Telephone: 01989 730236
Address: Upper Grove Common, Sellack, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire
'I'll give you a red and green straw," said the man behind the bar winningly.
"I don't want red and green," said the little girl.
"Which one do you want, darling?" said the girl's mother with tension and repressed fury curled in her voice.
"I just want green," said the girl.
"Please," said her mother.
"Please," said the girl, turning away, having lost interest in the exchange.
Ah, the British and their children in public eating places. The man behind the bar handled the whole thing impeccably, but that didn't surprise me. Stephen Bull, the man who owns the bar - and, indeed, the whole Lough Pool Inn in deepest bosky Herefordshire (and that's about as bosky as it gets) - was away spending time with his own brood, so children obviously come in for pretty adult treatment here.
Bull until recently owned three or four restaurants in London that were models of intelligent, middle-of-the-road restaurateuring. Before that, he had won Michelin stars behind the stove at Lichfield's, and before that he had cut his teeth at a small hotel near Monmouth. So here he was, returning, more or less, to his roots and to the kitchen - when he isn't seeing his children off to school, that is.
The Lough Pool Inn is not a fancy, Michelin-starred place in any way. It is a slightly haphazard agglomeration of red-tiled, whitewashed and timber buildings, in which the pub part functions as a pub should. The beer, if my pint of Wye Valley ale was anything to go by, is looked after in an exemplary fashion, and there were plenty of people drinking that, or local cider, at the agreeably unreconstructed bar.
There is also a dining room, with a dozen or so rustic tables and comfortable chairs. The colour of the walls, the Chief Inspector of Restaurants and I agreed, needs to be changed, being of a shade of yellow normally associated with the contents of a baby's nappy, but for the rest it is happily unpretentious and rather jolly, complemented by equally unpretentious, efficient service.
The menu changes daily, and is very much in the style of Bull's London ventures: a tempting range based on his distinctive feel for various European traditions, using local produce where possible. The CI had pasta for a main course, as 12-year-olds are wont to do, preceded by carrot and cardamom soup, a rather daring step. I went with haggis fritters and beetroot relish, then roast loin of Tamworth pork with spiced orange. We ended with lemon sorbet for her and ginger cake with treacle ice cream for me.
Bull has always had a way with relish, and the beetroot marked his mastery of this arcane branch of cookery. It was earthy and sharp enough to cut the richness of the haggis, but still with the fruity sweetness of the original vegetable. The spiced orange was placed between the meat and the mostly crunchy skin, lightly infusing its flavours into the soft, dense meat, and into the light gravy. In the final analysis, the soup was a touch too exotic for the CI, and I had some sympathy, because the carrot didn't really live up to its billing. The spaghetti with garlic and pesto, on the other hand, vanished like dew before the morning sun.
The puddings went the same way. The sorbet was a stormer, clean as a whistle, perfectly balanced, seductively soft. The cake was light as thistledown and warm with ginger, the ice cream unwholesomely rich. I'd also requested a little cream, to help it down, and there was a satisfying scoop of superb unpasteurised Jersey cream with it, too. It's that kind of attention to detail that marks out the true quality of a chef.
The bill was £58. It would have been rather less - £34, to be precise - if I hadn't been tempted by a bottle of Château Chorey Les Beaune 1996, the fanciest wine on a short but sharp list. The CI described her tiny sip perfectly as "very soft - a wine with round edges". (And no, I didn't drink all of it, just two glasses; I took the rest with me.) To be factually accurate, if we strip out the CI's lime and lemons and my pint, the food cost only £31.40; a very fair price, in my view, for a very fair place.
· Open All week, lunch, 12 noon-2.30pm; dinner, 6.30-11pm. Credit cards Visa, Switch, Mastercard. Wheelchair access and wheelchair WC.
