Never is the deep-rooted phobia of the country house hotel, about which I have bored readers often enough, half so intense as in the spectre of Jane Austen. It goes back, I think, to a visit to the paradigmatically Austenesque priory near Bath that remains this column's benchmark for provincial dining calamity, but whatever the pathology I cannot enter any house that hints at a Mr Knightley Lounge, or the Lady Catherine de Bourgh Suite, without feeling the first pricks of a stress-induced roseola rash spreading across the torso.
Approaching Baslow Hall from its winding, chestnut tree-lined drive, the terror was at its absolute sharpest. Here was a beautiful, sandstone manor house not just in Austen's most beloved English county of Derbyshire, but on the edge of the Chatsworth estate used as the setting for Pemberley in the Pride And Prejudice no one saw because it starred Keira Knightley.
The snootily disengaged staff, the cloyingly chintzy yet sterile decor, the wickedly verbose and pretentious menu, the dismally over-fussy food drowned in Acme Lukewarm Port Wine Jus No 3 (c), the mirthless couples whispering to one another about how much they like the food while fantasising about ordering a bottle of Listerine and a spittoon for pud ... It may be a truth universally acknowledged that a critic should eat in a restaurant prior to producing the review, I was thinking, but this one I might as well write from the car.
Not for a decade, since putting £100 on Peter Lilley to succeed John Major as Tory leader, have even I had so misleading a premonition, because Baslow Hall turned out to be a pearl among swine. From the cheery, chatty welcome in the woodsmoke-scented bar, in fact, to the lavish petits fours served with coffee in the pretty dining room (floral-patterned wallpaper, lashings of fresh flowers, nice charcoal portraits), this was a difficult meal to fault. Admittedly the incessant moaning of the woman at the next table about her neglectful children was the last thing the lone diner would wish to earwig over lunch (the first thing being a detailed account of a gruesome medical complaint, closely followed by explicit sexual confession). Yet while you can hardly blame restaurateurs for the tedium of their clientele's conversation, you can remove your hat to them for providing three outstanding courses of Michelin-starred cooking for £24.
The warning siren was briefly activated on being told, "Today chef has a surprise for you!" ("Please," I said, "I'm not at all good with surprises"), but this proved be a deliciously sharp tomato and chilli guacamole that set the tone for all that followed. Smoked haddock risotto was a buttery, lemony, gloriously light concoction in which great fish was matched with spinach, wonderfully light rice and a poached egg with the most orangey of yolks, and as fine a risotto as I've had in years. The main course was also a triumph, three cuts of local pig - luxuriantly fatty caramelised belly, sweet and tender roast fillet, and lustrously flavoured braised cheek - coming with a medley of crunchy vegetables (carrots, asparagus and pak choi) in a fine, strong red-wine gravy infused with rosemary.
By now I could feel myself beaming like a serial killer at the portly, goateed, tails-wearing maître d' (a splendidly sombre figure, and a real adornment to the dining room) as he cleared the plate. When he returned with a fluffy, lethally chocolaty Neapolitan terrine with rum-flavoured chocolate sorbet, even the disappointment of discovering that, "Tilly needs a good smacked bottom" from the next table was nothing saucier than yet another reference to ungrateful offspring couldn't take the gloss off a truly excellent meal.
A week later, a friend rang asking if I knew of anywhere in the Peak District for a romantic weekend. Baslow Hall, I said instantly. Great restaurant, lovely house, picturesque grounds, perfect. "Mm," he mused nervously, "but isn't that in the heart of intolerably twee Jane Austen country?" It is, I replied, but I don't think anyone's told them yet.
Rating 9/10
Telephone 01246 583259.
Address Calver Road, Baslow, Derbyshire.
Open Lunch, Tues-Sat, noon-1.30pm (last orders; 2pm Sat); dinner, Mon-Sat, 7-9pm (last orders).
Price Lunch, £20 for two courses, £24 for three; dinner, £30 for two courses, £35 for three.
