434. Charlton Arms Ludlow.

 

 I had seen an online communication from Ludlow’s The Charlton Arms which urged its customers to vote in another one of those online surveys with which the editor of the Good Food Guide is presently obsessed - this time to identify the restaurant serving the Best Sunday Roast - and as I was in Ludlow I thought I would dine there myself to try out their Sunday lunch.

 With no Sunday bus services operating in the town I had a long walk from Fishmore Hall where I was staying, Corve Street seems to become ever steeper, and I thought I deserved a treat after my physical effort. I was to be disappointed.

  The Charlton Arms is beautifully located at one end of Ludford Bridge with a fine view over the river Teme. It certainly has the location needed to win a Bib Gourmand. The dining room furniture is looking rather shabby chic but the service is very much on the ball and one is rapidly concentrating on the food rather than the internal decor.

  I decided not to have a starter as Sunday roast main courses are usually quite filling. Four slices of nicely cooked beef were served though it was not the tenderest I have eaten (the finest beef lunch in Ludlow, I think, must be that served at Mortimers in Corve Street). Roast potatoes, rather dry I thought, accompanied the beef along with a crisp, very puffed up Yorkshire pudding and what amounted to almost a macedoine of cubed root vegetables and decent gravy. Had I wanted to have any form of green, the only one on offer was cauliflower in a cheese sauce at an additional £3.50. I regret that the lunch did not really live up to my expectations even though it was very reasonably priced. I shall not be voting for the Charlton Arms’ Sunday lunch in the Good Food Guide’s competition I am afraid.

  I enjoyed my dessert of a well poached pear with vanilla ice cream and a warm chocolate sauce though there was little about it to make me feel that a Michelin recommendation was indicated.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

  After leaving the Charlton Arms, a necessarily slow walk back to Fishmore Hall, taking in some pleasing sites of old Ludlow, first over Ludford Bridge crossing the river Teme where Yorkists fought Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses and then up the steep hill to the market square, then through the town and down Corve Street, past the excellent Mortimers, previously the Michelin starred La Becasse and before that, the two starred Hibiscus where Claude Bosi was chef, and then further down the hill past the former location of Shaun Hill’s The Merchant House, Ludlow’s first Michelin-starred restaurant and the birthplace of Ludlow’s now faded reputation as a centre of gastronomy. No sign I’m afraid of Ludlow returning to its former culinary prominence but it will be forever a location of the greatest importance in the history of dining out in the West Midlands.

412. Pleasure At Mortimers.

 

  Still in Ludlow, while Forelles seems to be in something of an existential crisis at present, the great joy of dining at Mortimers remains. The welcome is nicely judged, the preprandial drinks in the panelled bar (livened up on this visit by a remarkable pair of octogenarians elegantly dressed like something out of PG Wodehouse, she whose 87th birthday it was, giggling away charmingly like a schoolgirl being chatted up by a first boyfriend, and wearing a summery, sweet straw hat) so absolutely right with the only hors d‘oeuvres of which Ambrose Heath would have approved nuts and crisps (though I failed to follow his rules on the only aperitif which should be acceptable - dry sherry - opting instead for a cooling, relaxing Hendricks and tonic).

  And so, to the exquisite panelled dining room, where I was comfortably seated, watered, wined and delivered of the signature plate of three breads and three butters. I had opted for the extremely well priced 3 course lunch (£45 for three course plus bread) and was very happy with my choice of perfectly pan fried sea trout nicely balanced with pickled cucumber, soothed by herb crème fraiche and tickled by dill. 

  The main was an exciting prospect - pork tenderloin served as a generously sized portion. It was tasty but sadly much too dry - it really did need to have had a shorter cooking time. The accompanying herb mash and finely shredded, acidic cabbage were fine balances for the pork but perhaps more sauce would have helped to counter the dryness of the meat.

  I thoroughly enjoyed my dessert - a lovely light strawberry cheesecake with deliciously sweet strawberries, a nice base to it, delightful little meringues, red berry gel and good vanilla ice cream. The meal concluded with three mignardise just as it had started with three breads and three butters. An intentional symmetry I suspect and one I rather like.

  I do like Mortimers and now look forward to my visits there with considerable anticipation.

Rating:- 🌞

388. Mortimers.

 

  I have reported on my very enjoyable experiences at Mortimers three times before (see Blogs 321, 302 and 159) but not since June 2023 and it’s pleasing now to report that when I chose the six course lunchtime tasting during my present stay in Ludlow I was again very impressed with the excellent food served, the location and the spot on service.

