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'Boy, can this pair write a menu. Every dish is something you'd like to eat, all peppered with contemporary foodie button-pushers'
Our drive to this Arcadian idyll takes us past several wild ponies. We townies go all gooey-eyed: aww. "Those?" our taxi driver dampens our spirits. "About 600 of 'em get knocked down a year."
We've driven though Lyndhurst, a typical New Forest small town with its tea rooms and half-timbering and Maserati dealership, and then on to this ravishing hotel, which does a glamorous, understated job of not looking like it's just had about 30 million quid's worth of renovations. A posh youth dressed head to toe in tweed ushers us into a chic urbanista's fantasy of the perfect country house, the sort of place where captains of industry don self-conscious denim and owners of Soho production companies pine for a plus-four.
Lime Wood is firmly in the Babington House model: not so much gin'n'jag as Sipsmiths'n'Bentley. Previously, its restaurant was dedicated to "fine dining", but boss Robin Huston (ex Hotel du Vin) insists this new incarnation, featuring existing chef Luke Holder with new recruit, celeb chef Angela Hartnett, is all about "fun dining". And if you want fun, you could do worse than employ Martin Brudniski (Dean Street Townhouse, Hix) as designer. He's never done a dud, and this is no exception. From the Regency windows to the glossy-berry leathers, dark marbles and Missoni-style fabrics (not forgetting those hip-restaurant-du-jour signifiers, a couple of Tracey Emins and a scarlet meat-slicer), it's a room you want to sink into with several bottles of posh booze and never leave.
And, boy, can the titular duo write a menu. Every dish is something you'd like to eat, all peppered with contemporary foodie button-pushers: oyster mayonnaise, braised treviso, apple slaw, chicken skins, Jurassic rose veal chop and, sexiest of all, smokehouse. One of which squats in the extensive grounds, rammed with gently bronzing pig and salmon. Their own-cured sausages and hams decorate the handsome central bar and turn up in a plate of charcuterie: coppa, bresaola, chorizo. I admire the initiative, but they're not a patch on their Continental counterparts: too salty and pungent, chewy and oily. Gammon broth, too, poured over a bendy little cheese on toast, is wildly oversalted and cough-making with pepper.
Hartnett's pasta is legendary, and the hero dish here is agnolotti, the egg-yolk-yellow pasta super-thin but tensile, the parcels partitioned into two, one half filled with guinea fowl, the other a squelch of milky burrata. A slick of reduced game juice beefed up with butter and Madeira, and a hail of Parmesan: wow. Reports vary as to the amount of time Hartnett is spending here, but her influence is unmistakable. Same with gnocchi, their wild rabbit ragù lubricated with own-made lardo, the dumplings made with almost too light a hand. Slow-cooked, spoonable pigs' cheeks are another Hartnett keynote. But there are irritating conceits: lots of copper dishes; calling a classic – and excellent – tarte tatin a "torta", doubtless a nod to her oft-quoted Italian nonna. Never has a relative been put to such comprehensive use since a Rolling Stone allegedly snorted the ashes of his departed pa.
Perfection? Perhaps not. But an improvement on the prevailing stuffy country house aesthetic? Hell, yes. Even if the frequently condescending staff could do with a sharp boot up the jacksie: we don't ask, but are lectured on what burrata is, and treviso. We're not booked into the hugely expensive hotel, so need a cab again. Our handsome waiter smiles pityingly: "Are you staying at a little B&B?"
It's the same taxi driver. We marvel at the car park's luxury motors and he tells us with his gallows cheer, "Ah, they like to drink and drive round here." Which might account for the aforementioned roadkill. The actual number, concerned animal lovers, is actually more like 60-odd; I suspect he enjoys hamming it up for a bunch of entitled visitors. A bit like Hartnett Holder & Co.
• Hartnett Holder & Co Lime Wood Hotel, Beaulieu Road, Lyndhurst, Hampshire 023-8028 7177. Open all week, noon-11pm. Three courses with drinks and service, £50-plus a head.
Food 6/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Value for money 7/10
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