RESTAURANT AS THEATRE THERE ARE only three places my hus-
band, Ed, likes to spend the weekend: Lon- don, Devon and Scotland. So I knew it was going to be difficult convincing him to take an inevitably rain-soaked bank holiday break in a Lake District youth hostel. First there would be the four hours on the train surrounded by fleece-wearing engineers, then there would be the jam-smeared tubs of margarine at breakfast, the baked beans, sausage rolls and flat cider for supper and the smell of damp woollen socks hanging from the bunk beds. The problem was, I'd promised to write about the centenary cel- ebrations of an arcane annual manhunt on the fells. To act the part, both of us would have to don breeches and sprint across the hills after 'hares', wearing red sashes and carrying horns.
Two days before we left, I bottled out and rang up the most expensive hotel I could find, Sharrow Bay on the shore of Ullswater. At least when we came back in the evenings splattered in peat, we'd be able to have a hot bath and a bottle of wine. We could tell the other 'hounds' we were camping up the road.
Sharrow Bay was the first country-house hotel in Britain, set up just after the second world war as prepackaged gracious English living with scuffed books in the bedrooms and scones on the lawn. The owners thought that people would pay not to stay in their friends' stately homes. That way they could complain if their sheets were damp and they wouldn't be force-fed tongue and rice pudding.
In fact, the hotel attracted a very differ- ent clientele. The cheapskates with access to other people's house parties preferred to keep cadging invites. But the spivs from London came up in droves, along with American tourists, French film stars and MPs with their mistresses on their way to party conferences. Eventually, it became the stopping-off point for any southerner desperate to find a Michelin star in the north. The dinners were exceptional. Even with rationing, the hotel was serving foie gras and chocolate soufflé.
The decor was more brewery magnate than old rectory. The hotel was packed with knick-knacks: lace lavatory-paper holders, swirly carpets, porcelain cats and cushions with homilies. Fifty years on nothing has changed except for the guests. The south- erners have been edged out. The northern- ers have reclaimed their own. They arrive from Leeds with wads of cash and don't need any nancy London ideas. Black pud- ding and sausages are still served from 9 a.m. onwards and the newspapers turn up at 10 a.m., just in time for morning coffee. Lunch is a four-course affair starting at midday. Guests can then drive around the lake and be back in time for tea, followed by an eight-course dinner. No one volun- teers any ludicrous suggestions such as hikes or mountain biking or jogging trails.
When we arrived at 7 p.m. and started peeling off our sodden layers in the entrance hall, the other guests almost dropped their beige canapes on to their linen laps. Fifty chairs had been carefully crammed into two drawing rooms and there were just two left for us. You could spot the occasional southerners, the finick- ety ones, asking whether they could miss the soup and just have a green salad, or skip the fish course and go straight on to the sorbet. The northerners played it straight through the menu.
For a hotel that prides itself on gourmet food, the chairs were risibly small for any heavy eater. But the managers want as many guests as possible to watch the lake steamers drift past with the sunset. By the time they had piled on bowls of grapes, steaming bread rolls, great slabs of butter and the smoked chicken consomme, the fish and cheese knives were spilling onto the floor.
Most other guests had gone for the starter of duck foie gras with stuffed pig's trotter and ham shank on pease pudding. But I wanted to try the scallops, having just had a particularly bad combination of these molluscs with a bitter artichoke puree at Bibendum. I never think scallops come any better than the ones with pea purée and mint at Kensington Place in Notting Hill.
This is the fifth time I've dried out.' But this Cumbrian fried version with spinach and a red pepper coulis was deli- cious. The four scallops were large and juicy and the pepper was sweet enough to bring out their flavour. Ed, who had only just begun to thaw out after being lost in the mist for hours, had the terrine of veni- son with port and pistachio nuts, pear and saffron chutney and a large dollop of what tasted like potato salad. One piece of meat in his terrine was so large it would have made a Marco Pierre White main course. But with the help of four brioche, Ed said it made the perfect end to an eight-hour hike.
The whole dining-room was then pre- sented with fillet of halibut with crab ravioli and shellfish sauce. This was the first time anything other than French or English had crept on to the menu and it was a mistake. The halibut looked like a doll's duvet, fold- ed in two and a perfect white. The ravioli was more of a grey dumpling, but it was very popular with the other guests. We skipped the two scoops of sorbet and rolled straight on to a fried fillet of sea bass, and a breast of guinea fowl and the first smattering of vegetables we had seen — three different types of potato, including a very tasty one with leeks wrapped in bacon. Unfortunately, Ed's guinea fowl had another dumpling sitting on top of it, but the meat was perfectly done and came with a whole pot of redcurrant jelly. In fact, every meat dish had a fruit accompani- ment, whether figs and honey or juniper berry and dill. The restaurant might once have used its home-made chutneys to dis- guise the toughness of the only meat they could wangle. After 50 years it has perfect- ed the combination.
My pudding was an old English RegencY syllabub with shortbread hearts (as present- ed by Francis and Roger at Maxims in Paris). The syllabub was made of egg whites and double cream and tasted of cit- rus, which caused us to argue about when the orange first appeared in British wok" ing. If they wanted to be authentic, it per- haps should have been made with rhubarb- The apple posset with apple crisps was per- fectly tangy. Having finished our puddings, we were allowed slabs of cheese, all British, served by German waitresses. The southerners had finished a good hour before the locals. Over the petit fours a city banker explained that six years ago, the food here had been a revelation, now he preferred a little tuna sashimi at Nobu. The northerners were still glued to their, tables the next morning, eating their stewed prunes, kippers and poached eggs. As WC went into the cloakroom to put on our Ink" ing boots, we saw a pair of scales on which a Mancunian and his wife were gleefullY weighing the value of their weekend.
Alice Thomson
Dinner at Sharrow Bay Count?), House Hotel Ullswater (tel: 017684 86301) is £45.25 per head, including coffee.
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