Gary Marshall

hi patrick that menu sounds very good, i know the set lunch is generally a simpler affair than dinner but i have found that there's always one stunner at least hidden away amongst the 3 choices, the skill is finding it! i always like it when wf do dishes such as coq au vin, i know many will say that rustic dishes have no place in a 2* but i like to see such classics refined beyond the sort of thing i can make in my kitchen. i remember jay not thinking a laska was an appropriate dish for a 2* but often i like the idea that you can almost see in the menu someone has had a thai/indian or whatever and brought the inspiration back to the 2* environment. need to save up for an evening assault! by the way, where were you in france? any recs? cheers gary

It is a path well worth persuing! when you can do two tasting menus in a day you know you've made it enjoy the blue bike, i was quite pleasantly suprised. Not a 'gourmet' restaurant by any stretch of the imagination but certainly worth a try. cheers gary

well, we've never been spotted together gary

It all started about 3 years ago. A client taking advantage of my colleagues naiveness inthe world of restaurants when asked where he wanted to go for a night out the following thursday he said nonchalantly 'oh, why don't you book us a table at the ivy?' Of course he was turned down but booked a table at the next available thursday which was about 6 months later. Since then we try to keep a regular booking there every other week and worry about filling it later. It really is quite bizarre, some of our clients are the most lavishly entertained people you could meet, yet for some reason an invite to the ivy very rarely gets turned down. Obviously its attraction is the location in theatreland attracts most of its custom from the media as opposed to the financial world and by only letting us grubby suits get our hands on a few tables per night they have achieved a difficult balancing act, keep the place busy but don't lose the cachet. It might be sad but the first thing anyone wants to know is 'who was in there?' and the whole place is like a room full of meercats when a new table enters the room. The actual fabric of the room is pretty much what an ideal restaurant would be, a mixture of banquettes and individual tables, dark oak wood panelling, thick linen and silver on the tables with smartly dressed, efficient and friendly staff. the lighting is low and it has that magic conviviality about it. But what about the food? the menu is quite an ecelectic mix of comfort food from around the world. If you are well known enough to be a regular there it would be the ideal neighbourhood restaurant, burgers, shepherds pie, fishcakes sit easily with caviar, foie gras and lobsters. Comfort food is the order of the day. We tend to order a lot of stuff 'for the table' so everyone can try various bits and pieces. I love their steak tatare so that was on the list (and i made a couple of well done steak eaters try it to, to their suprise they liked it) along with shepherds pie, and a burger. For my starter i had a foie gras on toast with a fried duck egg and girolles. It was a miserly corner of foie on brioche with the egg, very rich but not a lot of it. others choices of kedgeree and dressed crab with remoulade looked more successful. I also scoffed most of the tartare which was great as usual and ordered spicy did not need any extra tabasco or worcester. Due to massive indecision and having had a steak bearnaise for lunch i had the 'light' option of the salmon fishcake with sorrel sauce. which as usual was fine. I had a bit of shepherds pie which is good for a mouthful but for some reason the sauce doesn't agree with me. They tend to use a very reduced veal based stock, get a bit on your hand and it glues you to your cutlery, it's that sort of viscosity. Unfortunately it appears to be in most of the dishes i'd naturally like such as the pie, corned beef hash and the roast poulet de landes, several times now it has left me a bit queasy and struggling to finish. I also had a quarter of burger which was a quite thin patty between a brown wholemeal bun which suprised me, burger sauce (ie ketchup and amercan mustard) was provided in a pot along wth onions tomato & gerkins. It had a good meaty taste and ordered medium was nicely crusted on the surface but pink in the centre. Others had fish and chips, a knackered well done rib-eye and sausages and mash (with the ubiquitous sauce/gravy) Deserts were for me a lemon tart, also a welsh rarebit, honeycombe ice cream & pavlova. Again all textbook, if unexceptional examples of their genre. Coffee and diegstifs followed. on the wine side we had a very enjoyable rully 1er cru 01 and a savigny les beaune, both around the £37 mark. The wine list is pretty reasonably marked up, as it to be fair the food. It is not an expensive restaurant, the ivy burger at 9.75 is cheaper than tgi fridays and there are plenty of dishes in the low to mid teens price wise eg the fishcakes £13.50, shep pie £14.50. our bill for 4 with aperitifs, water, 3 wine, digestifs, 3 courses each plus the extras was £355.25, they don't put service on either. So if you want slightly refined comfort food, with good service, reasonably priced wines, in a buzzy room with a few minor celebs thrown in (tara palmer-tompkinson & gabby roslin) then this is the place for you, unfortunately you'll just have to know 6 months in advance that is what you are going to fancy. Or befriend michael winner. cheers gary www.caprice-holdings.co.uk/ivy

i forgot to mention re first class. i haven't travelled first on the eurostar but was going to say in terms of seat space and comfort the standard eurostar is not a million miles off GNER first class. I'm 6ft 2' and squeeze into a gner but am quite comfortable on the eurostar, and sleeping on the way back after a long lunch isn't usually a problem! they run a few eurostar on the leeds/london line, they are so much nicer than the standard gner ones. i'd save the money on the eurostar and put it towards food and drinks in paris. there's nothing to stop you drinking champagne on the eurostar in standard either! Gary

