“Life is a journey, not a destination” may be the type of motivational spaff that imbeciles have on fridge magnets, yet within it there lies some truth. Several times recently, as I’ve traversed Britain sprinkling happiness, the journey to the restaurant has been much more fun than dinner.
The Severn & Wye Smokery in Gloucestershire sits between two of these islands’ most celebrated, salmon-abundant rivers, and details of the fishery here can be found in the Domesday book. As I sat in the upstairs restaurant, picking at fried salmon skin and smoked sprats while surrounded by men in red trousers and blazers dining with their genteel elderly aunts, I thought to myself: “This is a pleasant place to motor towards from Hereford or Chipping Norton. If you, well, need something to do.”
I’m not sure this was anyone’s mission statement when the smokery’s ambitious recent renovation began. Upstairs is a vast, semi-formal seafood restaurant and downstairs a cafe. There’s a large farmshop, too, complete with an impressive, glass-fronted fish shop. The smokery supplies Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and the Royal Chelsea Flower Show; it exports to Bahrain, Singapore and the Sudan. They chip their own oakwood for smoking. They release their own elvers back to wetlands, to nurture eel stocks. On paper, then, everything about the place screams all-new Petersham Nurseries meets a charming Countryfile segment on British freshwater fishing meets the type of place Lynda Snell off the Archers takes you for a scone in a bid to bribe you into playing Suzuki in a culturally insensitive Ambridge take on Madame Butterfly.
We start with forgettable “King’s cured smoked salmon” that comes tossed on to a plate with a handful of capers, and lukewarm salmon skin crackling that’s spongy and tastes of oil. Instantly, I feel somewhat worried. But the intensely smoked sprats are fantastic. Our request to try some of their famous eel in a dish that isn’t a creamy stew containing pork is met with a puzzled: “No, the pork is all mixed in.”
This is a venue with huge potential that’s going completely to waste. If this multimillion-pound project were in London, you’d be met at the door by half a dozen keen things with hospitality management diplomas. You’d be rattled through the basic tenets of historical smoking methods, then offered a menu featuring six different ways with eel and elver. It would be a single sheet, but it would trumpet the fact that they have crevettes, sea bass, gilt-head bream, south coast squid, yellowfin tuna and a dozen other fresh fish on site, alongside proper fishmongers and enthusiastic chefs.
The eel turns up masked by lardons, field mushrooms, cream and croutons that taste like butter-embossed Hobnobs. Oh, and a runny poached egg. You could hide a chopped-up flip-flop in this concoction and not notice it. The rock oysters are exquisitely sourced, which shows. We ask for them without accompaniments, but are ignored. A generous main of kedgeree comes brimming with smoked haddock, but still gives me no compulsion to eat much of it, not least because there is no sane place for chickpeas in a kedgeree, or wet spinach leaves, for that matter, or too much tomato, if, indeed, any at all. This is experimental jazz fusion kedgeree.
We order turbot, too, because we’re from London and turbot is incredibly hip, so we just like saying the word. Thankfully, it’s exemplary: roasted on the bone, crisp-skinned, moist and alluring. The best things at Severn & Wye are those they’ve had little to do with. A side of samphire comes thick with butter and salt, and sits forlornly alongside a ramekin of dauphinoise potato that should have been removed from the oven at around the same time as those Domesday inspectors came to town. Pudding is one of those deconstructed foams, sponges and smears, riffing around the theme of rhubarb, that I like making MasterChef contestants cry about. As is the case with this type of gubbins, the sum of its parts doesn’t add up to one decent pudding, plus it comes out of the kitchen within minutes of ordering.
There is so much potentially to adore about this venture, but right now it feels like a gargantuan, directionless space that will please passers-by and locals, but won’t lure the foodie hordes from Bristol, Cardiff and London. They’ve spent a ton of money, yes, but right now it’s a fish out of water.
• Severn & Wye Smokery Chaxhill, Westbury-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, 01452 760191. Open lunch, all week, noon-2.30pm; dinner, Fri & Sat, 5-9pm. About £30 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 6/10
Atmosphere 6/10
Service 5/10
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