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Michael Deacon reviews Lympstone Manor, Devon: 'The beef... imagine eating a fillet of Wayne Rooney'
The Victorians had some curious ideas. I’ve got a copy of an etiquette guide from 1897 entitled Manners for Men by CE Humphry, and its edicts make fascinating reading. In a downpour, a gentleman must never lend his umbrella to a woman he doesn’t know (‘no lady would accept the offer from a stranger, and the other sort of person might never return the umbrella’). In conversation, he should remember that pronouncing the letter ‘g’ at the end of a present participle is grossly uncouth (‘comin’ and goin’ are the correct forms’).
If he wishes to introduce a female companion to his family, meanwhile, he must first secure their permission. ‘There are young men who make acquaintance with girls in a lower walk of life than their own. It would be an insult to a mother or a sister to introduce a milliner’s apprentice or an assistant in a shop.’
The guide also sets forth rules for dining. It is wrong, for example, to wait until everyone else has been served before starting to eat; this custom ‘survives only among the uncultured classes’. Also, never eat a banana with your hands. It must be peeled with a knife and fork.
But, peculiar as these rules may seem, there is one that would be worth reviving. Don’t thank your waiter. ‘An occasional “thanks” is not amiss,’ our guide decrees, ‘but it is unnecessary to keep on expressing gratitude.’
Quite right, too. I don’t mean we should be rude to waiters. But just think how many times you say ‘thank you’ over the course of a meal – particularly if you’re on your own, and so aren’t engrossed in conversation. You say it when they show you to your table, present the menu, recite the specials, pour the water, take your order, remove the menu, bring your wine, offer the bread, serve your starter, remove the plate, refill your glass…
Again and again you repeat it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And sooner or later – after, say, the 30th or 40th thank you – it starts to sound not only silly, but artificial: you’ve said it so often it no longer has any meaning. It’s simply a reflex, no more sincere than an automated apology from a railway station tannoy.
There must be a better way. Perhaps, on entering a restaurant, a diner should present a written declaration. ‘I, the undersigned, thank you, the waiter, in advance for the service you are about to perform, up to and including the subtraction of a startling sum of money from my bank account. You hereby acknowledge receipt of this declaration, and undertake not to misinterpret my silence as rudeness, nor to retaliate by gobbing in my stew.’
I’ve been thinking about this crucial issue because at this week’s restaurant – where I happened to be dining solo – I ordered the tasting menu, which consisted of no fewer than eight courses. I had to say ‘thank you’ so many times I lost my voice. By the time pudding was served, I was reduced to smearing ‘THANK YOU’ on the tablecloth in chocolate sauce.
The venue was Lympstone Manor, a new hotel in Devon. Its views were beautiful. The Exe estuary glittering like a mirror; bees tottering tipsily from flower to flower; vast lawns dozing in the sun’s fond warmth. The restaurant, meanwhile, was cool, bright and airily immaculate. Summery cover versions of not-necessarily-summery songs (Boys Don’t Cry by The Cure was one) cooed prettily in the background. Sunbeams danced in the wine.
I started with the langoustine cannelloni: pretty and dainty, but instantly forgotten, a warm gulp of nothing. The same went for the quail’s egg tartlet. It’s often the way with the early courses of a tasting menu: they’re so weeny that before you can work out whether you like them or not, they’ve disappeared.
The next course, though, was more like it. The Cornish salt cod was outstanding: shimmeringly translucent, wispily delicate, meltingly rapturous – one of the best dishes I’ve eaten since I started writing this column. If they’d brought it out again for courses four, five, six, seven and eight, I still wouldn’t have tired of it.
Instead, they brought out the pan-fried duck liver, with orange-braised chicory and marinated raisins. Sweet, thick and sticky, it tasted like hot marmalade. Not a bad thing in itself, but it did tend to overwhelm the duck. Next came a hunk of locally farmed beef: small, but dense and bulky. Imagine eating a fillet of Wayne Rooney.
After an interlude of cheese and crackers came a lovely fluffy apple mousse, followed – perhaps oddly – by a second mousse: this time chocolate-orange confit. The chef had fashioned it to look like an actual orange, right down to the tiny craters on the peel-like exterior. It tasted terrific: rich, tart and wantonly gooey.
I liked Lympstone Manor. Good food in wonderful surroundings. Expensive, though. Our Victorian guide would have been wary. ‘When accompanying ladies who express a wish for refreshment, it is not necessary to select a very expensive restaurant,’ it cautions. ‘One suitable to the social status of the party should be chosen.’
Gentlemen: book only if you consider your wife sufficiently respectable. Certainly not if she is a milliner’s apprentice or a shop assistant.