Victor Lewis-Smith 

The Groes Inn, Tyn-y-Groes, nr Conwy

I'd arranged to have lunch in Wales with a German acquaintance, a gourmet who once (very briefly) owned a Sino-Teutonic restaurant called A Wok In The Black Forest. As we drove towards Conwy, he confided that he'd now lived in this country long enough to conclude that the British are preoccupied with regulations, and are far more authoritarian than his own supposedly law-obsessed nation.
  
  


I'd arranged to have lunch in Wales with a German acquaintance, a gourmet who once (very briefly) owned a Sino-Teutonic restaurant called A Wok In The Black Forest. As we drove towards Conwy, he confided that he'd now lived in this country long enough to conclude that the British are preoccupied with regulations, and are far more authoritarian than his own supposedly law-obsessed nation.

In particular, he was appalled by the number of "forbidden" signs he saw everywhere (No Parking, No Waiting, No Sitting, No Standing, Keep Off The Grass, Keep Out), and by the hostile negativity of our service industries, with their unwelcoming "wait here to be seated" placards in restaurants, and waiters who delight in smugly responding "It's off" when you give them your order. "Give a Brit a clipboard and a shred of authority," he told me, "and they all turn into traffic wardens, because saying 'no' is your national sport."

He proved his point when we arrived at The Groes Inn (it rhymes with Joyce), and immediately drew my attention to the child-unfriendly "No Prams" and "No Pushchairs" signs on the door (euphemisms for "You're welcome to enter but, do us a favour, please just go away"). From the moment we stepped inside, I regretted that there wasn't another sign saying "No Bibelots or Knick-Knacks", because the place was crammed to its fake half-timbered rafters with clutter and gewgaws, some of which looked as though they'd been there since the place was awarded its licence in 1573.

Gaudy trinkets dangled from every beam, with military hats, old cooking utensils, and Victorian postcards jammed tightly against glass-encased cricket bats, and even a huge trout in a plastic frame. I also caught sight of a Welsh dresser sandwiched between a pouffe and a tallboy. God bless the Prince of Wales.

On reaching our table, I thought nothing could be more refreshing than the "Caesar salad with classic dressing and croutons". And nothing would have been more refreshing, because what arrived was an even more dismal travesty of possibly the greatest dish ever to have originated in the US (well, just across the border in Tijuana, anyway) than those wretched supermarket box kits that also masquerade under the name. No heart of a romaine lettuce, no subtle whiff of garlic, no egg, no anchovy fillets, nor even a dash of Worcestershire sauce to impart an anchovy flavour. Just a few limp, wilted leaves sprinkled with too many damp croutons, and some nondescript bits of old cheese (which I ate Caerphilly), all covered with a thick coating of gunge. More of a seizure salad, really.

My German colleague's potage was slammed down precariously on the table, and one sip confirmed that it was "underseasoned, like most British soups". Worse, its frothy sabayon texture suggested a recent brutal encounter with an electric food processor, and I pined for the good old days when soups like this would be tammied on a kitchenmaid's leg. The service was equally frothy, with a disingenuous faux-urgency that reminded me of those meaningless "on hold" telephonic phrases ("Your call is important to us"), but we eventually received our wine, though not the parsimonious half-bottle of Chablis we'd ordered. Germans love puns, which may be why he looked at the label, then inquired, "Mcon for lunch?" just as the soup was being sloshed down.

When the main courses finally arrived, my companion's Manx kippers in butter (with added bread and butter) didn't require a lemon so much as a tub of industrial-strength Trico. Well, only a proprietorial degreasing agent could have cut through all that added fat, its cloying texture further exacerbated by the superfluous presence of mounds of bacon.

As for my "fisherman's pie in a creamy cheese sauce, topped with crushed potato and served with fresh vegetables", it fell foul of my golden rule: if I can make a better fist of a dish than the chef, then the chef has clearly failed. The allegedly wild salmon had the flabby texture of the cheap, farmed variety (I blame overcooking), and was taking its final desultory swim in a vapid sauce that resembled either a split hollandaise or school custard; and where were the contrasting tastes of smoked haddock, or cod, or prawns? Bizarrely, the self-same croutons that had marred the potage and the seizure salad reappeared in bloated form in the sauce (creating a disagreeable mulchy texture). When you find yourself glancing enviously at a trout in a plastic frame, you know you're sitting over a whole bowl of wrong.

To be fair, the bread-and-butter pudding (made from bara brith Welsh bread) served with ginger ice cream was faultless, the more so when accompanied by a glass of jobbing muscat. But to be fairer, lunch was a bleak and forlorn affair, thanks to a farinaceously obsessed chef who had achieved a sort of gastronomic alchemy. He'd made a pig's ear out of a fish pie.

· Open: All week, 12 noon-3pm; 6.30-11pm (Saturday, 6-11pm).
Menus: Lunch from £11.90 for two courses.
Wheelchair access (no WC).

 

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