British

Stockcross, Newbury, RG20 8JU

Stockcross, England

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Overall Rating (out of 10): 7.0

Stand Out Dish: goats cheese and tomato gougere

Meal Time: 1.30hrs

Ave Cost Per Head (excl. drinks): £45 (two courses)

Summary: come for the wine, stay for the food

Would I Go Back? Maybe

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In case the name didn’t give it away the Vineyard is a homage to wine. An hour outside of London by train it was opened in 1998 by Sir Peter Michael whose eponymous California winery has built up a strong reputation over many years.

As you walk into the hotel you are greeted by two impressive wine features. The first is a corridor leading to the hotel bar where both walls are backlit glass wine cellar displays on top of a glass floor revealing a vast cellar below. The second is a huge mural depicting the judgement of Paris when eleven wine experts shocked the French wine industry by rating two California wines above their French counterparts. Not surprising for a institution founded by a California vintner.

The hotel restaurant has two entrances and as a result lacks a structured greeting or theme. From the entrance the restaurant extends back and is quite large. It benefits from good art and a double height ceiling. For our dinner we were sitting in the sunken well at the back of the restaurant.

Sadly my dining partner was not a wine drinker but I had the pleasure of spending time with the list which is over 100 pages. As a particular fan of sweet wines it was pretty unique to see a restaurant list with over 8 pages dedicated to liquid gold including rarer vintages from Domaine Huet and Willi Opitz to name a few.

Instead of wine we plumped for cocktails. The planters punch was excellent and tasted like a mouthful of skittles. The whisky sour was solid but safe drink.

The gougere was absolutely fantastic. The cheese has an intense flavour and paired very well with the tomato all delivered in a perfectly baked choux pastry. The other nibble was a bit of a nothing burger due to the combination of a thick dry cracker and the subtle flavour of the lovage.

As of late I cannot eat out at a nice restaurant without having my horizons of flavoured butter or a substitute spreadable expanded. The paprika flavoured pork fat was a first a first for me but ended up being neither horrible or moreish.

We both ended up ordering the summer pie as the scallops were sold out. The savoury pie contained five different meats: chicken, pork, duck liver and two others I forget. The overall dish looked very impressive and demonstrated serious culinary skill to combine perfectly cooked range of meats with spot on pastry. The accompanying onion relish and nasturtium helped balance out the richness of the pie. Two detractions of the dish were (i) the jelly ratio was a bit too high with both of us leaving some, and (ii) the overall size of the dish was just a bit too big for a starter.

The guinea fowl was cooked just right and had an excellent stuffing below a crispy skin. The jus augmented the flavour but the real standout start was the peas. I don’t know what they did in terms of cooking method and sauce but they tasted out of this world. The lamb was beautifully presented and accompanied by creamy mash.

We skipped desert partly because nothing appealed but also because we were really full.

Verdict
Come for the wine, stay for the food. Solid cooking that is worth a short trip out of London and an overnight stay for. My only regret is that I didn’t get to pull some corks.