It was a dull old Saturday. The fever of post-Xmas sale shopping was on the wane. Domestic chores palled. Ordeal by PlayStation and other strenuous activities didn't get much of a vote. A spot of unarmed combat? Couldn't be bothered. Sloth was winning. Inertia was on the agenda. Lunch? What about it? Well, let's go out, for a change. So we did, to The Trouble House Inn, just outside Tetbury on the Cirencester road, and changed everything.
I hope you won't mind visiting yet another pub that has seen the light when it comes to the eating department. I can't seem to get away from them. Stands to reason, I suppose. There are lots of pubs, and bright young chefs seem to like taking them over and setting out a simpler, happier stall than usually appreciated by Monsieur Michelin or the fogeys who run the Good Food Guide. I had come across the name of The Trouble House Inn in the pages of the august organ of the hospitality trade, the euphoniously named Caterer & Hotelkeeper. Michael and Sarah Bedford had taken it over a couple of months back. In the pictures, they both look about 15, but they have some serious form behind them. He was head chef at the City Rhodes in London and she had been the smiling face of Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, where he had also worked. Obviously, he knew how to cook and she would know how to handle one discomposed husband, one distracted wife and one disputatious daughter.
It's possible that Mr and Mrs Bedford have been at the Trouble House for such a short time that they haven't had much time to work on a revamp of the place. With the possible exception of the plastic-effect wood veneer around the front of the bar, my advice would be not to touch a thing. There's some nice tongue-and-groove, some pleasant cream-and-dusty pink paintwork, a happily haphazard selection of tables and chairs, the odd odd photograph and a proper fire popping away quietly in the grate. And it's warm and sort of lived-in, without being shabby, and just really rather nice.
Good Wadworth beer, too - 6X and IPA - a couple of pints of which put me well back on track to general cheerfulness. My distracted wife, with her customary restraint, made do with half a pint and my disputatious daughter made do with a limeade and then an orange juice, so our booze bill came to the grand total of £7.70. It's a very long time indeed that I managed that. There is a perfectly decent wine list on which, if you discount the two champagnes, the most expensive wine is £18.90, a figure at which many a metropolitan wine list actually starts.
There's nothing startling about the menu, aside possibly from the prices: the most expensive dish is £12. There are many staples of the contemporary kitchen - salmon fishcakes, mushroom risotto, lamb chump with ratatouille and rosemary gravy, pan-fried cod with olive oil mash, capers and parsley, sticky-toffee pudding, et al - along with the disarming disclaimer, "As all dishes are cooked and prepared to order, your meal may take extra time during busy periods". In other words, there's only me in the kitchen, so please don't get ratty if you have to wait.
We waited a while, but not long, for a mushroom risotto for the disputatious daughter, an onion tart with mixed salad (nominally a first course, but transformed on request into a main by the addition of an extra tart) for the distracted wife, and a duck confit with white beans and lentils for me. This is where the quality of Mr Bedford's pedigree really told. The risotto had that perfect balance between the liquid and the solid, was made with top-grade stock and was packed with squidgy chunks of field mushrooms. It was decimated by the daughter, who suddenly became all sunshine and smiles.
The onion tart was a disk of puff pastry with a wodge of sweet, mulchy onion packed on top. It went the way of all good onions tarts. The salad that came with it was a delightful mix of leaves, without a ruffle of lollo rosso to be seen, and impeccably dressed. I have eaten (and cooked) a fair number of confit duck's legs in my time and consider myself well qualified to judge another. Another two, in point of fact, because The Trouble House Inn generously supplied me with two. The meat on both was beautifully cooked, fibrous, juicy, teasing out the flavour of the duck. Curiously, the skin on one was crisp and devoid of fat, while the other was white and flabby, a minor criticism. The beans were, I think, the rather more refined coco beans than the grosser cannellini or haricots blancs, and mixed admirably with the grainy lentils, providing lots of health-giving fibre to offset the large chunks of bacon and the well braised shallots.
Cheerfulness had broken out all through the Fort family by now, and to cement the change in domestic temperature the obedient and delightful daughter had vanilla cream parfait with marinated pineapple, the cheerful and diligent wife had a sticky-toffee pudding and the expansive husband had a chocolate tart: a serious chocolate tart, a high-born chocolate tart, indeed one of the very best chocolate tarts - thin, crisp pastry, soft, deep, dark, intoxicatingly chocolatey chocolate - that I have ever eaten, and all for £5. In fact, the bill came to £50.70, which, let's face it, is not bad for a successful session of family therapy.
