Fischer’s is all Alice bands, chintz and over-stuffed pillows. It would be funny if the food wasn’t so damn good
Baslow, Derbyshire (01246 583 259). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £120
How long does it take for the dated to become a much-loved classic? In the 90s we looked back on the fancy French Robin’s Nest food of the 70s – snails in their shells with garlic butter, duck à l’orange, profiteroles – and sniggered quietly to ourselves. How old hat. How terribly, terribly unadventurous. How unstylish and, well, unsophisticated. Now a place that does those dishes is held up as a bastion of quiet good taste. And it’s not just the ones like Otto’s on London’s Gray’s Inn Road, which bring a modern flourish to the making of steak tartare tableside. A restaurant like Oslo Court in London’s St John’s Wood where there’s Melba toast on the table, grilled grapefruit for starters, a sweet trolley and it’s always 1975, is swooned over.
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