in think a kitchen refurb has delayed things but haven't heard any specific dates as yet. i'll certainly be heading down as soon as i can. is it the 'trophee gosset celebris 2004' that you are refering to bertie? i saw they were nominated (along with winteringham fields) but thought the results weren't out for another month? gary

with a bit of planning you should be able to get some cheap day returns on the eurostar. get into paris for 11-ish quick wander around, long lunch and train back about 5-ish. the train seems so much more fun for some reason than being crammed on to an easyjet, also if you are snobby like moi the other passengers are generally much more pleasant, the trains are quiet and relaxing, no shell suits and distinct lack of screaming kids, stag/hens parties etc. cheers gary

paris especially if getting to waterloo for the eurostar is no hassle. went with a mate to taillevent for his 40th in late nov last year that was a monday too. lovely bright cold crisp day, beautiful. paris out of season is great and the eurostar is so efficient, gare du nord is very central too so no long airport transfers. places like le meurice sound like they'd fit the bill, read some of BLH's & lkl chu's posts on the france board. they seem to have the likely suspects covered, le meurice , les ambassadeurs, les elysees they'll certainly be on my hit list for my next trip. cheers gary

i wear the trousers in my house i'd been meaning to go, and had the time to do it so it wasn't a hard decision!. Germain is still very much there, he did his usual tour of the room after service. I assume he is overseeing with mr thompson assisting. gary

This was a 2 star restaurant in its heyday, before heathcote spread himself too thinly and concentrated on mediocre brasseries. Immortalised in the book rhubarb and black pudding, which is an interesting read. sounded a great place in the book, hopefully it still has some of the charm. cheers gary

If you take it in the context of restaurants only offering on the hour or half past the hour, then it is asking for something outside of their normal operations. Similar to ordering something not on their menu. it's not requesting special treatment, because you don't know when you call that you are requesting anything out of the ordinary. if i rang asking for a tasting menu for example, when i know full well it is not normally offered, that is a completely different thing. i have never seen in any restaurant publicity or web site, 'please note we only offer tables at the hour or half past.' gary

The intention isn't to give Jay a hard time, simply to establish if anyone actually ever wants or needs a reservation other than on the hour or the half hour. I'd be interested to know if anyone can recall a specific, recent (say in the last 3 months) example. yes, when i went to QC the other friday. My friend had a meeting that would finish at 12.30 in the city i thought 1.15 would be fine, give him time in case his meeting overran and get over to holborn, i called they said we can do 1pm or 1.30 pm. so i booked for 1.30, turned up about 1.15 and sat down. to be honest i thought most top end places worked on 15 minutes spacing so they can do the old 'hello mr marshall how nice to see you' routine working out who you are by the time slot. pretty sure RHR does 15 min slots but i'm not betting the bank on it. if the restaurant isn't full (as QC wasn't) and they can do a table at the time requested then i really don't see why they should insist on a different time. I don't see asking for a time at quarter of the hour is in anyway requesting special treatment. It's simply a function of the expected travel time to the restaurant which may be linked to trains, meetings or a host of other factors. I can't see how anyone would want to prove their influence/status or whatever over a restaurant by 'boasting' of an odd timed reservation. gary

