This is a small place, part of the purpose-built entrance to the ruins of the Roman villa, but easily accessible. The Romans were great ones for flat surfaces and even though it's a modern building, all the straight lines, squares and terracotta shades evoke the history without anyone actually trashing the local wildlife and offering stuffed dormice.
The menu is supplied by Huffkins bakery from Cheltenham - sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, soups, jacket potatoes. I opted for the egg mayo sandwich and a cup of tea. The sandwich was white bread with a generous slug of free-range egg filling and rocket salad. Which is fine by me. Drew opted for the jacket potato with homemade coleslaw, meaning the filling was shredded with carrots, red cabbage, and onions, accompanied by salad leaves. My tea was the house blend, an aromatic, smooth Assam that tempered the sometimes astringent Darjeeling in the mix. Drew had the filter coffee, a hand roasted Cotswold blend with a slightly woody aftertaste.
As the café is served by spring water rather than mains, there is a limit to the supply and hence the amount of washing up. Everything is therefore served on or in disposable tableware, although, being the National Trust, the eco-credentials are impeccable. Where possible everything is recyclable and there are helpfully labelled bins; although if you are anything like me and have forgotten your glasses this can result in a lot of brow-furrowing and quizzical squinting.
Not a big fan of the Romans and never was; but it is tempting when faced with all the ruins to launch into some theatrics in the manner of I, Claudius, rolling and hooting and declaiming in proper old-school Blessedness.
Access: *****
Latte/Coffee: *****
Thursday, 3 July 2014
Wednesday, 2 July 2014
Cotswold Food Store and Cafe, Longborough, Moreton-in-Marsh
This is a converted barn in the middle of nowhere with every sign indicating that the foodstuff is either fresh, sustainably-sourced, seasonal, regional, local, home-cooked, or all of the above. And you just know that they sell game and venison and things like greengages and tins of lobster bisque.
Access is excellent, plenty of room for wheels, parking virtually outside the entrance and moveable tables and chairs for ease of passage. The look is scrubbed pine, blonde wood, creams, biscuit-coloured Cotswold stone, with a pale blue flooring that looks - well, there is only one word for it really. It's lovely.
I opted for the salmon and cream cheese baguette, Drew for the quiche salad. The Earl Grey tea came in a gigantic pot making two cups each. The brand is the Wiltshire Tea Company is known as 'Earl Grey Light', so the result is a super-pungent drink, more aromatic and orangey-tasting. My baguette was warm, lots of salmon and no suspicious-looking brown-grey bits, accompanied by a few salted crisps and some leaves. Drew had the salmon and chive quiche, also served warm, creamy in texture with a crisp but firm base, not too crumby. The potato salad was served with a lemony-mayonnaise. He ate all of his salad.
Access: *****
Access is excellent, plenty of room for wheels, parking virtually outside the entrance and moveable tables and chairs for ease of passage. The look is scrubbed pine, blonde wood, creams, biscuit-coloured Cotswold stone, with a pale blue flooring that looks - well, there is only one word for it really. It's lovely.
I opted for the salmon and cream cheese baguette, Drew for the quiche salad. The Earl Grey tea came in a gigantic pot making two cups each. The brand is the Wiltshire Tea Company is known as 'Earl Grey Light', so the result is a super-pungent drink, more aromatic and orangey-tasting. My baguette was warm, lots of salmon and no suspicious-looking brown-grey bits, accompanied by a few salted crisps and some leaves. Drew had the salmon and chive quiche, also served warm, creamy in texture with a crisp but firm base, not too crumby. The potato salad was served with a lemony-mayonnaise. He ate all of his salad.
Access: *****
Monday, 2 June 2014
Swan Hotel, Bibury, Gloucestershire
This is a village of such eye-popping gorgeousness that you feel slightly guilty for being there and sullying it with your human presence. Everywhere you turn is a vision of such ravishing beauty that your head hurts. The row of weaver's cottages at Arlington Row are positively begging to be the backdrop for your magnum opus murder mystery (think Agatha Raisin meets Agatha Christie).
The Swan Hotel is in just as attractive a building but is still, thankfully, being a Cotswold Inns franchise kitted out for the twentieth-century as far as access goes. Plenty of flat surfaces and space, although if you choose to go to the bar via the main entrance and the reception, there are some tight corners to negotiate. There was, however, no mobile phone signal or wi fi. I gather that is not typical, but just a heads-up. This is the depths of nowhereville. While that means a passable, if somewhat lava-hot latte, there's nothing for it but to watch the swans and cygnets, listen to the babbling of the river, the splash of leaping trout, the haunting cries of birds, the lowing of cattle and the rush of wind in the trees. Just generally contemplate nature. In all its glory. And majesty. And stuff like that. As you do.
