Lime Wood lives up to the Angela Hartnett promise

There’s much hand-wringing these days about the effects of positive screening on social media. Because we only share the best of our lives, the idea goes, people are lured into a damaging, un-achieveable and unending cycle of keeping up with the proverbial Joneses. The hand-wringers seem to discount the possibility of any common sense that reasons posts are probably the best minute of an otherwise tough day, or understand those glamorous holiday photos as a reward earned after a year of earnest toil. Evidently we need to show our work to get credit on this exam.

Last week, I could have shared my disgruntlement with two consecutive commutes getting caught in train delays through Waterloo after days coping with London’s sticky heat. (The climate may be changing, but England’s ability to deal with a heat wave remains abysmal.) On the second, thinking I was being clever by re-routing through Paddington, I arrived at Reading to find the last train to Basingstoke cancelled. I could have done much better things with the £45 taxi fare it required to get home. Then there was the excessive tooth pain I was trying to mask all week with unwise levels of ibuprofen. Turns out a hairline fracture my dentist has had her eye on for years may finally be giving way. I’m not sure which will be more painful, the root canal to come or the bill that will equal 20% of my first job’s annual salary. Meanwhile, at work, a legal department’s excessive (IMHO) interpretation of data protection legislation just added a Herculean task to a project I thought concluded.

There was, in short, not a great deal worth celebrating last week. I could have Instagrammed a photo of my molar, but … really? Nobody likes a moaner. I suffered in silence. Thus I felt I was getting a bit of karmic reward when I discovered that the restaurant some friends were treating us to on Friday night was the Lime Wood Hotel. (That was on my Instagram feed before starters hit the table.)

Lime Wood is a country house hotel and restaurant sitting in classic Georgian splendour on the Northern edge of Hampshire’s New Forest. The restaurant here was my culinary hero Angela Hartnett’s first foray outside of London, with business partner and fellow chef Luke Holder. It had been on our “must try” list since she started her association in 2014, but we'd never managed it. To get there by unplanned serendipity was a treat.

This is a very different proposition from either Hartnett’s flagship Murano or her Murano Cafes, but her signature touches are there: tiny, succulent arancini as pre-meal snacks; traditional Italian four-course organisation (anti pasti, pasta, mains and dessert); and an Italian-style focus on simple dishes done well. But the menu (top photo) and décor take their inspiration from the house. There's no doubt you're in England here, with formal gardens and classic perennial borders on view outside, cozy upholstery, classic prints and warm wood inside.  The menu celebrates local ingredients:  Wooley Park Farm guinea fowl, Glenarm estate beef, catch of the day from the nearby coast. Everything was presented in a style that, like the room, balanced elegance and informality.

I started with an exquisite little deep-fried artichoke (above) served on a foundation of partially sun-dried tomatoes; they'd been dried enough to intensify their flavour and get a bit chewy, but still qualified as fresh produce. My veal chop main was succulent, pink and substantively different from beef ... something that, sadly, doesn't happen enough in this country. Italian-influenced cuisine typically isn't known for its sauces, but they made both my dishes. There were raves around the table for other choices: a barely-solid burrata on slices of fruit, the day's fresh-caught red mullet, that guinea fowl. Generous portions ... including refills on bread and arancini before the main meal ... left us too stuffed for desert.

We adjourned instead to the courtyard around which the square house was built. No doubt a service yard in its original creation, it's now a chic yet country-casual cocktail lounge with a glass roof that slides open on glorious days. Coffee came with little bowls of new season cherries, another nod to Hartnett's constant message that the finest ingredients need little embellishment. 

I was particularly impressed by the local nature of the place. Yes, there were obviously exceptionally well-heeled visitors staying in the hotel rooms. But our friends weren't the only regulars recognised and warmly welcomed by the staff. At a table near us, two such locals had popped in for a drink and a quick snack in the courtyard before heading off somewhere else. It's basically the local pub every foodie dreams of: Michelin-quality food in a laid-back atmosphere with a staff that remembers you and treats you as a beloved guest. It's a shame ... though probably a blessing for our wallets ... that Lime Wood is an hour away from our house. 

I wonder if Angela and Luke could be enticed to acquire one of Sherfield-on-Loddon's charming but deeply average pubs? Perhaps the power of positive thinking can influence them. I'd better get Instagramming.