  I need not go on in depth given all that I have written before about Mortimers but Chef Patron Wayne Smith continues to send some fine and excellent dishes from his kitchen although perhaps for those customers who like to visit from time to time some of the courses would benefit from changing a little more often. The lunchtime tasting menu was broadly unchanged from my last lunch there almost nine months ago. Having said that there is at least one dish which is so gorgeously memorable that it is never a chore to have to eat it time and time again.

  The amuses bouches - an excellent cheese tartlet, a delicious blini with crab mousse and a somewhat less tasty ham hock croquette were all as familiar as old friends, the bread and butter selection too was largely unchanged but nonetheless very pleasing and I enjoyed the previously described confit chicken terrine with charred corn, successfully crispy chicken skin,grilled leek and a bonbon of black pudding which was much tastier than that in my last visit.

    The goats cheese with beetroot, a sweet beetroot sorbet which contrasted pleasingly with the cheese, sorrel and  olive bread was served in a very generous portion. The olive bread was not as hard as on my last visit and there was no danger to the long term health of my remaining teeth on this occasion but the bread had little flavour though I could see that something with a bit of texture was needed for this dish.

  And then, to a very fine dish indeed - the extraordinarily tender and tasty Herefordshire beef, cooked and seasoned immaculately - so tender that a spoon would have cut through it. This was absolutely appropriately accompanied by an excellent mash (much better than on my last visit) and sweetly roasted onions and leeks and a fine beef sauce. This finds its place on my list of the 10 best dishes of the year. It is the Pride of Mortimers.

 

  The two desserts were the same as those served on my previous visit - this time, accurately cooked rhubarb with pistachio cake, vanilla cream and pistachio ice cream. This was a definite improvement on that which was served on my previous visit. The chocolate mille feuille was presented very prettily and was as enjoyable as the last time I ate it.

  Mortimers seems to me to be as underrated as Cheal’s now in Knowle. It serves generally excellent food with at least one real gem. These are two West Midlands restaurants which restaurant critics need to take very seriously.

Chef Wayne Smith

Rating:- 🌞🌞

321. Mortimers.

  While in Ludlow I enjoyed another visit for the six course lunch at Mortimers in Corve Street. I was not disappointed with any of the dishes. There were three very pleasing amuses gueles - all of which I murmured to myself were ‘very good’ - a crispy and tasty ham hock croquette with celeriac purée, a delightful cheese tart and a pleasurable blini with crab mousse nestling on it.

   

Good things at Mortimers it seems come in threes - something of a mystical gastronomic number rooted in the distant past - and three fine breads and three fine butters next arrived at the table - goats cheese bread, sourdough and onion baguette arm-in-arm with sea salt, parsley and black olive butters (how pleasing not to be presented with the almost ubiquitous Marmite butter which lost its novelty eons ago).

    The first starter was a confit chicken terrine, nicely grilled leek and excellent shards of pleasingly sweet grilled sweetcorn with what sounded like an exciting little black pudding bonbon which sadly did not live up to its promise, being lacking in flavour and the coat not crispy enough. Next there was an excellent goats cheese mousse with accompanying pickled baby beets which had a nice balance between sweet and sharp and lovely beetroot sorbet. There was a pleasing hit of pepper, I assume from the sorrel, but the crunchy olive bread was just a little too hard for those who fear for the continuing existence of their elderly teeth. This was a pleasing dish however despite the accompanying dental jeopardy.

  

  The main course served up very fine and beautifully cooked Herefordshire beef - it was delightfully tender and adroitly seasoned and brought with it lovely, sweet roasted shallots though the confit onion mash was less successful, being rather claggy and not a great pleasure to eat. The dish was pleasingly soothed with a tasty beef sauce.

  Time for dessert - rhubarb with vanilla cream and pistachio ice cream. Sadly the rhubarb had been overcooked and reduced too much so that it lacked any bite and there was no hint of that unique sourness which gives rhubarb its raison d’être but the accompanying light pistachio cake and rhubarb meringues made this a very edible dessert despite the performance of the chief actor. The chocolate mille feuille with the accompanying happiness afforded by salted caramel that rounded off the meal ensured that Mortimers would remain a deliverer of happy memories.

