Telephone: 01600 860254.
Address: Whitebrook, near Monmouth, east Wales.
Price: Around £70 for two (plus wine).
Open: Lunch, all week, 12 noon-2pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 7-9.30pm.
Disabled access (no disabled WC).
Patience is a quality I admire greatly in the driver behind me, but scorn violently in the one ahead. So to keep sane while stuck in traffic en route to a restaurant, I've created a game called Secret Celebrity Relationships, in which my dining companion and I have to improvise for a minute on the lives of two unlikely relatives, without hesitation, repetition or deviation. Travelling to Wales recently, I began by discoursing on the brothers Siegfried and Vidal Sassoon, who brought succour to allied troops in the Great War with their morale-boosting mix of patriotic poetry and bouffant hair-styling. Then my companion revealed how the cruel Elizabeth Windsor had forced her sister Barbara into exile in Royal Dalston, where she reigns as Pearly Queen. And I finished with the tale of Dennis Potter's influence on the work of his sister Beatrix, especially her early detective novel The Singing Squirrel, in which a psoriatic snake exuviates its skin during a rubdown by Nurse Badger, to the strains of the Roy Fox orchestra.
We were driving through Dennis Potter country as I concluded my narrative, near Soudley in the Forest of Dean. It was almost spring, and although we were a little too early to see the spectacular bluebells that would soon be carpeting the entire village, the detour through this breathtaking location served to whet our appetites for lunch at The Crown at Whitebrook. Situated in three acres of woodland and pasture, this self-styled "auberge" exudes the agreeable smell of burning wood fires as you approach, and has recently been refurbished by proprietors Jonathan and Nicola Davies. When I visited, those renovations hadn't yet reached the tatty old main door, which has by now, I hope, been replaced and chopped up for kindling.
Inside, the restoration and modernisation was otherwise complete. The light and simple magnolia decor wisely didn't try to compete with the dazzling view through the window (worthy of a "cool as a mountain stream" Consulate ad from the 1960s), and the clubby chairs had a sinkable quality, while the waitress-cum-maître d' was totally unsinkable. A ma'am without smarm, she displayed refreshingly old-fashioned politeness, and an impressive knowledge of both the menu (in the best traditions of French cuisine, but with a defiantly Welsh twist) and sourcing of ingredients. "You will enjoy lunch," she told us, and that wasn't an order, nor a psychic prediction, just total confidence that chef James Sommerin would perform. And he did.
The matter-of-fact menu description of my starter - "salad of new potatoes, wild mushrooms and truffle" - didn't do justice to a dish that was far more than the sum of its parts. As fresh as the view, it was seasoned to perfection (no salt and pepper pots at this table), and although perhaps a trifle parsimonious in the truffle department, these were genuine shavings, and not (as some disreputable chefs are wont to do) trimmings from a common puffball soaked in truffle oil and priced as though it were a Tuber melanosporum from Périgord. My companion's hot smoked guinea fowl came with lashings of smooth fig chutney, a sweet 'n' meat celebrity marriage with French-Moroccan overtones. Both dishes arrived on square glass plates which (aesthetically and geometrically) defied knives and forks to sit idly upon them.
My main-course pan-fried seabass with tomato jam was perched atop a plinth of spring onion risotto that was so intensely flavoured it could have stood alone as a main course. My companion's glazed rump of lamb with celeriac purée, roast shallots and lentil sauce was a classic combination, although the proudly erect tower into which it had been shaped collapsed ignominiously just as the climactic moment arrived (we all know the feeling). The limp steamed mangetout on the side smacked of another era and a lesser chef.
The ices could have made Ben & Jerry weep with envy, because those guys have never thought up anything as thrillingly bizarre as parsnip ice cream (perfectly accompanied by dark chocolate). Best of all, there was an old-fashioned crêpe suzette, prepared on an ancient, creaking trolley with the mingling odours of navel oranges, Grand Marnier, grenadine, and meths. I'd forgotten just how good this inexplicably unfashionable pancake can be, until I recently ate one in a gaststätte in the former East Germany, together with a guest who farted continuously during its preparation. With a naked flame around, that's asking for trouble.
The wine list's impressive selection of half-bottles tempted me to order a Chateau Kirwan Margaux 1988, but the thought of an afternoon's driving persuaded me to stick with sparkling water. They serve bottled Welsh water here, which is just as well, as I have no time for the French stuff. Call me a literalist, but I've never forgiven Perrier since the time I read on the label that it is "bottled at Source", and then spent a frustrating (and fictional) month driving around France, hoping to discover the whereabouts of that wondrous spa town. My satellite navigation system blew to bits.