Bleugh.
Access: *****
Latte: *****
The Swan Hotel is in just as attractive a building but is still, thankfully, being a Cotswold Inns franchise kitted out for the twentieth-century as far as access goes. Plenty of flat surfaces and space, although if you choose to go to the bar via the main entrance and the reception, there are some tight corners to negotiate. There was, however, no mobile phone signal or wi fi. I gather that is not typical, but just a heads-up. This is the depths of nowhereville. While that means a passable, if somewhat lava-hot latte, there's nothing for it but to watch the swans and cygnets, listen to the babbling of the river, the splash of leaping trout, the haunting cries of birds, the lowing of cattle and the rush of wind in the trees. Just generally contemplate nature. In all its glory. And majesty. And stuff like that. As you do.
Bleugh.
Access: *****
Latte: *****
Saturday, 31 May 2014
The Garden Tea Rooms [formerly Act V], Stratford-upon-Avon
On the menus in this establishment there is a quotation from Hamlet, Act V, scene one, the 'Alas, poor Yorick' palaver that we all know so well. Far better would be a quotation from Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest; because this is the perfect place to go Bunburying.
Partly because it is an excellent place to hide, even if just to escape the crowds on Waterside. It is at the bottom of Sheep Street, just up from the chip shop, a small café/gift shop combo. And the recently refurbished outdoor space is the real gem here, with comfortable furniture squeezed into a tiny garden that is absolutely, positively the best place to sit in the sunshine writing in your diary, eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking Earl Grey tea in copious quantities. In fact, having ordered said cucumber sandwiches, it occurred to me that I know no other place in the town that sells them. For £2.50, you get two slices of bread, lightly moistened with margarine or butter and quite a few slices of crunchy-but-soft cucumber with a few leaves of salad and some crisps. The tea is the teapigs brand, popular in some of the more upmarket establishments in the town. Be warned - the combination of the two means that you will find your pinky finger creaks involuntarily outward with every bite and sip.
Following this up with the cream tea is practically compulsory. One of the few places to serve the scones warm and use clotted cream. This all adds up to a delectable melt-in-your-mouth concoction, a heady combination for eschewing your German grammar in favour of starting your revoltingly sentimental three volume novel.
Access: *****
Partly because it is an excellent place to hide, even if just to escape the crowds on Waterside. It is at the bottom of Sheep Street, just up from the chip shop, a small café/gift shop combo. And the recently refurbished outdoor space is the real gem here, with comfortable furniture squeezed into a tiny garden that is absolutely, positively the best place to sit in the sunshine writing in your diary, eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking Earl Grey tea in copious quantities. In fact, having ordered said cucumber sandwiches, it occurred to me that I know no other place in the town that sells them. For £2.50, you get two slices of bread, lightly moistened with margarine or butter and quite a few slices of crunchy-but-soft cucumber with a few leaves of salad and some crisps. The tea is the teapigs brand, popular in some of the more upmarket establishments in the town. Be warned - the combination of the two means that you will find your pinky finger creaks involuntarily outward with every bite and sip.
Following this up with the cream tea is practically compulsory. One of the few places to serve the scones warm and use clotted cream. This all adds up to a delectable melt-in-your-mouth concoction, a heady combination for eschewing your German grammar in favour of starting your revoltingly sentimental three volume novel.
Access: *****
Thursday, 22 May 2014
White Horse Inn, Wroxton, Oxfordshire
This is exactly what a small country pub should be. It should recall the days of old when it was a stopping-off point for travellers - an old building, decent hunger-quenching fare. It should be halfway between places, in this case Banbury and Stratford-upon-Avon. It should feel local, not gastro-pub generic, or be full of ramblers and cyclists. It should hint at a chequered past (hasty repairs) and straitened finances (rusty barbecue). And it should have no less than two people sitting nursing a drink who do not take their eyes off you the whole time you are there, to the point of discomfort.
As this was only a refreshment stop, none of the food was sampled, although it certainly looked like a decent menu of chips, steaks and vegetarian options. I had a latte, decent enough, not too strong, half inch of foam, suitably thirst-quenching.
Access is not bad, considering the age of the building. There are a few too tight corners and small steps to negotiate especially to the garden. Ask the sunburnt local in the wife beater vest to give you a hand.
There is an additional bonus. To get to this place can mean driving through the village of Buckingham. And any Shakespearean worth their salt will not be able to resist the most amazing in-joke. On leaving the village, it is practically compulsory to turn to your companion(s) and say "So much for Buckingham".
If no one laughs, maintain a rigid hauteur for the rest of the journey and refuse to speak.
Access: *****
Latte: *****
As this was only a refreshment stop, none of the food was sampled, although it certainly looked like a decent menu of chips, steaks and vegetarian options. I had a latte, decent enough, not too strong, half inch of foam, suitably thirst-quenching.
