Foodie thoughts

OH TO BE SERVED LIKE A QUEEN AGAIN

I miss going out. Anyone will tell you that my absolute favourite thing to do is sit round a table with friends, food and booze. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 12-course tasting menu with wine flight, starched white linen and the implicit need to whisper, or fish & chips perched on a sea wall with a pint.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been paid to eat for the last 15 or so years, and just when I think “I can’t face another restaurant this week” I pull myself together, adjust my pinching diamond slippers and sally forth. Often that unwanted dinner is the most memorable.

It happened last year on a tour of Cumbria for a well-known national restaurant guide (I could tell you but I’d have to kill you). We’d had fine-dining dinners on four consecutive nights and all we wanted on the fifth was pie & chips down the pub. But we put our slap on and honoured our booking at Allium at Askham Hall, and had an unforgettable evening. I won’t bore you with the courses; suffice to say, chef Richard Swale’s cooking was faultless – but you know as well as I do it’s never just about the food.

We were welcomed into an elegant wood-panelled lounge with a fireplace as big as my house, modern art on the walls, faded antique carpets and ticking clocks. The smiling sommelier, Nico Chieze, resplendent in a sharp tweed waistcoat and a Central Casting accent, helped us make sense of the wine list and twinkled without even a hint that he’d twigged that we didn’t know about wine when we said choose something for us.

Dining in historic halls often means sniffy service and not much in the way of fun, but the vibe here was sweet and easy, and even though there was just one other couple in, we were all treated like queens.

We floated out into the warm night air, full, happy and counting our blessings not the calories.