Rating:- 🌞

302. Mortimers.

 

  Mortimers is located at 17 Corve Street in Ludlow, previously home to the Michelin-listed The Oaks, the two-Michelin starred Hibuscus and the one-Michelin-starred La Becasse. It got its first name from the attractive oak panelling that gives the restaurant a feeling of classy rural style and with its well-judged lighting and crisp white tablecloths it is a very attractive setting to sit back and eat a six course lunch  tasting menu (cost a remarkably good £50, an à la carte lunch can also be had for £35 which again represents very value. The service is excellent and I was delighted with the dishes served to me.

    When I write, “I was delighted” it does not really make the point that every dish was excellent, hard to fault and pleasingly memorable. Notably it has a more British feel to it than many fine restaurants - trendy Japanese ingredients are absent and chef Chris O’Halloran really brings the feel of the Marches in particular and England in general to his cuisine. If only more could find a way to follow a similar path. 

  The meal started with three cracking little ‘snacks’ - a little bomb of cheese and a sedate and charming crab and vaguely sumptuous blini. There was an excellent selection of bread - brioche, sourdough and garlic served with three butters including a robustly tasty garlic butter.

  The first starter was perhaps the least interesting course - nice slices of cold duck, a ballotine of duck which was a little short on flavour but the taste quotient was greatly upgraded by the third duck element which was a gorgeous silky parfait served on brioche all nicely complemented with various cherry elements and an orange jelly. 

  Next, there was a very happy goats cheese and beetroot dish - a number of fine elements - a beetroot meringue, a beetroot sorbet, pieces of beetroot and pickled beetroot with a goats cheese cream and little crackers to give texture. This was excellent.

  The main course was what appeared to be a straightforward beef dish but which was much more than that - generously portioned, profoundly tasty and tender Herefordshire beef served with a devilishly tasty confit onion mash, splendidly roasted shallots - moist, charred and full of the right amount of bite - and a grilled baby leek which contributed its share to the overall flavour of the dish.

  O’Halloran made a point of taking advantage of the closing days of the forced rhubarb season with a dessert of pistachio cake, a gorgeous vanilla cream, excellent pistachio ice cream and perfectly cooked rhubarb. Though I am not keen on a two dessert meal, I was not disheartened to be served with a very enjoyable chocolate dish with the flavour and texture of hazelnut and the soothing flavour of caramel ice cream.

  I loved the presentation of the mignardises in a mini-brief case and what a pleasure they were - macaroon, fudge, chocolate.

  This excellent lunch was strong evidence that O’Halloran’s Mortimers is a worthy successor to the fine restaurants which have proceeded it in that hoary old building and I look forward to visiting there again when I revisit Ludlow. 

Rating:- 🌞🌞

159. Back In The Marches.

   I am happy to say that I visit Ludlow reasonably often and am always very content to stay at Fishmore Hall where Forelles restaurant is located in its pretty little conservatory with Clee Hill in the distance looking down on it. I have reported on meals eaten at Forelles a number of times and so will not go on again at length save to say, even though former Head Chef Joe Gould  left there in May to cross the border and venture into Sturgeon (the politician not the large fish) territory. Nevertheless I had a couple of dishes this time from the à la carte menu which I had not previously tried and a great pleasure they were; Fishmore’s residual kitchen team are clearly in excellent form and spirit even if they have lost the team captain.

  As a first course I had the prettiest little starter that I have seen this year - a sophisticated dish of goats cheese with a cider jelly, caramelised red onion, parsley gel on a bed of oat and walnut bread (I think) with a pleasing potato circle and as a garnish the surely the prettiest little viola flower ever - yellow with purple veins - whose beauty should not be lost by eating it but which should be pressed in a book as a souvenir of a very fine starter.

  

During the same meal I also had an extremely delicious and powerfully flavoured main course centred on Iberico pork. This was a great pleasure - a generous helping of unctuous pork on a bed of nicely acidic gochujang, little chunks of grilled fennel and caraway seeds and soothing consommé with a crisp which mimicked  in appearance, but sadly not in flavour, a strip of pork crackling, all topped off by a courgette flower. There was also pak choi which was apt with this dish though for me it is one of those vegetables which it would have better if it had never been introduced in British restaurants, limp looking and limp flavoured - I do not blame Chef for this but instead I blame the person who first thought that mankind should eat the vegetable. However I suppose it’s greenness rounded off the visual impact of the dish, wrapping itself around the bountiful slices of pork as it did.