'you little sod’ was my nearest and dearest’s repsonse when after two days racing at york, i took the remants of the joint account and had a solo trip to winteringham fields. Well it was raining, what else is a man to do? I had genuinely planned a virtuous day of cycling, car washing and other weekend jobs but given the fact it was raining cats dogs and other furry beasts, what could be better than ensconcing oneself in the cossetting 2 star ambiance of winteringham fields? Firstly,a driver would have helped, as it is quite remote, in the shadow-ish of the humber bridge, you either drive and stay the night or be abstemious, unfortunately for me the latter was the only choice if i was to remain happily married. the drive to winteringham is usually quite pleasant but today it was an hour of unremitting rain but nontheless by 1.30 i was at winteringham. a pleasant frenchman welcomed me in the car park and took me straight through to one of the three lounges, none of this have you got a reservation? type questioning, they knew who to expect. i had a glass of the house (pol roger nv) champagne whilst checking out the menu and what i wouldn’t be drinking from the extensive, but at a price, wine list. At lunch they only offer a 3 choice per course set lunch either 2 or 3 courses, i had 3 for £31. You also get an amuse which today had more ingredients than i could catch but there was a small langoustine its head upright in the bowl, the tail meat, a rhombus of pink grapefruit jelly, some bits of fennel and an almond cream! quite a lot in a 2 mouthfuls and it’s gone dish but a good example of creativity and skill in the kitchen. my starter was chosen for its comfort foodiness rather than foodie interest, a confited duck leg on a garden salad (from their garden) with sauted potatoes, poached quails eggs and something else, sweet and purply in colour that escapes me. The confit was just the right side of salty and fully boned, the potatoes were cooked in the duck fat and the salad became dressed in lovely fatty duck juices. A simple enough dish but well plated in a small silver pan with sauce spoons etc and certainly hit the spot on a miserable, did i mention it was raining? wet day. i cleaned up the remains of the juices with one of the three breads of the day, walnut. i had a glass of un oaked rioja with this, well half of it anyway, i saved the rest for my cheese course and the remains of the champagne for my main course which was a much more exotic beast. it was escalopes of salmon on herbed wild rice with herbed,breaded (or vice-versa?) squid, purple sprouting brocolli and a fine broth with a hint of soy about it, oh and some pink ginger. It was all-in-all quite an asian flavoured dish which not unusual at WF but quite unusual to find in what on the face of it is a text book 2 star classical french restaurant, it was also very enjoyable, i assure you it tasted and indeeded sounded better on the menu than my memories might suggest! Cheese at Winteringham has always been a highlight and Chris who looks after the ‘chariot’ certainly knows his stuff and unlike the staff at QC last week knows exactly which cheese is which. Out of the 40 or so on offer i had some lincolnshire poacher, tomme, comte, tete du mois and a trickle-something cornish goats. i retired to the conservatory for coffee, with thoughts that on previous visits i would now be looking forward to a large digestif and possibly a cigar, but today it was filter cofffee and petit fours, a textbook mini lemon tart, macaroons, choux buns etc. i finally paid up and left after a chat with annie and co at about 4pm, a very, very convivial way to spend an afternoon. it served to remind me how much i like this place, it is much better sampled as a big ALC, stay over experinence but that can be serious money, for £50 my lunch was a good taster, but unfortunately for the finances it has left me hankering for a big night out! If you want to sample some of the best cooking, service and hospitality you will find in the UK, then you should forget le gavroche et al and head straight to winteringham, and remind yourself why it is you love restaurants so much. check out www.winteringhamfields.com gary

whilst the ALC is expensive they do a set 'menu suprise' which is 3 amuses, starter, soup, fish, meat, cheese, pre -desert and desert for £70. don't forget it is two stars in the classical manner with all the accoutrements that go with it, 11 or so chefs and about 5 front of house with sommelier is quite a wage bill if nothing else. whilst it might not become your regular friday night haunt it is definitely an experience, i've not been to le manoir, but it beats le gavroche hands down in my book. gary

day off today, ostensibly to recover from the excesses of 2 days at york races with a long bike ride and catch up with the usual chores, however it is pouring down and my so my thoughts quickly turned to lunch. unfortunately winteringham was full but i left my name in case of cancellations, just as i had resigned myself to going to the star instead (to be fair no real harship but i'd got wf on my mind!), annie called back and siad they'll squeeze me in near the end of lunch as it will no doubt still be raining on my return, expect a full report later.... cheers gary

sometimes i really feel sorry for you london dwellers. don't suppose it would improve your mood if i told you about the fantastic pear tatin i've just enjoyed at no 3 would it? no, thought not or the excellent thai curry in my local for £7.50. no, thought not cheers gary

don't get me wrong the bonham is a very different hotel to the howard! gary

i use the bonham, http://www.thebonham.com/ a very nice boutique place, friendly staff and good rooms. i've only held big lunch/dinner functions there and they've coped admirably but the ALC menu reads well. lacking in pretention which is nice too, and as you say often quite rare in the boutiques. They own a few other places in edinburgh but they're a bit more traditional chintzy, the howard & the channings are theirs. gary

don't they do it in ludlow too? (your second home!) gary

no, but you do! post student life i've never had the luxury of a decent takeaway, a mate staying over asked 'so what do you do if you want a takeaway?' Answer: walk the 26 paces to the pub! also good for forgotten ingredients too, like the cream i needed last night and the garam massala the week before! if i want indian food, it's a 20 mile round trip, and i even do that for a takeaway occasionally there was a regular in the pub who used a now defunct curry delivery service as a taxi, he ordered the curry to be delivered to the pub and they dropped him off at home on the way back to york, now that's clever! gary

you lazy fecker! i am truly amazed at your laziness talk about lifestyles of the rich and famous! gary

olorosso was the place where some colleagues booked a large table for lunch, shortly after opening i think. They took drinks orders etc, settled everyone in and then told them they had no electricity and could only offer cold meats, not quite the fat boy blow out they'd expected. they left and by the sounds of it didn't miss out! gary

glad you enjoyed it david i had an interesting wine the other week at no3, it was 'vieux telegram', the sister wine but apparently made with de-classified 'telegraph' juice in this particular vintage. anyway being very useful here as i can't remember the vintage , but if you're interested i'm sure denis will know what year it is. gary

my fault for not being specific, i was just checking as reducing a litre of cream is not something i'd do on a regular basis and obvioulsy different creams in (the uk single, double or fraiche) all react differently to heat ie reduce quickly, not at all, split (granted that may be milk!), so just checking i'd got the right stuff and knew what to expect! thanks philip for the clarification,i made a simple saute with noilly prat, double cream and lemon juice with rice but i'll give the full georges blanc version a go soon! cheers gary

i thought that but as it tasted ok, i didn't complain. i was trying to keep my interaction with our waiter to a minimum by this point gary