I’ve been reading Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel ‘The Year of the Flood’, in which a cult of ‘gardeners’ find enlightenment through clean, simple living and respect for nature. Perhaps it has coloured my expectations of The Gardener’s Cottage a little. There’s something eerily familiar in this humble little house, surrounded by lovingly tended vegetable patches. Its exterior symmetry is as seductive as the philosophy you find within: fresh, seasonal produce, cooked with care and served on long communal wooden tables. So, as I walk up the garden path on a dreary Sunday evening to sample the seven-course set menu, I keep my high hopes quiet and prepare to resist indoctrination.
First up are dainty boiled quail’s eggs dusted with freeze-dried herbs – delightful but slightly lacking in seasoning. They come with a salt-crusted potato, the little packages of blackened pastry cut open to reveal soft tasty flesh, topped with a smidge of sweet lobster. Along with these two slightly incongruent items we get slices of warm, doughy sourdough, saucers of a yoghurt-y dip and an unusual array of fresh, uncut herbs. How to combine egg, potato, lobster, bread, yoghurt and herb on your plate or in your mouth isn’t entirely clear, but we enjoy picking and choosing, trying a few different combinations, while sipping on pretty pink rhubarb martinis, giddy with gin. I begin to see why people become so evangelical about this place.
The first plated course takes a confident dive into the world of foams and gels. Rustic tortellini made of thick (whole-wheat?) dough come tightly packed with light-as-you-like ricotta, fresh with herbs and elevated by slabs of earthy salted turnip. The bitterness of intense, chlorophyll-rich cucumber gel cuts through the sweetness and, along with crunchy aniseed slivers of raw fennel, creates an addictive freshness.
Perfectly cooked hake follows as the first blue skies of the week appear through the chocolate box windows – of course they do: this place is blessed. Twists of charred, pickled shallot decorate the fish, along with innocuous courgette coils, a slick of tomato sauce and dots of gelled kombucha. The mouth-watering tangy sweetness of the kombucha melts into the meaty fish - instant seduction.
The first sign of a falter in the Gardener’s step comes with the culmination of the savoury dishes. Perfectly cooked hogget (‘teenage lamb’) with silky smooth carrot puree and tart fermented cabbage begins to feel like a simple variation on a sweet-and-sharp theme. But formulaic or not, our plates are scraped clean.
A palate-cleansing sorbet, rich with strawberry and aromatic basil, and garnished with a toasty hazelnut nougat is delightful. It’s not insubstantial and wouldn’t disappoint if presented as a desert. Which is perhaps how it should have been. Seven courses is a stretch for many minds – and, I’m sure, some stomachs. A prettily plated cheese course feels superfluous, followed by more strawberries for the final sweet dish, this time with a sprinkling of granola and quenelles of Selim pepper ice cream. While the intriguing ice cream has us enthusiastically tapping at our phones under the table, any hopes for a final flash of inspiration or imagination are quickly dashed.
The evening wasn’t flawless perfection, but we are sated. We walk back down the garden path, bathed in a heavenly dusk, loyal disciples of the Gardener.