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'For this standard of cooking, the prices are as gentle as a caress. If this were in France, the bill would give you the bends'
It's no secret that I'm disenchanted with the restaurant style known, clunkily, as "fine dining". What a crooked-pinkie Hyacinth Bucket of a phrase that is, summing up everything that's buttock-clenching about gastronomy's high end. I've endured too many dishes looking like Mondrians with skid marks, too many rooms offering all the fun of a date with a fruitarian, to get excited about multi-course degustations served by chaps in gloves.
I whinged about this to my restaurant writer chum Richard McComb, and he said, "You should go to Le Champignon Sauvage." So, biddable as ever, I do. And my shallow heart sinks at what looks like a former boozer just far enough away from the chichi bit of Cheltenham. (An aside: Cheltenham must be the most middle-class town ever: it has shopping streets lined with caryatids.) I resolve not to mention the rather dull little room, nor its reliance on carpet and veneer panelling. And, quite clearly, fail.
But oh my giddy Cheltenham aunt, the food. Either I'm missing something and have failed to see the dreaded 17-course tasting menu called something like Menu Prestige (a Big Sweary Gordon Ramsay trick half-inched from Guy Savoy and designed to make you feel, if you don't order it, like the poor relation), or they've decided to let people order what they'd like at prices that, for this standard of cooking, are as gentle as a caress. If this were in France, the bill would give you the bends.
Chef David Everitt-Matthias is a remarkable chap, adhering to some kind of laughable philosophy about a chef's place being in the kitchen. It'll never catch on. And long before René Redzepi "invented" foraging, his menus featured the bounty of local fields and woodlands. But you won't see him flogging his wares on TV while flunkies run the kitchen. He hasn't missed a service in 25 years.
Here are some highlights from a remarkable dinner. There's pigeon breast, deep burgundy, just the right side of over-ripeness. It comes with a delicate, pastry-wrapped pastilla of the rest of the bird, confited and scented with cinnamon and scattered with pistachios, garnet-coloured morello cherries and a sauce with the sour-sweet note of rosehips. A surprise: one of those morellos turns out to be intense cherry jelly, with a vanilla crisp as its stalk.
Or lamb, rosy and tender, with the spiky bitterness of young dandelion leaves. Clouds of goat's curd and small cushions of sweetbread add sultry texture, and a hint of orange pulls it all together. Dishes feature fungi and foraged leaves – fleshy little stonecrop, or tart sorrel – but all add something rather than simply box-ticking a trend.
There are, of course, the inevitable amuses (I'm still perving over the weeny bacon and sweetcorn muffins), pre-desserts and petits fours. But it's not tricksy. The flavours are massive, telling stories of pure, powerful stocks and fine ingredients. The menu doesn't bore on about provenance: it doesn't need to. David E-M's confidence in his abilities and techniques allows him to underplay to mesmerising effect. But there's modernity, too: the malty "milk crumbs" clinging to some caramelised salsify.
We order a ridiculous-sounding dessert out of mischief. It proves to be the most extraordinary dish of the bunch: a play on a spectrum of flavours, from the most vivid citrus – orange jelly that tastes like essence of all the world's oranges – to quenelles of liquorice cream. Wow, just wow.
Atmosphere and buzz are provided by people: the brisk, clued-up staff and Helen, Everitt-Matthias's wife, distributor of welcome, knowledge and warmth. Punters include tables of middle-aged gal pals, couples of all ages and persuasions, even children: if (urgh) fine dining can be described as democratic, this is it. It might not convert me to the whole pantomime, but hats off to the Everitt-Matthiases. And thanks to Richard.
• Le Champignon Sauvage 24-26 Suffolk Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, 01242 573449. Open Tues-Sat, 12.30-1.30pm, 7.30-8.30pm. Two courses £48, three courses £59, four courses (with cheese and dessert) £69. Set lunch/dinner: two courses £26, three courses £32. All plus drinks and service.
Food 10/10
Atmosphere 6/10
Value for money 9/10
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