 

 I have been intending to dine at the Michelin-plated Mortimers in Corve Street for some time and I finally achieved my goal on this visit to the town that may be viewed as the birthplace of the modern West Midlands gastronomic revolution. Housed in the building that was home to Ken Adams’ Bib Gourmand-winning Oaks restaurant and then Claude Bosi’s Hibiscus and then Will Holland’s Le Becasse, Wayne Smith’s  Mortimers has a charming courtyard which is a good place to sit on a fine summer evening imbibing a fine Negroni and grazing on complementary olives and tiny sweet, tangy peppers before moving indoors to the gracious wood-panelled rooms where dinner is served. Perhaps the dining room is a little dark and oppressive for a long, bright summer’s evening but it certainly comes into its own as autumn draws in and the days are shorter and dignified cosiness is required (I recall that being the case from when I last visited in the dying days of Le Becasse.

  Service, after a pleasing welcome by Tamsin, Wayne Smith’s wife who comes over as an excellent host, was highly laudable throughout the meal and I felt very comfortable as the very enjoyable appetisers appeared, including an amusing mini-fish finger with little dots of tartare sauce on it and a witty little ice cream cornet filled with liver pâté plus a cheeky cheesy little tart. I was rapidly developing a mildly euphoric state of mind and this was only heightened by a fabulous scallop dish - perfectly pan-fried, delicious scallop with lardo, textures of apple and an entirely apt series of crunches provided by the presence of a scattering of fragments of toasted hazelnut. Fine dining indeed.

  

Was it to be upwards and onwards? Next came another starter, this time of Gressingham duck rillette with a happy little morsel of duck breast, a joyously sweet piece of toasted brioche and various little items which injected orange flavours into the dish. Great stuff! What could go wrong?

  It’s hard presently to have a tasting menu without a course of heritage or just in-season tomatoes slotted into it. This is often a refreshing and reviving dish opening the gates to the main course. The menu did indeed include a tomato dish at this stage - “Isle of Wight tomatoes, buratta, basil” The buratta worked well but the tomatoes were sadly disappointing, colourful but not as rich in flavour as I have had at some other restaurants in recent times and they also had a vague mushiness to them which was not altogether pleasant. I felt that this was a course which could easily be removed from the menu with a benefit to the overall meal.

  

And so to the main event - ‘Lamb, Alsace bacon, baby gem’. This dish started off at a disadvantage because next to loathsome pak choi and utterly unacceptable mange tout, charred baby gem lettuce has to rank, to me at least, as an unpleasant green thing filling but not enhancing a plate. But I rose above my prejudice and concentrated on the lamb which was deliciously and perfectly lamb-flavoured (lamb is not always as tasty as it should be). The accompanying caramelised onion was as sweet as any I have had and provided much joy.

  Being immature in my tastes, for me peas are the greenness I crave (pea shoots, green beans cooked to perfect tenderness, cauliflower, green cabbage, Savoy cabbage and Brussels sprouts (yes, I did say sprouts, with their scintillating sulphurousness) may be added to the list) and the peas in this dish were excellent but while it may be totally apt to throw in some little pieces of bacon with the peas or the baby gem (which was as edible as I expected it to be) it is not at all a happy choice to add the bacon to a dish of fine lamb whereby the potent flavour of even the smallest piece completely overwhelms the darling taste of the lamb. A dish that is winning at half time but ends up as a 2-2 draw.

 

 I do not pretend to know why we must now be served two desserts but it is a reality wherever one dines. Perhaps it is to ensure that the pastry chef has something to do though so many desserts seem to have little to do with pastry. The first was a timely, enjoyable strawberry dish, the strawberry elements filled out with a delightful pistachio sponge and a vanilla cream. I forgot to photograph it but it was a pleasure to eat. The second dessert seems to have to be chocolate-based and I understand why but I would not normally go out of my way to chose one. However this dish at Mortimers, a chocolate marquise, was happily light and easy to eat and was properly accompanied by variants on a cherry theme though the cherry ripple ice cream was not exploding with cherry flavour.

  I finished with a fine cup of coffee and was presented with three excellent petits fours including a very cheerful fudge. 

  The tasting menu was excellent value at £65 plus service. I have pinpointed some elements of the meal which did not suit me but it was an extremely pleasurable evening of good food when taken in the round and I will happily revisit Mortimers on my next visit to Ludlow. The inevitable problem with a tasting menu is that it is almost impossible that all elements of it will suit all the diners and it is much more difficult to bring off eight perfect well-conceived  courses than it is to achieve three or four optimal ones. 

  Ludlow may not yet be about to revive its golden gastronomic age but there are some fine places to eat there and Michelin stars are not everything in a gastronomic life. And as we learned recently at Simpsons the possession of a Michelin Star does not guarantee satisfaction.