Seiont Manor, Caernarvon
HAVING lived in London all my life, I regard the country as a place where you wear Wellingtons and go for walks or wear socks and sit by the fire. So I felt it inappropriate, to say the very least, to go to Wales to eat French food cooked by an English chef. Inappropriate it may be, and the Sons of Glendwr have probably got their flambe pans on the ready, but to anyone in or near Caernarvon I would say, pick up a phone, ring 0286 77349 and book a table at Seiont Manor.
Not that living nearby is a stringent requirement, when to get there you can have one .of the most beautiful drives in Britain — especially now, when Snow- donia's sombre colours are burning with autumn. My route, which took me from the west to the north of Wales, provided a spectacular unravelling of this angry, un- dulating landscape. The only ugly part of the journey was the road which led back
out of Caernarvon to the restaurant itself, which lies about two miles from the centre. I should ask for detailed instructions when you book.
Richard Treble, the Liverpudlian chef, has just come from the Manoir au Quat' Saisons and Raymond Blanc's inspirational tutelage. He offers, from Monday to Satur- day, a menu du jour (changing regularly) with a choice of four dishes on each of the three courses. Starters include a soup — it might be a creamy seafood bisque or a herb-infused vegetable stock — something vegetarian, such as aubergines and sweet peppers in a mixed herb vinaigrette, perhaps a terrine and pasta or a salad. The main courses might consist of a fillet of turbot in a white wine sauce sprinkled with mustard seeds, a feuillete of asparagus, loin of lamb served simply in its own jus scented with rosemary and chicken filled with a wild mushroom mousse. Puddings
are good, solid (though not too solid) favourites: shortbread with strawberries, apple tart, chocolate 'terrine' in a coffee sauce, Welsh cheeses. The price, including an amuse-gueule to start with, coffee and petit fours after and VAT, is £7 for one course, £9.50 for two courses and £12 for three. If there is better value anywhere else in Great Britain I really would like to know — for we are talking real food here.
An even more expansive, special Sunday lunch menu exists (at £11.95) and a table d'hôte menu — less choice but slightly grander components — at £15 (both for three courses). And there is an excellent a la carte, which demands that particular voluptuous delight of a slow, sensuous read-through.
We ate by skipping about through the menu du jour, table d'hOte and a la carte, starting with gravad lax, a huge chunk of gleaming salmon, which came with little squares (or diamonds, depending on how you look at them) of pink grapefruit (very mix and match) and a mustardless dill sauce, an elegantly arranged plate of tag- liatelle infused with saffron and lying in a pool of pale cream sauce dotted with black trumpet mushrooms, and the real triumph — ravioli stuffed with langoustines in a burnt-blush-gold sauce of stock made out of the shells and reduced, with brandy and cream added. On no account should you eat here without trying this if at all possi- ble. There was a clear winner, too, in the main courses: the quail (three of them) stuffed with a mousse made from their own livers and hearts and roasted, in a glossy reduction of veal stock (together with the quails' bones) with shallots, mushrooms, a mirepoix and a soupcon of pink grapefruit juice. I do not want to cause trouble in the kitchen, but the pastry chef is simply not good enough for Richard Treble. The puddings are not airborne. And being adventurous is not the same thing; I certainly don't think the pink peppercorns dotted about the creme anglaise surround- ing the millefeuille of apple had anything going for them except for novelty value. Now, the idea of Welsh cheeses may not excite, but do try them. The best is the Llanboidy, a crumbly, vaguely Cheddarish cheese made from milk from Red Poll cows at Cilowen Uchaf farm in Whitland.
The wine list packs in wines at consider- ably lower prices than you would find in a London menu, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if they went up here before long. We had a really fine Sauvignon St Bris (around £11), both smoky and spikily fresh. You could eat and drink genuinely well here for £20 a head, though a more extensive wallow in the wine list and a la carte menu could add another £10 a head. Service is good, if anxious. But one thing is certain, Mr Treble has got nothing to worry about.
Nigella Lawson
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