Comp. 3446 invited you to write a critic’s review of a fictional pub or restaurant or hotel etc. I bit off more than I could chew with this one perhaps. Some venues cropped up multiple times – Hotel California, Tolkien’s Prancing Pony, Hotel du Lac and Douglas Adams’s Restaurant at the End of the Universe – and in a large entry of a high standard there were too many runners-up to name names. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below.
The accommodation at Jamaica Inn is sadly lacking. While it offers a stripped-down, hipster vibe with peat fires, stone flags and pipe smoke, I had to endure creaking signs, bare floorboards, smelly turnips, noisy wagons at midnight, rowdy boozers and a locked room which I’m sure needs airing. Renovations are still underway; it should improve once the rough walls, damp, and grandfather clock are fixed. Proprietor Joss Merlyn’s hulking presence will discourage most walk-ins. On a positive note, the bar includes excellent rum and brandies, and tasting plates of bacon, cheese and bread. No matcha flavours, cruffins or deconstructed cheesecake here. Smoking is permitted, indeed encouraged. Prices a steal. Special discounts apply for poachers, vagrants, horse-thieves and tramps, so the local Bodmin crowd will be well catered for. Worth trying if you fancy smuggling in a pint or two. You’ll be wrecked before you know it.
Janine Beacham
Last week saw the opening of Workhouse@Mudfog, the latest project from Mr Bumble. This is a concept experience, Bumble explains enthusiastically, designed to strip away distractions and offer a purer emphasis on the actual dining.
The tone is set as one enters the stone-walled dining-hall, tastefully painted in Farrow & Ball Pauper’s Shroud. The slim, youthful clientele – Ozempic cheekbones de rigueur – is focused and intent. Tables are long, lighting thin and harsh. The air carries an unmistakably moral aroma, as though the kitchen was boiling a Bible for stock. Choice is minimal, portions of the house speciality – gruel – are calibrated with delightful precision, and there are no second helpings (don’t ask!). In every sense I left lighter than I arrived; only genius could provide so much by providing so little. Workhouse is a venture of dazzling ambition, flawlessly executed. Five stars: book before Mr Dickens discovers it.
Tom Adam (Oliver Twist)
Worth the journey? All great restaurants give a sense of arrival. Šiduri’s feels as though one has crossed the desert to reach the shores of an underworld sea. It was shuttered when I arrived, so I made a loud commotion and was let in. You can’t book. You’re expected to make an effort, even if you arrive looking like an off-grid survivalist.
Šiduri’s extremely retro style – earthy reds, browns and greys – think Tuscan Rustic on steroids – complements the food. I gorged on lentil soup with Babylonian coriander; grilled, spiced carp; and suckling kid in asses’ milk. Šiduri bakes her own bread and proudly crafts her own wine; this is truer than urban artisanship. The restaurant’s motto: ‘Fill your belly, day and night make merry, let days be full of joy’ does it for me! Šiduri’s may not be immortal, but it’s darn close. (10-20 shekels including wine)
Frank Upton (The Epic of Gilgamesh)
Broken by yet another fruitless day in Airstrip One, my dining companion and I adjourn to The Chestnut Tree Café, where a carefully curated atmosphere of utter despair pervades. The service, deceptively obsequious and almost silent so as not to distract from the martial trump of the omnipresent telescreens, might impress were it not for the total absence of food from the menu. We are brought, unsolicited, a chess set and a copy of The Times newspaper. We order, following the lead of every other patron, each one of whom wears a blank disguise of alcoholic desolation over a face unsettlingly familiar from bygone news broadcasts we would be wise to forget, Victory gin ameliorated with clove. This libation, an exclusivity of the establishment, brings forth appalled grimaces from my dining companion and I. Odd, therefore, that neither of us can quite bring ourselves to wave away occasional top-ups. Recommended.
Adrian Fry (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
I visited the officers’ mess on Pianosa, curious about its reputation for inedible food. Entry required signing an NDA as I was to be presented with their top-secret menu. I questioned that. The waiter explained: ‘Only those who never ask questions may ask questions.’ The menu promised Boneless Sardines on Raw Toast, Hand-Torn Watercress Purée, Turnip Tartare, Triple-Cooked Oatmeal, and the Minderbinder Special: Chocolate-Coated Cotton. Loudspeakers issued martial music interrupted constantly by injunctions like, ‘Do not begin eating until you have finished your meal.’ I ordered the Inside-out Omelette and the Deconstructed Water. The omelette contained no eggs, the water was served in an empty glass. The dessert is better imagined than described. The bill arrived, attached to a mandate to purchase shares in M&M Enterprises. I paid and fled, smiling, wondering if I’d ever dine again – or simply decipher the announcement: ‘Do not chew until you’ve swallowed.’
Ralph Goldswain (Catch-22)
Elysium: 2 stars. I had so looked forward to this lunch, having heard a lot of hype about the place, and it took absolute ages to get a booking. The setting was visually appealing, with elegant tables set right on the edge of a glorious fragrant flowering meadow, not far from a picturesque waterfall. The live music wasn’t much to my taste, a bit heavy on the Pan pipes and something plinky, but maybe they have livelier sessions in the evenings. The big letdown was the food – the only menu items were ambrosia and nectar, and both were far too sweet. I complained to the waiter, Mr Ganymede, and the manager Mr Hades was so kind as to book me in for a free meal tomorrow at their sister restaurant Tartarus. It’s a hot ticket apparently. I think they must do fish?
Mary McLean
No. 3449: Shrink away
You’re invited to psychoanalyse, in the manner of Freud or Jung etc, a modern social phenomenon (e.g. doomscrolling, dating by app, the manosphere, Married at First Sight Australia). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 6 May.
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