Lunch / £££ / 8/10

I would normally try and include a photo of the place I review from the outside to give you a feel for the area and it’s surroundings. The Hammer and Pincers and February royally scuppered that plan. We visited on the wettest Friday in February (Happy Birthday to me!) and it is on a busy country road without a pavement. I will remark it was ‘seasonal and rural’ but had we been going to somewhere that wasn’t so widely praised I might have been more reluctant to leave the warmth of my house.

A friend had messaged me earlier in the week singing the praises of the set menu as it is very good value for money and I knew I would be able to get a good glass of wine so was excited. As soon as you walk in, the Hammer and Pincers is very understated and stylish, nothing shouts but there is a background hum of ‘this is all very nice isn’t it?’.

The host from World Service (RIP) is now at the Hammer and Pincers and I found a familiar face reassuring. When presented with 3 courses for £45 I was going to have three but agreed with The Northerner strategic ordering was needed so we could try as much of the menu as possible without the other feeling like their arm had been twisted. We ordered (is it correct/proper to order pudding with starter and main when you know what you are going to have? I have always wondered) and both liked the pre starter of a pakora with yoghurt. Was it too big for one mouthful? Yes. Did it matter? No, it isn’t a canape and we had cutlery.

The bread and butter was also warm, salty and a great way to start. I went for the cured and smoked sea trout for a starter which was so lightly flavoured it shouldn’t have worked well with the pickling and horseradish but the kitchen found a beautiful balance and it never tripped in to too much heat or acidity. The Northerners lamb ragu was like a mouthful of soft comfort, the pasta had no bite left but the ragu and sheep’s cheese added a flavour complexity to the dish that kept it interesting. He was very happy.

I am a fussy bugger about potatoes (don’t like crushed, don’t like mashed) so The Northerner had the Sea bream and I went for the souffle for main. I was hoping after the ragu it would be the same kind of comfort, looking out the window as the sleet came down.

When it arrived I was a bit disappointed, it had height yes but there was only a smudge of sauce underneath it and a side of roasted (but no extra sauce) leeks on a separate dish. It is at this point I realised I now compare all souffles to that of Langar Hall. This one felt lacking, there wasn’t enough sauce to make it feel indulgent and that was really what I was after. The kitchen weren’t to know that. However, I would ask anyone sending that plate out the kitchen where the sauce was. The Northerner had a very competently cooked fish and mash but the dish lacked crunch or bite – by this point he’d had a lot of soft food. I am holding the Hammer and Pincers to the standard it whispers when you walk in and from the recommendation I had. Neither of these criticisms took each dish lower than an 8 out of 10 though.

We would normally share a pudding but ….. 3 courses for £45. I ordered the cheesecake and realised as it arrived the bit I like most about the cheesecake is the biscuit base. I knew the Basque cheesecake wouldn’t have one but in the past the creamy texture and burnt top made up for this, unfortunately this one had neither and felt a bit ‘eggy’. I missed the biscuit base as I was a bit done with the lack of textures by this point. The cheesecake could have learnt a thing or two form the bread and butter pudding. The ‘light as air custard’ that surrounded it had been blowtorched so the taste of burnt sugar was the main feature, this was slightly at odds with the apricot sorbet. Burnt cream and citrus sorbet did not make happy bedfellows and after we ate all the crunchy bits on the plate we left the rest.

We were bought a tiny teacake to finish the meal which was a generous end to a lovely lunch. When something starts well and gets less so towards the end you walk away with a lower opinion than if something starts badly and ends well. This combined with my personal truth that a pudding is as (if not more so) important than a main course meant it wasn’t until reviewing the meal as a whole I found myself reminiscing fondly.