I blame Sophie. Once a week she sends me a picture of the turbot dish on Instagram (along with Pomeranian memes, hotels we can’t afford, dubious takes on some pretty average restaurants, and skits from comedians I like). Once a week of the same dish; the rectangle of fish, glistening with lacquered truffle, the ogival, redented towers of romanesco cauliflower proudly cutting through the cloud of whatever foam sauce surrounds the fish. Sometimes she’d accompany the picture by telling me how much she wants it, other times she’d stick it in raw, no lube, just “here you are, take the turbot”. And then, whilst having a lovely time on holiday, discussing not having a lovely time back home in the city with rats the size of cats, she suggests that we book Woven by Adam Smith. To get over the holiday blues. As one final hurrah before the wedding planning dominates life for a while.
Twelve days later and we’re on the train, first to Reading of all places for a quick glass of overpriced wine in a courtyard full of cheap suits and emo’s (“it’s London prices without London fun” notes Sophie who studied there for three long years), then back onto the train to Ascot, into a cab, and onto the extremely chic Coworth Park. We have martinis on deck chairs on the terrace to erase all memory of Reading, before moving onto a beautiful bench for two in the gorgeous muted tones of the dining room. I ask for the wine list and order a magnum. I’ll say this now, officially, in writing. Perhaps a magnum was a bad idea.
I say that because Woven is a very serious restaurant and perhaps we didn’t take it serious enough by only leaving two and a half hours to eat a serious amount of food. That opening play of seven small bites is enough to confirm that Michelins present assessment of one star is on the stingy side of things. From the precise layers of the refined cheese and onion sandwich, to the light tempura chicken with aerated satay sauce, to the perfect mouthful of white crab tartlet offset with sweet melon and cubes of sharp verjus jelly. There is the fold of A5 wagyu over a crumpet that melts to sweet nothing in the mouth without working the jaw, and the sheer brilliance of the tomato water ice with basil and a generous scoop of caviar; this sits ideally before the ball of jellied eel with more caviar, onto which a broth is poured so that it tastes like a salty, smokey bacon soup. Only the last mouthful of avocado mousse, with basil and yuzu felt predictable, and maybe that is because of the quality of the six which came before it.
And then there is the bread, to which two excellent chefs had previously told me was as good as anywhere in the UK. I’m going to have to agree. Slices of white bread, cobs and Parker rolls, and pain suisses as varnished as a granny in Benidorm. Behind them are crisp flatbreads littered with seeds. I think I have covered them all. And to come with them a beurre noisette butter still engraved in my mind, a bowl of hummus and another of onion compote. Burnt lobster oil with pomegranate molasses that I’ve already stolen, and a bigger bowl of something that tastes like Dairylea dunkers on acid. You could spend that two and a half hours here, mixing and matching the various breads and dips. We almost did.
Yet the highlight was not the bread, nor the forthcoming four dishes to follow including that Turbot dish, but the circle of gently cooked asparagus holding the most delicate ajoblanco. It is perfect in its simplicity, the little accents of truffle and smoke, the lick of acidity that runs throughout it all. Just a few coherent flavours that work with each other, executed with the kind of skill of a chef with this CV. They followed this with a fat scallop cooked medium rare, some citrus bits to bounce off, a buttery sauce laden with roe and a big dollop of Osciettra caviar because why not. Sophie, who fails to see my obsession with good caviar, presumably because she never grew up in a rough council estate, gives me most of hers. I smear it inch thick onto a slice of bread. I’ve had worse Saturdays.
The turbot is everything Sophie hoped it would be. Buttery, meaty turbot, stuffed with mousseline and glazed with truffle, with a piece of lobster on top with yet another dollop of caviar for good measure. It has her favourite cauliflower, radishes, and salted grapes for contrast and balance, all wrapped up in a champagne sauce that punches with enormous power. Sensational. Then quail, beautifully roasted with the most textbook of sauces, a stuffed morel and blueberries, each the sum of a part to something beautiful and refined. On the side is a bowl of the meat from the rest of the bird bound in a heavily reduced version of the sauce, wild garlic and covering of black truffle. This is my ideal party. My heaven. My nirvana. It is over-the-top with generosity, rich with luxury. Woven speaks to my very core about why I enjoy going out for dinner so much.
We share a dessert of various plays on chocolate softened with creme fraiche and sea salt, before rushing through petis fours including chocolate and black truffle caramel, raspberry and champagne jelly, Blue Mountain fudge and the most marvelous mandarin and brandy baba. You’ve guessed it, we’ve overran, and now we’re in a cab directly to Reading, passing Sophie’s old student house, and to the train station where we missed our train by a petit four minutes. That’ll teach us. Woven can be done for as little as £95 for three courses at lunch, though if you find yourself going the whole hog with the food, the magnums, and the twenty-something-pound martinis then it becomes a lot more. Still, I couldn’t think of many other places I’d prefer to do this in, and we’re looking at going back, maybe in the autumn when the seasonality appeals as much to me as spring does, staying over and not having to worry about train times or dog sitters. Woven is pretty much perfect, worthy of a special journey, regardless of what a guide has to say.
10/10
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