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Hartley Wintney is a place I have driven through on many occasions, situated on the A30 in greenest Hampshire, the home of many antique shops and several restaurants and pubs, with a traditional look to the village, with one main road running from one end of the village to the other. It has always given me the impression of being an ideal place to live in retirement, all the amenities and picturesque surroundings.
Well, now that Sue and I have actually spent more than a few minutes in the place, that very idea of retirement in Hartley Witney seems even more attractive, especially as we had experience of the culinary gems that are produced from the kitchens of The Pour House, a Brasserie beginning to attract a large and enthusiastic following from the wider reaches Hampshire as well as nearby Berkshire.
A warm April evening saw Sue and I enter the narrow entrance of the Pour House, past the outside but sheltered and heated tables offering guests a little continental touch of drinking and dining. The interior proved highly stylish, with co-ordinated colours, shining wooden tables and crystal clear wines glasses adorning each table, attractive enough for Sue to ask their make, Villeroy and Boch in fact. There to meet us and have a few words was Daniel Clarke, Executive Chef, and driving force within the restaurant. He exuded enthusiasm as we exchanged industry stories, tales of menus, restaurants we had or indeed would like to visit, his enthusiasm and passion for his craft being underlined with each sentence.
The Pour House offers a varied menu, or rather a series of menus. Upon my departure, as is my love, I left with copies of the menu for my increasing collection. In my impressive pack were the Evening Menu, the one we had used, a Daytime Menu, an Express Lunch Menu as well as a Sunday Brunch Menu. And I also left with a full and extremely comprehensive Drinks Menu, with a wonderful array of cocktails that would have not been out of place in some of the established hotels of Park Lane. This was a fair reflection of the care and consideration taken by the management to ensure the comfort and contentment of the increasing numbers of diners adding the Pour House to their list of regular haunts. Our visit certainly ensured that we too added our names to that list, our next visit may be to enjoy the lazy delights of Sunday Brunch, served with a wide range of Sunday papers!
Our Evening Menu in hand we set about our choices for the evening, with our usual indecision. Our deliberations were aided by the arrival of a delicate white plate with three smaller and ornate dishes containing a small selection of marinated olives, sun blushed tomatoes and roasted pistachio nuts, setting the scene for what was to follow.
Sue selected the Oven baked Crottin goats cheese with aubergine and spicy onion chutney, served with a sweet mustard dressing. The bright white of the cooked cheese, firm and moist, contrasting with the supporting acts, the spicy chutney, delicately spiced, and the aubergine combined to create an enjoyable and tasty starter, I was offered and gratefully accepted a mouthful, and was pleased to do so. Goats cheese is everywhere now, especially among the starters of this world, and this was a fresh and imaginative dish to launch our evening of culinary discovery.
I was attracted to the king prawn & pineapple brochette, mange tout and sesame salad with the addition of a spicy prawn sauce, a delightful light starter with the main ingredients served on wooden skewers. Fresh, simple and yet very refreshing, reflecting much of the aims and objectives from Daniel when we discussed food beforehand. The food is the most important aspect in any restaurant, and it was obvious even at this stage that Daniel was a chef with respect for the food on offer, with no inclination to disguise the key elements of each dish with superfluous supporting acts and unnecessary elaborations.
It was at his time, reflecting on the surroundings, and the carefully created interior with subtle contrasting light and dark colours, that we were able to enjoy the delights of the brasserie, and the bubbling conversation among the other diners as the place was now full, and close friends were discussing the gossip of the day, others were eagerly awaiting the orders from the next table in order to sharpen their choice. Sue and I were also able to savour the delights of our wine, a smooth Peter Lehmann Weighbridge 2003, a Shiraz to rival any below the
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Alan McColm is QFOL's Restaurant Critic and Travel reviewer. Alan is working all over the country ... more
