After a stay in Birmingham’s reopened and prestigious Grand Hotel, onwards and southwards to what is possibly the most prestigious hotel of all in the West Midlands - the incomparable Lygon Arms in the beautiful town of Broadway at the southernmost tip of Worcestershire. This hotel has more English history than the House of Windsor (Charles II was hovering around here before the battle of Worcester or was it Cromwell or was it both?). It also has room rates which also match those of London hotels but it does take dogs and in large numbers. Which is why we were staying here despite the bill. Lucy The Labrador was quickly made to feel at home. But what about the food it served up?
The first evening I dined in the large historic dining room, its walls covered by rather nice mostly aged paintings, atmospheric and vaguely thrilling. The menu suggested that the price of the food might match the room rates. I was expecting something sumptuous, a prestigious menu, something fitting to its surroundings.
I have been puzzled up until now as to why the Lygon Arms has not featured in the pages of the Michelin Guide. And now the reason is clear - the management are clearly not at all interested in doing anything to enable it to find its place on that venerable list. What is served in the Lygon Arms Bar and Grill restaurant is moderately expensive but without anything about it that would connect it with modern fine dining. Food is served, much of it very well cooked, in a manner than expels from one’s mind any thought of current fine dining.
The waiting staff are kitted out in blue shirts with tight jeans which does not really suit some of the weightier staff and the costume seems inappropriate in a restaurant where some of the diners are turning up in lounge suits or evening wear. The restaurant is not short of customers, the large space being filled mid-evening, and the service is reasonably efficient and professional but not as relaxed as the jeans/blue shirt uniform suggests it should be. The menu is a large sheet reminiscent of the sort you find in a chain restaurant serving burgers. It all seemed less than you might expect in such a prestigious restaurant which on two occasions in the past, under different regimes, has been the home of Michelin star holders.
Regardless, after some prevarication I chose a starter of smoked ham hock and rabbit terrine served with gooseberry jam and sourdough. The serving of terrine was generously sized, what a steak of mammoth might have looked like in its day, and there were flashes of the flavour of ham hock, but on the whole the dish was untidy-looking, lacking in flavour - vaguely watery - and generally disappointing. Not to be repeated.
The main course was a different kettle of fish (quite literally). Again the main ingredient was exceptionally generously portioned - simple perfectly pan-fried cod. Someone in the kitchen knows how to cook fish without resorting to a water bath. A joyous piece of fish which would have been quite perfect served with summery peas (which it was plus fine pea velouté and refreshing pea shoots) and buttery new potatoes (which it sadly was not but instead they were substituted by pea gnocchi which though once more generous in the amount served turned out to be chewy and doughy and again not accompanied by any real amount of flavour). Still the fish was excellent. Rustic, generous, tasty, pleasurable. Minus the gnocchi a great dish.
It’s summer. What better than strawberries (served in a profusion) and whipped cream and some meringue to boot)? Simple, uncomplicated, delicious, seasonal, English. But let’s face it, though a great and deep pleasure not really Fine Dining as we know it. Perhaps we should be heading back to this generous simplicity. Perhaps that’s the thinking of those responsible for delivering food to satisfy the hotel’s guests. But it’s almost bordering on 1950s and 60s cuisine in its approach to modernity. And it’s not too much to hope for ambitious and exciting food when you are paying a lot of money to stay at places like the Lygon Arms. Or perhaps we should all be adjusting our ambitions in this post-COVID age.
And so to something completely different. Russell’s of Broadway. From the ancient halls of the Lygon Arms to the now. Light, bright, of our times, it looks just right for 2021. And the food is absolutely spot on. This restaurant is already Michelin-plated and looks to be heading to greater heights though a little fine-tuning is needed to push it over the line.
Two points. There are a good number of front-of-house staff (though mostly young and probably not that experienced nor committed to a life in the hospitality business) but no-one asked me if I wanted water and worse, no-one was aware that I was waiting to be asked if I wanted a dessert - I was in a sort of limbo between the main course and what came next. You get what you pay for but if the restaurant is going to advance should it be offering one or two little extras, as Glynn Purnell calls them, “gifts from the kitchen”?
So, straight to the starter. Was this the best I’ve had so far this year? Very possibly. Generous amounts of elegantly presented ceviche of succulent Orkney scallops in carrot vinegar served with bell pepper and tomato salsa and the right amount of crunch provided by toasted almonds with little explosions of ginger scattered throughout. This pretty dish promised much and delivered everything.
For the main course I chose Cotswold white chicken, exquisitely presented, served with fine fondant potato, beautifully complementary Savoy cabbage and bacon with a truffle cream sauce. A second wholly delicious dish in a row, satisfying and deeply pleasurable.
And, though for a while it seemed that I would never see one, my dessert arrived - a cherry bakewell soufflé and cherry sorbet. An excellent soufflé with the flavour of Bakewell tart easily perceptible. The sorbet was good too.
This meal undoubtedly had been a great modern fine dining experience though without a few of the extras that one has come to expect in many fine dining restaurants but to be fair I didn’t particularly miss them as the three main elements had been so enjoyable. Russell’s - one to watch and one to go back to.
And on our final night I dined again in the Lygon Arms Bar And Grill determined to enter into the spirit of the place. This time they played a blinder. As starter I chose what the restaurant sees as a signature dish - a profoundly pleasurable twice baked Emmental soufflé. Generously sized, as with everything at the Lygon Arms but feather light, good looking, and very delicious. Just look at this (not so) little beauty:-
And just to prove I had fully entered into the spirit of the place I chose fried battered cod and chips with mushy peas, tartare sauce and burnt lemon. And so I say goodbye to ‘Fine dining’ and submerge myself in the joy of simple old fashioned pleasure. Everything about the dish was immaculate - perfectly cooked fish, crispy and light batter, better-than-average chips, fabulous peas mushed to just the right consistency and exquisitely minted and an excellent tartare sauce which was so well judged it could almost have been a course in itself. Oh, and I loved the little sauce boat containing the very down-to-earth and vital malt vinegar.Of course the amount served was generous once more and my old bloke’s stomach could not possibly have coped with a dessert. But I was content - very content - and Michelin listing or not I felt that the Bar and Grill had served me well.
Having been served a rather impressive ham and cheese omelette for breakfast the day before I went one step further and ordered an omelette Arnold Bennett for my final day’s breakfast at The Lygon Arms. It arrived glowing in melted cheesy goldenness looking as unctuous as it was in the eating. Underneath lay the excellent omelette with smoked haddock in a gorgeous sauce. The presence of a couple of fish bones did not unnerve me too much to stop me appreciating the success of this 1930s classic, rarely offered in hotel restaurants, and I reached the conclusion that The Lygon Arms can indeed serve up fine food experiences, hard to enjoy elsewhere but in a style that perhaps the self-anointed food lover might not exactly recognise as being of the moment. So lovers of West Midlands food, Broadway with the contrasting styles of Russell’s and The Lygon Arms, plus the many attractions of the town, is a necessary destination in this ancient land of Mercia.
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