Optima Magazine

The Barn Hotel • West End Road • Ruislip • HA4 6JB • 01895 636057

Reviewed by Jill Glenn

I’ve enjoyed eating at Hawtreys, in the Barn Hotel, Ruislip, several times before (with ‘enjoyed’ being the operative word), but I’m trying not to let my preconceptions influence my experience of this visit. The restaurant has a reputation for elegant dining, offering fine French food with a modern twist, and its menus have never yet failed to make my mouth water.

The dining room is beyond the hotel reception area, tucked away to the side of the bar. It’s fortunate, actually, that I know the food to be very good here (and thus worth overcoming hurdles for), because my first impression is that the welcome is a little bit lacking. I know I’ve observed in the past that, if you’re evidently a restaurant customer wondering whether you should go straight through or linger, the bar staff make no eye contact, no real acknowledgment that you’re there. It’s such a shame; it wrongfoots the evening before it’s really started, and gives the restaurant staff a lot of work to do to get you back on side.

The restaurant is fashioned after a Jacobean baronial hall, with an intricately moulded ceiling and mahogany panelling, plus lush carpets and rich fabrics. It dictates a rather formal atmosphere, which certainly gives it identity in an industry which, locally, tends to the glib and the fast, and its ambience is reflected in the slightly stiff and subservient demeanour of the waiting staff.

A short gap ensues after we’re seated. Just as I’m wondering where the menu is, there arrives a little dish of canapés, three each, ‘compliments of the chef’. It heads up a procession of culinary delights, some of which we order (the menu follows hot on the canapés), some of which (including a fabulous amuse-bouche of a ballotine of goat’s cheese with aubergine and a balsamic dressing) simply turn up. There is bread: four types, with four types of butter, which seems excessive but which mostly disappears with remarkable rapidity.

My starter, a Sauté of Scallops, Peppers and Peas, Courgette and Basil Purée, Saffron, Lemongrass and Ginger Velouté, is as pretty as a picture, and tastes as good as it looks. I could eat that purée for the rest of my life and never tire of it. Across the table the Lemon Sole with Zucchini Fricassée, Mussel and Saffron Emulsion and Crisp Spinach is a light, delicate combination of flavours and textures that finds favour from the first mouthful.

The story repeats itself with the main courses : impressive presentation, and plenty of evidence of thought and care on the part of chef and kitchen staff. My Confit Halibut, Spiced Aubergine, Pak Choy, Samphire, Shellfish Emulsion and Barigoule Sauce is a clever concoction, which the inspired use of a touch of turmeric raises to the heavenly; my companion’s Pork Three Ways with Turnip Purée, Spinach, Braised Carrots and Roast Apple might benefit from a little more gravy, but has plenty of good things going for it; the pork cheeks, wrapped up in cabbage leaves, win especial praise; the whole thing has “a lovely, lovely flavour.”

Having devoured all that bread (I knew we’d live to regret it), we are defeated by the time dessert is offered, settling instead for coffee and a plate of petit fours. Good petit fours, of course.

Hawtreys doesn’t change, and that’s to its credit. Its high culinary standards continue to make it stand out from the crowd.

Price Guide:
Starters: £8.50-£12.50
Mains: £18.95-£28
Fixed Price: £25/29 (2/3 courses)
Tasting Menu: £49