Restaurants
CARACTÈRE, LONDON W11 THE COMPASSES, TISBURY, WILTS
Concept restaurants are sadly a thing of the past. I wish I had been around in the Fifties to be served Scampus Tartarus by waiters in togas, at Villa dei Cesari or the Roman Room in Brompton Road.
There was even a firm called Décor Extraordinaire whose sole purpose was to help restaurateurs distract customers from the plate in front of them. They could let you have a Bali Hai kit for just under £300, complete with myriad tropical plants including a nine-foot palm tree with six fronds (some illuminated), plus four warrior shields, ten warrior spears and five illuminated masks. In the Seventies, I loved the Cossack band at Borshtch ’n’ Tears, and Flanagan’s where the whole restaurant sang along to music-hall ditties (‘The girl I love is up in the gallery…’). Then came the Eighties when we had to take ourselves seriously.
I very rarely go to Notting Hill. This is partly due to its mandatory epithet ‘trendy’ – justifiable if ‘trendy’ denotes smug, humourless and entitled or titled. Yet I had read rave reviews of Caractère, so I insisted that we five head up east. Sacrificing over 50 years of Le Gavroche élan, Emily Roux and her husband Diego have opened the most up-itself restaurant since Sexy Fish. You are forewarned: the waiters behave like gladiators (though sadly don’t dress like them).
Simon doesn’t drink wine, so, in lieu, was offered Kombucha, a sweetened green tea; Sarah’s wine was poured into a glass to the left of her place setting. When she moved it to the right, Maximus moved it back, telling us, ‘That’s how we do things here.’ Instead of the well-established subdivision of dishes into starters, main courses and so on, each dish was placed under one of six character traits (Curious, Subtle, Delicate, Robust, Strong and Greedy) because ‘Emily and Diego love to express personality through cooking and hospitality’. Adam and I agreed to share a duck for £68, imagining that were our dish to be brought back to life it would be able to fly to the Round Pond. Disappointingly, we were given one breast between us.
Needless to say, the waitress interrupted our conversation to list every ingredient on our unhappy plates. Why not pull up a chair? Then their training really kicked in: they took the old Parisian line of treating us like ingénus happy only with beans on toast. They were half-right.
What a relief to find its antithesis in the shape of the Compasses Inn, halfway between Stourhead and Salisbury. A free house which, from the narrow road, could easily be mistaken for a tiny barn, it is the most unwrecked pub you’re ever likely to visit. High-backed pews, inglenook fireplace, low beams and no bullshit. Punters can even barter eggs, veg and game for dinner. No wonder it’s bursting. Even when Robert, our antique-dealer friend, corrected the owner’s claim that the pub was medieval, nothing but bonhomie was radiated, especially when Robert told him it was the best food in the area. The menu is split between pub dishes like haddock and chips for £12.50 and main courses like my delicious beef, bacon ragu for just £16. They serve Butcombe bitter and 500ml carafes of wine for just £13.50. Stay the night so you can have real kippers for breakfast. It has all the caractère you could possibly desire.
Caractère, 209 Westbourne Park Road, London W11 1EA; tel: 020 8181 3850; www.caractererestaurant.com; 3-course lunch £39
The Compasses Inn, Lower Chicksgrove, Tisbury, Salisbury SP3 6NB; tel: 01722 714318; www.thecompassesinn.com; rooms from £90