Thought for Food
Westward Ho!
By RAYMOND POSTGATE*
Cornwall is smaller than Devon, and more overrun and spoiled by tourists. (Have you ever tried to enter Polperro in the season? It is im- penetrable.) 1 have relatively little new to report from there, and the first one that deserves men- tion is—I am rather glad to say—without pre- tentiousness and with no traces of pixilation and phoney Cornishness. The. Si. Mawes Hotel, in the town of that name, has service flats, rooms with breakfast only, and a grillroom. The menu in the last named is strictly simple and very carefully cooked; only the scampi (4s. 6d.) and Crepes Suzette (6s.) are in the least adventurous, but there is no justification for ignoring well-done grills from 4s. (minute. steak) to 6s. 6d. (point steak or half-chicken). Wines start at 10s. a good- sized carafe of ordinaire.
There are enough warm supporters of the St. Movies to make me endorse it without hesitation; there are only two for the Harbour Moon at *Raymond Postgate, editor of the Good Food Guide, reports on restaurants and inns which ma■ (01 may not, after further tests) appear in the next edition. He cannot answer readers' queries, and for general information recourse must be had to the current Grath,. (Cassell, 7s. 6d.). West Looe, but the terms in which it is com- mended are so strong that I think it is almost certainly something out of the ordinary. The Holmes have taken it over fairly recently, and when one of my informants visited it the price of dinner was 16s. 6d., which is pretty high for the provinces. But it included lobster Thermidor, and I understand that Mrs. Holme makes all the sauces herself, personally. This gives a saddened diner-out a feeling of hope, or even of confidence. There is a table licence and no bar for casuals. That is all, I am afraid, about Cornwall.
Devon is larger, and with greater variety. The first name I have to mention I do so crossly, for it is that of Mr. Roberts, who used to run the Quay, in the racket and crowds of Polperro, which has for years had one of the most reck- lessly laudatory notices in the Good Food Guide. He quitted it, and closed it up, without notifying the Guide or answering my letters, so that the new edition of the Guide had an entry that was out of date before it was printed. He is now at the Flora restaurant attached to the George at Plympton, and I have no doubt his masterly touch is as sure as ever; but I won't hand him out any more adjectives; I am much too grumpy. I go on immediately to a place which is the greatest contrast. There is nothing more different from a fine individual cuisine than swift cooking in an Italian café for a hundred people; but in a town like Torquay whose streets are grim ranks of places serving fish and chips and ice-cream, the latter is very welcome. Mr. Sofroni has fairly recently started his restaurant near to the Clock Tower; it is new, clean, modern, and large for Torquay; it is not a great gastronomic sensation but the various spaghettis and escalopes are Italian, and the pilaffs are well spoken of too. Medium prices.
However, an inn, however small, with indivi- duality is more interesting, and I have marked down for further inquiry the Puke of York, at Iddesleigh, near Hatherleigh. Very small, very personal, no canned music or TV, and a welcome even for children. The two people who run it, the Raffertys, are really interested in food; Peggy Rafferty's pate is specially mentioned, and there should be trout from the nearby fishing. An equally small, or even smaller, inn is the Gribble Inn at Little Torrington, which has been on my list for investigation ever since a motoring correspondent told me she had been served there with baked ham 'with subtle herb sauce' preceded by a cream of banana soup 'which suggested oysters in labour.' I cannot think what that last can mean, and am not sure that I would like it if I knew, but I have got a more matter-of-fact spy to visit the inn (a North of England Co-operative Society official) and he reports that there is indeed here excellent personal cooking, particularly of game and syllabub, by Mr. and Mrs, John Bourne. As with all small and distinctive inns in England, it is unwise to arrive unannounced and hope for the best. Telephone beforehand, or send a postcard.
Two hotels which used to be in the Good Food Guide and were dropped because members tailed t.) renominate them are the Seagull at Exmouth and the Exeter Inn at Modbury. Both of them, I am now advised, should be put back on the list for those who are interested in good food. The Seagull is particularly good with children, By the way, I. should explain for those who don't know the way in which the Good Food Guide is run that the disappearance of an hotel from its pages does not necessarily mean that it has been condemned by the Good Food Club mem- bers. Sometimes it only means that they have not troubled to renominate it. That is an inevitable defect of a voluntary organisation.
Finally, there is one place, the Forest Inn at Hexworthy, which raises a very interesting general question. It is a Trust House. What is a serious gastronome's opinion on Trust Houses? They vary, of course; but they have a common character which is easily recognised but not easily described. The company which runs them is philanthropic in origin, and arose from the dis- gust of eminent persons (including the Bishop uf Chester and a Lord Grey) with atrocious food and accommodation in British inns a half-ceu- tury ago. It enforced standards of cleanliness. discipline, courtesy: honesty, sanitation and wholesomeness, and has ever since had a chorus of warm supporters. But it has also had a chorus of people who thought otherwise about it. I once asked a most valued collaborator on the Goad Food Guide, Mr. Coates, to report on a Trust House for me. He replied in one of the most snubbing letters that J have ever received; tie said that if I could ask him to visit a Trust House it was clear that we moved in very different circles and had very different standards, so much so that there was nothing for him to do but to sever relations immediately. I wish I had time and space to examine Trust Houses thoroughly; for the moment, I ean merely record that the Forest Inn uses wine in its sauces and serves Dart salmon and trout verY well, with very delicately flavoured mayonnaise. When I read also that the Imeuf a la mode is es' ceptionally good, I wonder whether the Mr. and Mrs. Ling who run it are not perhaps the Erskine Lings who for some years made the George tit Hatherleigh an hotel which was in its way unique for imaginative food. Their repertoire included red mullet in cider with liver sauce, turbot in sherry and starling pie. If you ,go there, find out for me.
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