
“Under the heading Starters is one of Rowley’s signature dishes, Parmesan custard with anchovy toast,” she explains. “You can watch him cooking it on YouTube, where the custard is creamier, but here the savoury sandwich bearing the firm imprint of a Breville toaster is a new touch. A simple salad of bibb, aka butterhead, lettuce (agreeably floppy leaves) with radishes is stylishly assembled and dressed. Another salad of tuna with white beans and red onions takes me back to giving dinner parties in the 1970s, when it was thought quite the thing. It can still hold its head high.
“Tuesday’s Plat du Jour (served after 7pm and Sundays) of fish pie cowers under too heavy a covering of whorled mashed potato. Coming to the rescue are tomatoes with cream, the idea that Elizabeth David championed from the book Cooking in Ten Minutes written by French-Polish scientist Edouard de Pomiane. Tomato halves are sautéed in butter before being cloaked in bubbling cream. A whiff of nutmeg is exactly the dab behind the ears that they need.”
The Telegraph’s Kathryn Flett says that Damien Hirst’s restaurant reincarnation Pharmacy 2 has been defibrillated and is looking as good as ever.
“It’s like the past 18 years never happened; the 3D helix and nucleotides of Damien’s DNA are suspended above the neon-labelled bar (“prescriptions”) lined with aspirin stools; the witty HazChem signs hang over the kitchen doors; and kaleidoscopes of butterflies jostle for the eye’s attention alongside the medicine cabinet wall. The rest of the room is filled by Ladies who Lunch and Couples who Art, and it’s all rather cheery,” Flett says.
“Mark Hix, Hirst’s partner in crime this time around, has designed a sizeable, adaptable and typically Hix-y fix of a menu, deftly executed by right-hand man Kevin Gratton, late of Le Caprice and Scott’s.”
The Evening Standard’s Grace Dent falls in love with her favourite restaurant’s new baby, Padella on Southwark Street.
“I cannot pretend to enjoy the occasions of my friends giving birth. It’s like they vanish backwards into a mist for seven or more years, emerging sporadically to suggest lunch at a Hungry Horse. No. But restaurants giving birth, this is something I enjoy. I’m heavily pro my favourite bolt-holes procreating. So when Trullo in Islington, an excellent neighbourhood Italian, announced plans to launch Padella in Southwark, I was extra-thrilled.
“While Trullo is all linen tablecloths, old-school chic and plenty of choice, Padella is a sparse white space serving a pared-down single-sheet menu. Fresh sourdough with Puglian olive oil — or more fancy Chiarentana Estate oil if you’re living like Kanye that week. Eight pastas, including an Italian fennel sausage tagliatelle and ricotta ravioli with sage butter; a handful of antipasti; and an almond or a chocolate tart for afters. The wine list is minuscule but the Sangiovese 2014 is drinkable by the bucket. No faff, no fuss.”
Herald Scotland’s Ron Mackenna visits Glasgow’s Wilson Street Pantry and finds that despite the disappointing lack of hand-made in-house ingredients there’s a feel of care about what the pantry serves.
“SO after a few moments of getting nowhere I do something I’ve never done before. I hold up my phone with an internet review of this place from a respected food magazine and point to the bits where it says ‘own-recipe salt beef; chutneys and pickles made in-house’. The waitress, who has until this point looked rather baffled, has a think about this. And then becomes even more baffled. ‘Maybe we did that when we first opened,’ she says.
“This top chat ends with me ordering the in-house WSP Tart then suddenly realising I don’t actually know what a WSP Tart is. WSP: Wilson Street Pantry, the waitress tells me before telling me it’s sold out. It’s a tough old gig this fat food critic-ing especially when on the frontline.
“Moments later, over a thick, rich and warming ham, celery and blue cheese soup that is weirdly spicier than the spiced lentil, coconut and spinach soup I also order, I try and work out what went wrong here. Or went right.
“Don’t get me completely wrong. Here at WSP they are willing to make up the daily special of hot smoked salmon, avocado, poached egg on sourdough without the smoked salmon but with their own WSP baked ham. That’s positively the only thing I can now see in-house on the menu. And very nice it is too, slightly sweetened, pink and melty and with perfectly poached eggs that still have a modicum of run in the middle. Couldn’t really be bothered with the avocado, and was that fruit on the side?”
HOTELS
The Times‘ Tom Chesshyre says the setting of the Packhorse Inn overlooking the River Kennett in Moulton, Suffolk, is “marvellous”, but decries the meagre food portions.
“The eight rooms are spacious with tasteful pale-green and pale-blue walls, stand-alone bathtubs, chaise longues, oatmeal-coloured carpets, shutters and slick bathrooms with Noble Isle toiletries. The wide beds are seriously comfortable, with good-quality linen.
“Meals begin with complimentary truffle popcorn (it could catch on), blue-cheese macaroons and rosemary focaccia (both excellent). My mackerel with charred leek and beetroot starter was a tad on the small side, though my main of Suffolk chicken with white beans and mushrooms was warming and a better portion. The highlight was chocolate mousse with deliciously nutty pistachio cake. Three courses are from about £33.”
Writing in the Independent, Jules Brown describes the Lord Crewe Arms in BLanchland is a much-loved inn on the Durham/Northumberland border
“There are guest rooms (21 in total) in the main building and the restored miners’ cottages that flank the adjacent cobbled square, and while no two are the same, you can count on a certain updated country-chic style. Colours throughout are earthy and restful – just like the peaceful surroundings, where the loudest sound you’ll hear in the morning is the birdsong.
Drinking in the medieval Crypt bar and eating in the Bishop’s Dining Room are suitably atmospheric, while grassy gardens back onto the old priory church. The hotel is also a perfect place from which to explore both Durham and Northumberland – either over the lonely moors to Stanhope in Weardale or to Hexham and Hadrian’s Wall.”
The Telegraph’s Fiona Duncan checks into the Bar Convent, a hotel in York that is still home to apostolic members of the Congregation of Jesus where the occasional room is designed by Olga Polizzi
The bedrooms are found amid a warren of corridors and staircases (there’s also a lift big enough for a couple of chairs). Whichever sister chose the new colour scheme has a penchant for lime green: on walls, curtains and duvet covers. Shower rooms, mattresses and towels are new, too, and there are smart televisions and good free Wi-Fi. The rooms are spotless.
Mrs Polizzi’s rooms, St Anna and St Joachim (£110), are different, decorated in a restful palette of blue, cream and grey, with white linen on the luxurious beds and elegant mosaic-tiled shower rooms. The reason for her involvement? She was at school with the order’s Sister Frances, who became headmistress at St Mary’s Ascot; Alex Polizzi was her head girl.
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