Neil Sowerby Despite the word on the street that executive head chef Oliver Thomas and his team are restoring the Lowry Hotelâs River Restaurantâs reputation, our reviewer finds a Friday evening dinner fine but unexciting. Maybe because heâs lost his heart to some South Devon fields.
IâVE a hunch the Killjoy Coalition, as their austerity crusade gathers momentum, will take it upon themselves to crush Fine Dining. The Tory fat cats (the ones with moats that arenât called Raoul) will hold out for a referendum on long lunches and gravy trains, but the thrifty Cleggites will renege on a tradition of liberal helpings in favour of proportional portions... and gourmet eating, as we know it, will be as history as Gordon Broon.
I mulled over this belt-tightening prospect between sweetbreads and lobster in a sun-dappled River Restaurant, pausing only to request further fancy Pouilly Fuisse from the ice bucket.
All a bit like the room service waiter delivering bubbly to George Best and a scantily-clad Miss World and lamenting: âGeorge, where did it all go wrong?â? Yet itâs not just the National Deficit and the harsh measures to be taken (wrap up warm, Miss World, we are turning the heating off) that are a threat to splashing the cash on a meal. .
Iâve been having my own reservations (sic) recently. Yet another parade of expensive ingredients masquerading as a special feast does not inevitably yield something special. Out with it. Iâve been yearning for something closer to the earth. Out of the blue I got my wish the other week. En route to Cornwall I stopped off for lunch at Riverford Organicsâ Field Kitchen, recently lauded by both Giles Coren and Jay Rayner.
Guy Watson runs the countryâs biggest independent organic box business from the family farm near Totnes. Iâm familiar with his North West growing outpost, Stockley Farm at Arley Hall, but nothing prepared me for the experience of Field KItchen, the original farmâs canteen. The restaurant is, indeed, a kitchen. A very big one with half a dozen cooks working open plan and ten tables or so of eight where one sits and shares with strangers.
The dayâs menu is chalked up on a blackboard. Just £17.50 for a two course lunch with the price shooting up by a fiver at supper, kids charged half. For that you get a choice from six puddings (seconds if any left) and firstly six dishes arriving together, only one meat (in our case rose veal seethed in milk with braised celery and white beans), the rest a selection of veg dishes based on the best pickings of the morning. Fresh? Guaranteed. Tasty? Well head chef Jane Baxter worked at the River Cafe, Carved Angel and with legendary Californian chef Alice Waters. Quite a pedigree.
Glazed carrots and roast kohlrabi with tarragon butter, sauteed hispi cabbage, broad beans and artichokes with mint and lemon... and more, much more. Everything tasted vivid. Hardly, a false note even with very casual âhelp-yourself to itâ service. âIt all felt so Now,â? as they say in Totnes, the Hebden Bridge of the Devon Massif. .
Meanwhile, back in a very different venue, the River Restaurant, the kitchen possibly distracted by a big function upstairs, the formal staff just distracted, our meal seemed to take an eternity between courses. The gaps didnât matter too much. We were a merry crew. It was all just odd in an uncrowded dining room. In the vast beige spaces of the River Restaurant you are unlikely to gossip across to strangers as is de rigueur at the Field Kitchen, but it is great for people watching â the gang of Japanese seeing the funny side of everything, the sugar daddy in the corner billing and cooing with his ânieceâ?, the solo gourmet diner savouring every mouthful like Anton Ego In Ratatouille.
Iâm not quite sure what gave a sense of dislocation to our eveningâs experience. The absence of executive chef Oliver Thomas and accomplished restaurant manager Huseyin Bozkurt couldnât have helped. Even the best tuned of operations have their blips. This happened even in the heady days of Eyck Zimmer (now cooking in Hong Kong). Thomas, Eyckâs banqueting chef, succeeded him in the top job amid rumours that head office was reining in the ambitions of the kitchen â and thus stifling the new man.
Regularly since then I have had accomplished food but nothing with the Wow Factor â something which Harvey Nichols Second Floor has suddenly regained under Stuart Thomson. The Wow remains elusive at The Lowry on the evidence of this dinner. Turbot, red mullet, Goosnargh duck breast, Cheshire beef are typical mains on a quite tight menu. I was torn between Dover Sole â which is always sourced well and cooked exquisitely here with elaborate ceremony taking it off the bone at table, as I recall â and the Grilled Native Lobster (£39.75).
I was glad I went crustacean and went for the whole beast, rather than the half at £12. Garlic butter, chips, a finger bowl and oceans of firm, sweet, fibrous flesh,. When simple is heaven. Ms World across the table scraped every last morsel out of the carapace and claws despite already savouring her own allocation of lobster inside a large ravioli. That had wallowed in an intense peach-coloured shellfish bisque with obligatory foam (or spume) and buttered spinach (£11.50).
Pan-fried salt marsh Welsh lamb sweetbreads (£9.50) offered a tender, offaly creamy mouthfeel, though I found the salty smoked bacon lardons overwhelmed the Noilly Prat emulsion. Ms W, for her main, had the fillet of beef, medium rare, which was again tender but lacking in oomph. Much more agreeable was our companion, Katie Pâs roast turbot in a red wine sauce (£21.50). Iâm a sucker for denser fish cooked this way. So savoury, it didnât disappoint.
Veg sides, particularly chervil-buttered carrots were excellent, but a world away from the revelation at Field Kitchen. My British farm house cheese selection was pedestrian with an emphasis on harder varieties, but the celery jelly was nice touch. Yet for £10.50. Ouch. My companions fared better with desserts. Ms W made swift work of her well-matched trio of coffee panacotta, hazelnut parfait and tiramisu (£8.50) and then helped out with Ms Pâs playful pud â creme brulee with a base of actual Snickers, plus a mousse thing on the side, âdeconstructedâ using Snickers barsâ raw materials: peanuts, caramel, chocolate and praline (£7) .
Would that such invention permeated the menu. Hardly a foot put wrong in execution, raw materials seasonally sourced, a judicious wine list, service Iâm sure was just having a rare off-day â and yet it was an unexciting and slightly taxing evening. Oops, wrong adjective there.
River Restaurant, The Lowry Hotel, 50 Dearmans Place, Salford, M3 5LH
Tel: 0161 827 4000
www.thelowryhotel.com
Field Kitchen, Riverford Organics, Buckfastleigh nr Totnes, Devon TQ11 0JU
Tel: 01803 762074
email [email protected] for reservations.
The Field Kitchen is on tour this summer, serving up local produce, expertly prepared and served in a yurt. Click here for details.
