The Freemasons Arms, Wiswell
It's a year since my first visit to the renovated Freemasons Arms at Wiswell, a small hamlet outside Whalley in the Ribble Valley. Though renovation is a bit of a weak word for the transformation which has taken place of what used to be a faintly grotty old boozer with great food and one of the most remarkable wine lists in the country. All traces of grottiness are now gone and there's a real sense of space in the formerly poky rooms (thanks I presume to the removal of banquettes and the pushing back of the kitchen. Yet it doesn't feel like a flash new renovation.
My first visit to the new Freemasons was seriously marred by incomprehending
central European service and a very restricted, pricey lunch menu.
This
time we made a pact before going in that if there wasn't a à la carte
available, we'd walk out and go elsewhere. Hurrah! No restrictions on
the menu. There's an à la carte, a menu gourmand (4 courses, I think), a
2-2-2 "seasonal menu" (i.e. a table d'hôte menu) and tucked away at the
bottom of the menu a brief mention of a 7-course tasting menu for £50.
Can we have that? Yes, no problem. All a very welcome change from a year
ago. Talking to the chef, Steven Smith, after the meal, he'd decided to
start doing full service at lunch at the start of 2011.
From the
menus you quickly get the impression that this is not going to be food
that isn't messed about with, and it's no longer the bargain, especially
in wine terms, that it used to be under Ian Martin's ownership. But
overall, it's certainly useful in the area. Perhaps not as good as the
relentless PR, but I shall return, despite a few faults.
We
started with a watercress velouté, which contained a few pieces of
smoked haddock and was topped with a cream of smoked haddock poaching
milk. On the side was a piece of a smoked haddock fish finger. The fish
finger was great - perfectly cooked, nicely seasoned and a good
accompaniment. Personally I found the the watercress velouté a bit
underpowered on the watercress front, though my companion disagreed
vehemently. Maybe I was being unduly put off by the "cappucino" top:
this was a laudable attempt not to waste the milk in which the haddock
had been cooked, but I found the texture quite unpleasant. Bring back
lecithin-stabilised foams, I say. This had been partly set using xantham
gum, giving an almost plasticky gummy-gelatinous-catarrh-like texture
which I found distinctly off-putting.
A small collop of
beautifully cooked foie gras (not easy for such a small piece) was
unfortunately marred slightly by being served (and so a little
overwhelmed) with what seemed to be the à la portion size of
accompanying "rhubarb and custard". The custard element was gummy like
the preceding milk top to the watercress soup, but more so, and I
struggled to eat mine, because of the texure (not the sweetness which
was well in check). Though the combination of foie gras and roast and
puréed rhubarb was definitely a winner.
"Lemon sole on the bone"
was, of course, not a whole fish. Portion size was spot on for a tasting
menu dish: this wasn't a slice across the fish, but a square-ish slab
of two fillets with the bones in the middle. An unusual cut, that
required a moment of thought how to tackle it, or at least it did when I
attacked it the wrong way on and chopped through the bones. My
ineptitude aside, the fish was (again) accurately cooked and came with a
delicious lemon-beurre noisette and shrimps. Top stuff.
Next
came another fish dish: tandoori spiced monkfish. A rather alarming
sausage-shaped piece of bright red monkfish had a jolly well judged
spicing, though I felt the spicing missed the lift that a bit of char
would have given: it would, we both thought, have been better grilled
than roasted. But very nice. There was more to the dish than just the
monkfish, though it sticks so firmly in the menu that it's outweighed
the accompaniments.
When the waitress initially reeled off what
the chef was proposing to serve on the tasting menu, I was pleased to
hear that the duck dish on the carte would be the main course, though my
companion said we'd prefer the slow roast mutton dish. Hang on, no "we"
wouldn't. No problem for the waitress, one duck, one mutton. Phew. My
duck was (boringly again) beautifully cooked, though as the skin wasn't
crisped, I'd have preferred it to have been removed completely. The duck
came with a good, light stock-based mead sauce (which gave away the
lean on the table as it all flowed to one end of the plate), turnips,
some nice little confit leg wantons and, served separately, a really
good swede dauphinoise. Really enjoyed this.
