My cab driver gave a B-movie throaty laugh and said, 'Funny place, Undershaw's. Reminds me of Dracula's castle.' I could see what he meant. The house was built by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is a huge lump of red brick Victorian Gothic, complete with stained-glass windows, a single, guttering candle in the gloomy hallway and crimson walls stained with the blood of sacrificed virgins. Or Dulux. One or the other. I went on a stormy day, when broken trees littered the path through the wooded slope to the front door and the rain charged horizontally into the hills.
Atmosphere was not the reason I went there, although it was intriguing. I went there because of the prices. Undershaw's is the newest venture from restaurateur Peter Ilic, owner of three other places in north London, none of which I have tried, on account of those numbers. They have always looked too small. This is what I mean by small. At dinner, starters and puddings at Undershaw's are £2.95, all main courses £7.95. At lunch time this drops to £1.75 and £5.45. A quick lesson in restaurant economics: food should be served at 70 per cent gross profit, meaning the ingredients should be 30 per cent of the final price. If a dish costs £10, the ingredients should cost £3. The rest covers overheads. So, the ingredient cost on a £1.75 starter is 52.5p. The technical term for this is 'bugger all'. Hence my erstwhile suspicion.
Still, I am a brave man and my bravery was rewarded. I was led by the impeccably polite waiter (who didn't smell at all of sulphur) from the gloom of the hallway to a much lighter room of pale blue and white, with airy views over the Surrey hills. And there I ate food which is, for the price, quite simply remarkable. It was robust and flavoursome without being unsubtle and clumsy. A big thick mackerel fillet came grilled to a crisp and with the kind of butch seasoning this rich, often underrated fish deserves, surrounded by buttery cubes of sweet potato. For my main course I had a breast of chicken. It had a crisp skin and came on a nutty mix of lentils spiced with a dice of chorizo, and a cauliflower velout¿ which for once was a real, depth-charged thickened sauce, rather than one of those ethereal frothy things that have become so popular.
These are all relatively cheap ingredients, I know, but not everything here is. There's a chicken liver parfait with foie gras among the starters, and the mains include sea bass with aubergine bayaldi and a cep risotto with truffle oil. I finished with a cinnamon crème brûlée which came with a poached pear dribbled with chocolate and caramel sauce.
There are little criticisms I could make: the chicken was just a touch overcooked, a side of chips fried in goose fat were a little undercooked and the pear had been too recently in the fridge. But at these prices who cares? Wines, from a short, sensible list, start at around £11.
How is it done? Partly it's high volume. They can turn 100 covers on a good evening. Another answer lay on the plate before me: the logo of a dismal and now deceased American place called Babe Ruth's. Clearly, they bought up all the crockery cheap. I like the idea that Undershaw's is where crap restaurants get recycled. I can think of a bunch of other places whose crockery I would happily see turn up on the tables here. It would be going to a much better place.
· Undershaw's, 1 Portsmouth Road, Hindhead, Surrey (01428 604 039). Lunch for two, including wine and service, £32; dinner £48.
