2:53pm Wednesday 28th July 2010
By Christopher Gray
It was one of the many glorious evenings we have enjoyed this summer, and I could think of no more pleasant way to spend it than by driving for dinner at The Five Arrows, in Waddesdon. The drive itself was intended to be part of the pleasure. We would avoid the A34 and A41 and instead made our way along the leafy lanes taking us to Elsfield, Stanton St John, Worminghall and Shabbington, and then on through Long Crendon, eventually to reach Waddesdon from, as it were, the rear.
All went to plan, except that some oddly angled signposts as we passed into Buckinghamshire sent us on an unplanned detour. No matter; this gave us the chance to say hello to the staff at a favourite haunt, the Mole and Chicken in Easington — quite busy for a Wednesday — before resuming our journey on the proper route.
We were ten minutes or so late for our 8.15pm booking at The Five Arrows but our table had not been given away. There was hardly a risk of that, since there were only three other customers — one finishing dinner on the terrace, and two others awaiting puddings at the table next to us in the dining room. Once they had left, we found ourselves in solitary splendour.
And I do mean splendour. Built in the 1870s for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, originally to house the artists and craftsman working on his great mansion behind, The Five Arrows is itself a fine example of late Victorian architecture and is furnished and decorated with the impeccable taste seen at any property run, like Waddesdon Manor itself, by The National Trust.
One might wish — I certainly do — that it had remained the stylish pub it became during a costly refurbishment in the early 1990s. Removal of the bar four or five years ago robbed the place of its focal point, and certainly eliminated almost all passing trade. Couldn’t the bar come back? The business is run by the same company that has charge of The Feathers in Woodstock, where I went to the opening of a gin bar earlier in the year. A specialised bar — devoted perhaps to the many Rothschild wines — would be a splendid idea.
I was inspired to visit the hotel, as I suppose one must now call it, by a press release announcing the appointment of a new chef. But this had been sent in March. The chap has since gone and handed over to Karl Penny, formerly of the Pear Tree Inn at Whitley, in Wiltshire. His appointment had one happy consequence for us, since it was being celebrated by a 20 per cent reduction in the cost of food ordered from the à la carte menu during July. This led to a saving of more than £18 on our bill.
Without it, prices would have been rather high, though these do reflect the quality of the food on offer — if not necessarily of every dish. The tomato and red pepper soup, for instance, with which Rosemarie began her meal, tasted very like something that had come out of a tin, with a bit of tarting up applied in the kitchen. Hardly what you expect for 5p short of six quid.
My chicken terrine, by contrast, was excellent, with lots of delicious meat teamed with leeks and asparagus in an outer casing of parma ham. I was delighted, too, with the oven roast fillet of cod that followed. The big firm discs of white, shiny flesh were set off by roasted red peppers (an ingredient of that soup?), crunchy samphire and sauté potatoes containing small cubs of chorizo sausage. I also ordered seasonal vegetables, a dish of beautifully fresh sprouting broccoli.
Undecided at first between roast rump of lamb and slow-cooked pork belly, Rosemarie settled eventually on the latter. This brought a large square of crackling, beneath which were quantities of lean meat, some of it rather dried out from cooking (a Calvados sauce helped matters in this respect). It came with bacon lardons, baked shallots, mustard mash and fresh garden peas (rather than the advertised broad beans).
She ended her meal with a first-class chocolate brownie with home-made ice cream, while I, as so often, had cheese. There were a quartet of British ones: Colston Bassett Stilton; unpasteurised semi-hard goat’s cheese from Crudge’s of Kingham; Win Green, a brie-like mild cheese from unpasteurised sow’s milk; and Sussex Crumble, a hard cheese made from pasteurised cow’s milk. The remains of the Rothschild viognier (Vin de Pays D’Oc) went admirably with them, the stilton especially.
One bonus of being solo customers was that we had the staff almost to ourselves. We particularly enjoyed chatting to Cyril, a witty and likeable young Breton. Like his older colleague, a Spaniard called Horatio, he is a definite asset to the place.
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