Telephone: 01491 641245
Address: The White Hart Hotel, Nettlebed, Oxon.
Rating: 16.5/20
Mother Fort was in characteristically mettlesome form. "I need some ice," she said, waving her tumbler of bourbon whisky at the young man.
"I thought you said 'just water'," he said, apologetically.
"Water and ice," said Mother Fort.
In fact, it was the only blemish on notably excellent service, carried out with lashings of charm and crisp professionalism by a crew who all seemed about 12 years old.
The Nettlebed restaurant is housed inside the White Hart Hotel in Nettlebed, one of those rather expensive villages on the Oxon/Berks border. The hotel is owned by WH Brakspear, brewers to the Fort family, who have spent a good deal of money doing up the White Hart; and spent it rather well, we thought. The grazing arrangements have been entrusted to Chris Barber, once chef apparent to Prince Charles, and latterly chef/prop of The Goose at Britwell Salome, where I have eaten impressively well more than once.
The opportunities for troughing at the White Hart are slightly more varied, in that there is a pretty damned fine dining room serving pretty damned fine food, and a bar that serves up rather cheaper and more robust fare, upon which I cannot report. However, if our dinner in the fine dining room, and, indeed, the pedigree of the food at The Goose, is anything to go by, then it will be near the top of the gastro-pub league.
You can easily get away with eating for less than £15 a head in the bar. No such luck in the dining room, but then the cooking there is definitely upper crust. There's a three-course, £25 menu at lunch and dinner, and then the free-ranging à la carte. It's not so much the luxury ingredients that bump up the prices - although there is the odd dash of caviar and scattering of truffle here and there; as well as rump of veal and suckling pig - but more the refinement of the cooking. The skill level is very high, but completely unshowy. The dishes are notably well constructed, the individual elements integrated and harmonious. This is food without rough edges, but not without character or oomph (a technical term).
Mother Fort passed on the first course, which wasn't such a bad idea. At 87, she doesn't have the appetite of her gluttonous son, and there were any number of amuse-bouches and appetisers for her to limber up on before the main courses arrived.
To be honest, I'm a bit tired of all these tasty titbits that I didn't order, although I appreciate that they give the kitchen breathing space, occupy the expectant gourmet and, in many cases, turn out to be the best thing you get to eat. In this case, the kitchen put down something of a marker in the form of a beautifully intense chilled tomato consommé. While Mother Fort sipped her bourbon, I tackled fresh crab and avocado with lemon mayonnaise and herb salad, which was impeccably fresh, visually as pretty as could be, and restrained within a perfectly circular corset of wafer thin courgette, although for £13 it was a bit on the insubstantial side.
Mother and son moved into synchronicity with the main courses - ballotine of suckling pig with morels, parsnip purée and truffle juice for me, and a breast of Gressingham duckling with cabbage and bacon gnocchi for my mother. The suckling pig was a masterly dish, made from both slow-roasted shoulder and saddle. The combination and cooking made for an unusually forceful flavour, without sacrificing the tender succulence you expect from this meat. The gravy, a beautifully judged reduction of pork juices, was fortified with truffle to good effect.
My mother's duck also displayed the benefits of careful sourcing and judicious saucing. Gressingham has less fat under the skin than some other varieties, which means that cooking the breast has to be carefully handled if you are not going to end up with a bit of tyre tread on your plate. I would guess that, in this case, the beast had been cooked on the bone and then carved off before serving, because it kept its full shape and full flavour. It had muscular density, but was not tough in any way. Again, the juices of the bird formed the basis for the sauce, which carried the musky sweetness of the meat. My mother dismissed the accompanying gnocchi and vegetables as "unmemorable", but she is inclined to be a fiercer critic than I.
Even her acute faculties, however, could find no fault with the assiette of chocolate with which she rounded off her dinner. In particular, the chocolate sorbet was a superb example of the pudding maker's art. I decided on cheeses, of which there was an enterprising and well-kept selection of our national treasures, because I still had a glass of a tremendous Californian Pinot Noir to finish, which had a delicious penetration that sat alongside the cheese with ease.
All of this came to £124.50, of which £75 was on the food and the rest on drink and the usual bits and bobs. Now, that's a fair old sum for two, but not a lot to spend on one's aged relic. I hope that my daughter will see fit to treat me in the same way when I am my mother's age.
· Open Tues-Sat, 12 noon-2pm, 7-10.30pm. (Pub food available all week). Menus: Lunch & dinner, £25 for three courses. All major credit cards. Wheelchair access and WC.
