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London House, Winkleigh
HEADING WEST from London, I sang along lustily with the Sunset Boulevard tape on the car cassette machine: 'I had to get out. I needed to be with . . real people, real problems, having a really good time.' The further west I went, the better I felt; at last, beyond Tiverton, in the depths of Devon, I began to feel I was lost in the real country of narrow lanes, high hedges, red earth.
The 'real people' I had in mind were two sporting West Country farmers and their spouses, in fact my uncle and aunt and my half-brother and his wife. On impulse the day before, I had arranged to meet them for lunch at a restaurant in the unlikely spot of Winkleigh, chosen more or less at random from the 1994 Good Food Guide, in which it is a 'New Entry'. Winkleigh, which had looked accessible enough on the map, turned out to be in the middle of nowhere, vaguely between Exmoor and Dartmoor. But the table was not until 1.30 p.m., and pottering along the Devon lanes made a pleasant change from the Central Line. The London House Dining Room, with its striking green frontage on a former vil- lage shop, was easy enough to find in the whitewashed square at Winkleigh, which had an eerily quiet, dream-like atmosphere. A blackboard in the window unassertively announced a three-course lunch (carrot or curried parsnip soup; breast of pigeon with forcemeat stuffing or grilled cod steak; Normandy tart or lemon meringue and ice- cream), including glass of wine and coffee for £7. Yes, seven pounds; indeed six if you didn't want the glass of wine or preferred to order your own bottle from the thought- ful list on another blackboard, almost all of them well under £10.
Perhaps I really was in a dream? Had I overdosed on Lloyd Webber? But the soli- tary tweeded figure sitting in the window table looked substantial enough and, remembering the adage that a portly party eating alone is always an encouraging sign, I plunged in. The compact interior (room for 16) had a restful green colour scheme and was decorated in an unpretentious way, soothing to the senses. Normally gauche `That's when you have your day. and self-conscious to an embarrassing degree, I surprised myself by feeling imme- diately at home. Indeed I soon fell into conversation with le patron across the sim- ple bar; he reminded me of an actor, usual- ly cast as a solicitor or suchlike, who I am still not able to identify, and I felt I knew him of old. Over a kir, I learnt that he was called Peter Jameson and that he and his wife Barbara, the cook CI make everything including the bread and do not use a microwave'), had moved down here from East Anglia about six years ago.
Meanwhile the rubicund gent in the win- dow was tucking in with gusto. In between mouthfuls, he read snatches of a biography of Lord Denning. I began to weave a fanta- sy that he was a High Court judge who had escaped to Devon to prepare a weighty judgment. Eventually we were joined by a couple of stray tourists in search of 'just a simple lunch, like a bowl of soup'.
This, the arrival of my aunt in a wheelchair and my brother at his customary half-hour after the 'off were all taken unfussily in the Jamesons' stride. Our fami- ly party made short work of a fruity Sancerre (at £9) and a Macon Blanc (at £8), though the recommended Australian red (a Penfold at £7.50) seemed a little metallic.
The soups were delicious (somehow thick and refreshingly light at the same time) and the cod, while not quite adequate in quanti- ty for agricultural appetites, was high-quali- ty. A mound of mashed potato was the only accompaniment to the main courses, in the French manner. (`Have they forgotten the vegetables?' muttered my brother.) The comforting heap of pigeon and stuffing was supported by a truss of fat bacon which prompted my sister-in-law to bring her free-range Berkshire pigs to the Jamesons' attention.
Soon all the occupants of the room, save for Mr Justice Greedy and your correspon- dent, were engaged in a lively discussion about real meat (`You can't have decent beef,' pronounced my uncle, 'without a proper marbling of fat!'), the poor stan- dards of modern butchering, the joys of goose dripping and so forth. Real people, real problems . . . The afternoon wore delightfully on and darkness was falling as we addressed Barbara Jameson's perfect Normandy (apple) tart. The lemon meringue and ice-cream also went down very well.
The bill for the five of us, including liqueurs, came to £59.75 and a tip was firm- ly refused ('We've made our profit').
I can feel a ghastly pun waiting in the wings about 'tipping the Winldeigh', but this is undoubtedly a real find (a five- course dinner is offered at £18, a four- course Sunday lunch at £10).
London House Dining Room, Winkleigh, Devon (Tel: 0837-83202).
Hugh Massingberd
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