Things continued
improving with the desserts. First was a pistachio soufflé that was
nearly as good as Pierre Koffmann's, no easy feat, particularly when it
was a mini tasting-menu-sized soufflé.
Finally came what was
billed as a blood orange tart. This came as a couple of squares of a
tarte au citron style tart with an almost walnut whip pyramid of
marshmallowy Italian meringue, which had also been smeared across the
plate and glazed. Really jolly good.
Coffee was good and came
with delicious salted caramel chocolates, though I thought the hundreds
and thousands sprinkled on top were a bit twee.
A jug of tapwater
was placed on the table as soon as we sat down, and good bread was in
plentiful supply. I also liked the way the butter had been whipped (with
some buttermilk?) and sprinkled with salt, so that it was easily
spreadable. I wish more restaurants would pay attention to whether the
butter they off with their bread can actually be spread.
We drank a bottle of a white Sicilian IGT: 2008 Regaleali from Tasca d'Almerita.
Citrus,
melons and minerality. Quite bright and light initially with fresh
blossomy fruit flavours. But fills out a lot especially as it warms from
the deep fridge cold at which it was served. There's an attractive
scented note that served blind would make me think there was some
viognier in it. Good summer quaffer, but with sufficient depth and
interest to stand up to a good range of food. It went well with the
first four courses, and was particularly good with the tandoori-spiced
monkfish. 88/100
A couple of glasses of good Beauolais (sorry can't
remember if it was Fleurie or Brouilly, and I didn't catch the details)
went with the meat courses.
The wine list is pretty decent overall,
though it was a struggle to find the halves as they were all listed in
the main body of the list. The half bottle selection is unfortunately
(as often) at the pricier end, with many full bottles the price of most
of the halves, or not a lot more.
My overall impression of the food was that it was really very good,
though perhaps that the kitchen has spent a bit too long reading
Caterer and has thrown one too many ideas into the menu: it's just
trying a little bit too hard to make its mark. But fortunately the
basic cooking skills are at sufficiently high a level to outweigh those
minor concerns. Service was much improved on this visit: more
relaxed, friendly and knowledgeable. Although it naturally cost
us rather more this time, value felt much better too.
5/10
(March 2011)
The previous visit:
This has been completely renovated and virtually
unrecognisable from its previous
incarnation under Ian Martin.
There's clearly been a lot of money spent here, and that's reflected in
the prices, which are on the steep side, particularly for what still
claims to be a pub. The lunch menu is split into four sections:
starters, mains, sandwiches, salads.
For starters, we had a simple dish of morels and bacon with a fried egg
yolk and one of the salads - crab and fennel. If you'd ordered the
salad in place of a sandwich, which is clearly how it's intended from
the menu layout, I think you would be very disappointed by the small
portion. You'd then be very disappointed that the crab didn't really
taste very crabby but instead was dominated by mayonnaise and
particularly coriander. Very disappointing, and when she asked if we
enjoyed it the incomprehending Eastern European waitress was completely
lost when she didn't get a positive response. The morels and bacon were
fine, with a good light stock-based sauce, but there was no spoon to
eat the sauce and none came when requested.
Of our mains, fish pie was fine, if unexceptional and by no means
over-generous on the fish. A pork dish was much better - two slices of
belly that had been crisped in a pan (no crackling) and a slice of
fillet, good stock-based sauce again, some good mash and a nice mixed
onion purée. Still no spoons when we asked for them again.
Do
chefs never eat their own dishes? Why do they make nice sauces but
don't provide the means to eat them: you can't eat light and thin
sauces in the modern style with knife and fork. Even if you ignore what
your mother told you and try to ladle it up with the knife and lick it
off the knife, the tiny blades on the knives here make that far too
difficult.
One dessert between the two of us - an apple trifle with cinammon
doughnuts. An odd mix of light (the airy cream that must have had some
lecithin in it to hold it up) and a very cold, somewhat stodgy brown
apple purée on top of a vivid, luminous green apple jelly.
With a bottle of a basic white from Masi, the bill was over
£70 without tip. Poor value for unexceptional food.
1/10
(March 2010)
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Last updated: 27 April 2010