As often the case when we’re travelling, we’d turned to the Good Food Guide to find somewhere to eat. In fact, we’d been fairly specific on this trip, wanting a nice restaurant in a nice hotel. Horta is one of two restaurants at the Rudding Park Hotel and an allowance of £41 person is included in your room rate to contribute towards the cost of dinner.
Horto offers two menus – a tasting menu and a very short carte with just three choices at each course. We don’t mind tasting menus as such, although they do now seem very Noughties and, given the choice, these days we’d always prefer to eat a traditional three courses.
There were pig cheeks to start. Very long cooked, so the meat fell apart at the touch of the a fork and served with shredded cabbage , a pickled vegetable (celeriac ?) and a rich sauce which just coated the meat. The other starter was a sort of “textures of tomato” affair – fresh ones, semi dried ones and some that had been fried to a crisp (intentionally – and it works) They sat on a goats cheese cream and a tomato broth is poured over it all. Very light and summery.
For one main course, there was a perfectly cooked fillet of turbot. It came with onions – a bit oddly, as some were pickled – and an elderflower hollandaise sauce. Thankfully, the flavour of elderflower was barely noticeable. It could easily have been overdone and ruined the delicate flavour of the fish. The other plate was a “venison two ways” – a couple of spoonfuls of some very long cooked bit of Bambi and two perfectly rare slices of loin. It came with baby beetroot and a really powerful sauce which worked really well. But, like the pig cheeks, this felt more an autumn dish than an August one.
Main courses come with a choice of a single side – potato, vegetable or leaf salad. We ordered potatoes – one of those purple ones – and vegetables – cauliflower and broccoli served very al dente (too al dente in fact). There was enough of each to share between us.
As we’d walked into the restaurant, we’d seen the cheeses set out on a table – a good sign that the restaurant knows its cheese and, unlike too many places, isn’t going to serve you fridge cold stuff. And when it was confirmed that all were British cheeses, that was a decision made for both of us. Good decision! This was top quality cheese, served with biscuits and a homemade overly sharp gooseberry and fennel chutney.
Service was generally good but there was an issue which delayed the arrival of cheese for quite a while. Sat at the next table was a total food bore who three members of staff chatted to for the best part of an hour, with him regaling each in turn with the same stories of his restaurant exploits elsewhere. There really is no need to demonstrate your foody credentials in this way, matey. Not least when politeness means that staff cannot get away to get back to their job of serving customers.
We’d had a nice time (food bore excepted). We’d normally celebrate an “event” with a Michelin starred meal. But, whilst this isn’t Michelin star quality, it was certainly enjoyable in its own right.
