Restaurant Scrapbook - The Vineyard at Stockcross

Having just received it's second Michelin star, The Vineyard at Stockcross in Berkshire is the closest restaurant to me that can boast the accolade, so had been on the menu, as it were, for some time. The Vineyard is the archetypal Michelin venue - beautiful old furniture, decor stuck in a bygone era, and old-school obsequious service. None of these features particularly appeal to me normally, which is why I tend to eschew the Michelin guide in favour of more open-minded guides, but I cannot deny the M inspectors know their food, and the Vineyard did not disappoint.

AMUSE BOUCHE - WHITE ONION ESPUMA WITH HAM HOCK BEIGNET


Quite possibly the best dish of the night for all of us - the espuma just vanished on the tongue leaving a whiff of salty-sweet onionyness, and the beignet was crammed with meltingly tender meat, the combination of the two was simply ethereal!

ANJOU SWAB (PIGEON) WITH MULLED WILD BLACKBERRIES & TREACLE



SUCKLING PIG TERRINE WITH IT'S OWN BLACK PUDDING


Fabulous chunks of meat, interspersed with slivers of creamy pate, and a little dot of black pudding nestling in the whole mosaic.
Served with a gorgeous
APRICOT CHUTNEY

Served in a dinky little kilner jar! How cute?! I loved the idea of serving small portions of accompaniment (the butter as well) on small squares of slate - very nice!

WILD VENISON, PARSNIP PUREE & PICKLED PEARS



ORGANIC CHICKEN WITH SMOKED SWEETCORN & CEP CREAM


Not sure what happened to the sweetcorn in this dish, the puree was definitely parsnip and as you can see there's a lot of other things going on on the plate! The slab at the bottom is a mini carpet of stuffing - very clever! The chicken was divine - how chicken ought to taste but so rarely does - unashamedly 'chickeny'.

BEEF FILLET + OTHERS



I've lost track of what else was going on on this plate (see my note)

DESSERT - CUCUMBER, LIME & YOGHURT WITH MANGO


Probably the second-best dish of the night, I was hunched over this little baby trying to fend off the envious spoons of my fellow diners! As I recall, the 'cucumber and lime' was the slightly jellied liquid that forms the pond, the yoghurt was the mousse on the side (with a hint of something else?) and the mango, obviously, is the gloriously yellow mound of semi-frozen light and fluffy puree. Heaven.

As a food blogger, the biggest (and indeed, only) frustration with The Vineyard had nothing to do with the food, but the menu itself is exceptionally vague (a sample listing would be 'cucumber, lime, mango yoghurt' - and a dish with a name like that could be anything). In theory, the waiters 'describe' the dish in more detail when they present it to you, but their accents are so thick (French), and their delivery so mumbled, that I struggled to understand, and my tastebuds weren't always up to scratch on working out what was what on each plate! Nonetheless, we'll definitely be going back again, the food was simply too good not to.