I was sitting on the sofa earlier on, alternating between doom scrolling and Clash of The Clans on my phone, mentally working through what Fantasy Football transfer will get me off bottom of the league that I still owe Al Springer twenty quid for, and occasionally glancing up at TV to speculate who the hooded attacker is for The Vision even if I couldn’t care less. Sophie was on her break, probably secretly a little frustrated that the only thing I’d managed to do that morning was fetch a disappointing wrap from Damanscena and spill some of said wrap down the top that she categorically asked me not to spill food down. And I was frustrated too. My backlog of work and people to chase and invoices to send growing in my slumber. I turned to her and said “Hey, remember that conversation that we had a week ago that I brushed off? Maybe you are right. Maybe it’s not Seasonal Affective Disorder that gets me down and maybe I am just missing Mom more than I care to admit at Christmas. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that this has happened every year for ten years and that I still get sad when it’s dark in the UK even when we are on the other side of the world on a beach. Maybe it’s not helped by not speaking to my brother for the best part of the year and the looming dread that my ageing Dad might not be as invincible as I dreamed he would be”. She looks and smiles. “Yep” she said “And that’s why it continues into Feb when it’s her birthday and March when it’s the anniversary of her death. But I don’t want you to be sad. We’ll get through it together”. And that’s why I married her. That and a million other reasons, like her ability to stack a dishwasher like she is playing Tetris.
I don’t know why I mentioned that. I do, actually, I know all too well. It’s the very reason I set this blog up. Not to make friends because I have too many of them already, get famous, attend events with people I have nothing in common with, or to get sent cookies in the post that I have to pretend are nice. It’s because writing (albeit badly) has always been self-therapy to me. It’s the chance for me to free my mind of its many thoughts by putting it into the ether, whether good or bad, and it just so happens that I really like being in restaurants and the pleasure of eating out (oi oi). This could have easily ended-up a blog on any of my other loves in life; Radiohead, cinema, Simon Carlo, 90’s hip-hop, or attitude-era wrestling, but it’s not, it’s restaurants. I met Nathan Eades through this very blog, back when he was head chef of Simpsons. He moved to the Cotswolds and I went and visited at the really fancy pub in Kingham, and then again when he opened the first of his pubs in Kineton. Nathan returned the favour by driving to Brum on a miserable Monday evening to record a podcast about mental health in chefs. It was a great recording, often difficult but always probing, and I left with even more respect for him as a man than I had before we pressed play, aware of the importance of talking when we’re feeling down. Sadly that piece of recording was part of the ones that was afflicted by the issues of season two of the podcast and it remains in the great unlistened pile with some proper stellar stuff.
So, Hollow Bottom, his third pub in just over a year. We went on a horrible Friday night, leaving Harbone as the sun started to fall at exactly 4pm and arriving in the Cotswolds at six-forty-five, well over double the time that Google Maps said it would take. We rush up to the small but beautifully appointed room, Sophie showers and I phone downstairs for a Guiness. Back down stairs for a negroni and an old fashioned whilst the wife has an excellent cosmo. The pub is beautiful, the kind that Jude Law got drunk in whilst pining for Cameron Diaz in The Holiday; all honey-stoned walls the colour of shortbread and beams low enough to trouble my haircut. There are dogs and a fireplace and pictures of horses all over the wall which makes sense given how close we are to Cheltemham. Sophie doesn’t like horseracing, it’s why she would later ask for dessert to come with vanilla ice cream and not whipped mascarpone. That’s her joke. Add her sense of humour to the reasons I married her.
Like the group’s other two pubs, they want you to believe that this is just pub food when it’s really anything but. There is finesse and swagger to everything. This easily apparent from the off why they are turning people away that evening from the fully booked dining room. We get three starters between the two of us; a prawn cocktail that arrives in a half pint glass, all seventies chic, with delicate prawns and a marie rose sauce the correct shade of retro. There is a handsome brute of a scotch egg made with partridge, venison, and grouse, quintessential Cotswold shoot day fare, funky in profile and needing that runny yolk to tone it down, and rarebit with pickled walnut puree that is maybe a little out of sync and could handle more cheese and less walnut.
I’m trying really hard here to be objective with those starters, though I appreciate you may see that otherwise, because I don’t have a single bad word to say about the mains. Sophie loves her cod. Really loves her cod. The fish is impeccable quality, hidden under a thatch of green beans and new potatoes licked in a herby butter dotted with capers. And likewise I really love my fish and chips. A fillet of hake so long it overhangs the plate on both sides, with a batter that crackles like bubble wrap when approached. There are lovely chips, a fantastic tartare sauce and ‘crushed’ peas because the word mushy scares the Londoners who scare the locals at weekends. It’s £19, and I only mention that because I struggle to think of anywhere that has fish this good for that price.
Dessert is the same treacle and date pudding which blew me away at The Halfway at Kineton, squat and proud and rich, but the best is yet to come the following morning. I think they do the best full English I’ve ever had. It’s a testament to the local producers they use; incredible scrambled eggs the colour of harvest, crispy bacon, a tomato that has seemingly been brushed in animal fat, mushroom, and the best sausage I can recall eating. The bill for dinner is £141 including a carafe of Romanian pinot and I’d begrudge anyone not spending that on a meal of this quality. Truth is (and this is me opening up a little too much again) the long drives have become increasingly more difficult since last year’s car accident, and we now tend to stick to places accessible by train, but this is one that we’ll make again. It’s a gem of a pub from a gem of a group who clearly have the winning formula.
9/10
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