‘No chef should send out a roast potato without crunch’

Thornbury Castle Hotel & Restaurant

LOCATION

Castle Street Thornbury Bristol BS35 1HH thornburycastle.co.uk

STAR RATING

LUNCH FOR TWO

Three courses excluding drinks and service: £75

THE MENU

STARTERS

Brandade

•

Leek velouté

MAINS

Stone bass

•

Slow-roasted Stoke Marsh beef with vegetables

DESSERT

Muscovado tart

If one wanted to build or extend a dwelling to make it a castle in the early 16th century, there was an additional burden in obtaining planning consent. For, as well as uploading your application to the local authority’s planning portal, or whatever they did in those days (get the town crier to announce, ‘Hear ye, hear ye, thoust big, fat, rich noble planneth to erect an extension that could containeth six cattle sheddes!’), you needed to seek the King’s permission: what with overlarge castles threatening the monarch.

So, when the third Duke of Buckingham, Edward Stafford, decided that his manor house didn’t quite represent his self-perception, he applied for a licence to crenellate. Which, on 6 July 1510, he was duly granted.

The resulting edifice was Thornbury Castle, which still stands in a flat, unassuming part of Gloucestershire, 15 miles from Bristol. Stafford would have been minded not to upset the King, Henry VIII, as his father was executed by Richard III. But it wasn’t his crenellations that irked the sovereign – who cut his head off for treason in 1521.

Today you can dine in the castle, recently refurbished and with the warmth of wonderful service and heating that I don’t suppose would have attended Stafford.

We had drinks in a magnificent drawing room, by a roaring fire, Virgin Marys for us, apple juice and Play-doh for the tinies; then it was into one of the two dining rooms, a hexagonal space with one large window, a few narrow embrasures and some terrible, faded reproduction pictures of Henry VIII and his ilk.

It was one of those rooms that echo with the near-silence of British diners, of muted chat and whispers. You either join

this cacophony of reticence or feel like your every word is heard by your neighbours. Perhaps it was a godsend that Walter and Barney broke the spell of hush by beating their cutlery on their plates.

While Walter had an off-menu burger and Barney pumpkin and sage risotto – and they stuck their fingers in the air to confer ‘thumbs up’ – I started with brandade, traditionally a wholesome emulsion of salt cod. Mine was a two-mouthful dollop of green foam decorated with fennel tops, turned cucumber and some translucent crackling of a gentle fishy nature. Quite pleasant but wildly insubstantial; a castle without crenellations, if you like. Emily fared better with a deeply green leek ‘velouté’: an elegant, velvety and flavoursome soup. She then had a piece of stone bass, a very nearly extremely good fish dish, but about a minute undercooked.

I had slow-roasted rump of Stoke Marsh beef and it was tender, pink and faultless. It came on a large chopping board, the idea to present a spirit of largesse. Of course everything on it then goes cold quite quickly. And while the cauliflower cheese, carrots and greens were decent, whoever cooked the potatoes and parsnips needed a telling off.

No chef should send out a roasted potato unless they know it has crunch and crisp, or every diner out there who likes to cook Sunday lunch at home will moan that theirs is better.

The kids eagerly devoured their offmenu brownies with honeycomb as I dealt with a muscovado tart: it was like one of those desserts chefs pump out to 200 diners at a wedding venue, pretty but with no crunch, no richness and no sugary joy.

Nice castle, but it needs some fire in its belly as roaring as the one in the drawing room.