Access is not bad, considering the age of the building. There are a few too tight corners and small steps to negotiate especially to the garden. Ask the sunburnt local in the wife beater vest to give you a hand.
There is an additional bonus. To get to this place can mean driving through the village of Buckingham. And any Shakespearean worth their salt will not be able to resist the most amazing in-joke. On leaving the village, it is practically compulsory to turn to your companion(s) and say "So much for Buckingham".
If no one laughs, maintain a rigid hauteur for the rest of the journey and refuse to speak.
Access: *****
Latte: *****
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Winthrop's Cafe, Hidcote, Gloucestershire
This place is not the sandwich and coffee bar just by the entrance, but the one in the garden itself. There is the right mix of history and modernity that the National Trust does so well. Parquet floors, wood-burning stoves, mock-Deco and Arts and Crafts furnishings, homely baking; but not so much that they do without a decent coffee machine, central heating and clean loos. The terrace outside is accessible, with a decent slope, flat paving and moveable furniture. It is also sheltered and accented with fairly picturesque plants and green, growing things. It is Nature just the way I like it, trimmed and pruned with no unseemly scruffs of overgrowth or wet slimy bits.
The menu is restricted but what is there is all speciality stuff. 'Lemon' and 'asparagus' were bandied about a lot, as were 'date', 'apple' and 'sultana'. You probably would not be surprised to know that 'lightly drizzled' was in there somewhere, along with 'balsamic'. It is the kind of the menu that stops just short of 'coulis' or 'jus'. I settled for an 'open sandwich' which turned out to be a generous portion of tuna mayo and six slices of cucumber laid on one slice of bloomer bread and loosely overlaid with a second slice of bread, accompanied by three cherry tomatoes, a few shreds of red onion and around five or six salad leaves. You have to start eating it with a knife and fork, such are its gargantuan proportions before you can resort to the traditional grab and gulp method. Tasty, very creamy, an ever-so-slightly sharp aftertaste and, interestingly enough, initially cold on the tongue and teeth. By which I mean, not fresh from the fridge but what a cold sandwich should be - not room temperature.
Drew opted for the gala pie, an oblong crusted portion, pale pink, almost Spam colour with a golden yellow egg all of which certified its fresh-made credentials. I was not allowed to taste it. The accompanying Earl Grey tea was just the way I like it, the scent being strong but the taste subtle.
Always worth having a walk around the gardens after lunch, designed by the reclusive, eccentric Laurence Johnson. Though if I was going to get rich and adopt an eccentricity it wouldn't be gardening. Something more me, perhaps. Like crisps. Or cheese.
Access: *****
The menu is restricted but what is there is all speciality stuff. 'Lemon' and 'asparagus' were bandied about a lot, as were 'date', 'apple' and 'sultana'. You probably would not be surprised to know that 'lightly drizzled' was in there somewhere, along with 'balsamic'. It is the kind of the menu that stops just short of 'coulis' or 'jus'. I settled for an 'open sandwich' which turned out to be a generous portion of tuna mayo and six slices of cucumber laid on one slice of bloomer bread and loosely overlaid with a second slice of bread, accompanied by three cherry tomatoes, a few shreds of red onion and around five or six salad leaves. You have to start eating it with a knife and fork, such are its gargantuan proportions before you can resort to the traditional grab and gulp method. Tasty, very creamy, an ever-so-slightly sharp aftertaste and, interestingly enough, initially cold on the tongue and teeth. By which I mean, not fresh from the fridge but what a cold sandwich should be - not room temperature.
Drew opted for the gala pie, an oblong crusted portion, pale pink, almost Spam colour with a golden yellow egg all of which certified its fresh-made credentials. I was not allowed to taste it. The accompanying Earl Grey tea was just the way I like it, the scent being strong but the taste subtle.
Always worth having a walk around the gardens after lunch, designed by the reclusive, eccentric Laurence Johnson. Though if I was going to get rich and adopt an eccentricity it wouldn't be gardening. Something more me, perhaps. Like crisps. Or cheese.
Access: *****
Wednesday, 30 April 2014
Shaw's Corner, Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire
There is no café at the home of everyone's favourite Stalin-loving pacifist, despite his famous declaration that there was no love sincerer than the love of food. Instead, there is a small shed selling gardening stuff and ice creams.
Still, it gives you a chance to meander around the gardens and peer through the window of the writing hut, musing on the man and reflecting on the works.
And realize that he got it wrong. It is not alcohol that is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. It's a Cornetto.
Still, it gives you a chance to meander around the gardens and peer through the window of the writing hut, musing on the man and reflecting on the works.
And realize that he got it wrong. It is not alcohol that is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. It's a Cornetto.
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