I bagged a bottle of the second wine, “Hochar” 2003 from the Wine Society at a reasonable £10.50.

It tastes like a cross between a Bordeaux and a Burgundy. Very subtle and fine tannins, some barnyard, and loads of fruit. A Pinot Noir on speed? The Bordeaux is represented by cherries and cedar wood.

Trouble is, it is not even close to barking mad. Actually it is quite classic French. But, it is priced at French levels, and that makes it a direct competitor.

If I am wrong, I have a couple of bottles of the first wine in my cellar which I can’t wait to try. If I am right then maybe I shouldn’t drink it at all, instead focus on finding the right moment to sell at enormous mark-up to a Chinese speculator, who will probably end up enjoying it with Coke when the fine wine market finally implodes.

Fixed price dinner is £70 a head and the wine markups are more scary than climbing across Swirral Edge in the snow, fog and fading daylight.  But like Helvellyn, Sharrow Bay watches majestically over Ullswater with a haughty, assured and almost arrogant posture that asks “are you man enough?”

As I munched on a glorious amuse-bouche of poached salmon, I wondered if the producers of The Trip excluded this place on grounds of budget, or if Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon merely got turned away for not being serious enough.

The menu is at the posh end of fine dining and the service is at the discreet end of stuffy, but mixed with a good dose of northern friendliness.  Our waiter, Jeeves, took so much trouble to explain the history of the building (fisherman’s cottage expanded over centuries by nobility) that I imagine some other punters got cold fish and warm red wine.

The sommelier is a nutter, though.  Disapproving violently with my endeavours to find value on the wine list (£46 Château Musar -White “barking mad, sir”) in favour of a Sancerre that, surprise surprise, was a bit, but not excessively more expensive.  He was probably right that it was a better choice for my mostly fish based 7 course dinner.  The good news for Sharrow Bay is that it is hard to find the retail price online so maybe it is fairly exclusive.  The bad news is that the Ritz lists it at £62, and nobody marks up wine like the Ritz…well, except, it seems, Sharrow Bay who ask £67 for this tame but moderately tasty bottle.  Very drinkable, but you should take neither price as an accurate indication of the wine’s value.

From a choice of several grand nooks, we dined in the former Billiard Room which, through an ornate panelled ceiling, there still existed a light, I mean the architectural term.  A glazed hole in the ceiling, designed to illuminate the green baize.  Presumably Victorian billiards was a daylight sport.

We ate on white tablecloths this time, and enjoyed a menu that demonstrated confident simplicity combined with quality ingredients and, surprisingly, for a meal with so many courses, northern sized portions.  I only managed cheese and dessert thanks to the relaxed service which made dinner longer than John Holmes but more enjoyable (for me at any rate).

With time to people watch, earwig, soak up the history and pass remarks about the staff at the same time as enjoy their company, this would have been an easier review to write had I not (a) complied with the no phones at the table rule; and (b) got so drunk that I couldn’t read the menu.  Fortunately I stole a copy to look at later.

The sort of food you can expect to find at Sharrow Bay would be a starter of roasted quail breast with truffle fettuccine and wild mushroom sauce.  Or a sautéed scallop, thyme fondant potato and shallot purée.  A second course of plaice on pea risotto.  A simple but stonking sorbet followed by a main of Sea Bass, parsnip purée, wild mushroom fricasée and lemon grass sauce.  Or meat feasters could order Tournedos of Scottish fillet steak, roasted shallots, braised ox cheek, marinated cherry tomatoes and red wine sauce.  Or Best end of Herdwick Lamb, wild mushrooms, artichokes, broad beans, dauphinoise potato and white wine and rosemary sauce.  Or noisette of local venison with ravioli of girolles & spinach, butternut squash purée, braised sherry lentils and brandy and port sauce.  Not for the faint hearted!  But now you are nodding off.

I couldn’t really fault any of my dishes in presentation, taste or portion size.  However, the next course was a demonstration of everything that’s good about England.  It is getting gloriously ever more difficult to find French fromages (yawn) on top end menus in my experience.  Les anglais have more varieties.  YES!

The Nutter disagreed with my choice of a glass of Muscat de Beaumes de Venise with the English cheese and brought me a free glass of something dark as his recommendation.  I finally found a little recognition from him, after pronouncing it a Pedro Ximenez before it even reached my nose.

Whilst I preferred the Muscat with the Stinking Bishop, I had to agree that Pedro rode a donkey through the warm chocolate and ginger pudding with vanilla ice cream.  A rare wine match for rich chocolate.

The bill for two including alcohol and service was a snooker shy of £250 which is, I believe, the most that has ever left my wallet for a single meal, and yes, I have been to Galvin @ Windows.  Which leaves the tricky question, is it worth the money?  I think for an occasional treat, maybe a 50th wedding anniversary for example (where you would also be amongst the average age of the diners, only adding to your pleasure), it’s one of those places where even mere Muggles should visit at least once.

Sharrow Bay
Lake Ullswater
Cumbria, CA10 2LZ
T: +44 (0) 1768 486301
E:  info@sharrowbay.co.uk
W: www.sharrowbay.co.uk

I’ve been waiting a few weeks for the right moment to drink a bottle of Gaston Hochar’s finest.  Tonight, I finally reached into the fridge and yanked the cork.  But, being a man, I didn’t read the instructions before chugging a good glassful.

Having said that, had I read the label, the Chateau (sic) Musar would have contained 90% disappointment to compensate for one stirring, vital and possibly life saving sentence.  The label is written mostly in French.  Despite being designed to meet British regulations, I am advised that the wine was “mis en bouteilles au château”.  Even if you accept that French labels make the wine sound more appealing (it has the opposite effect for me), at least an effort to get the language right would be appreciated.  A glance at the website home page reveals that even Musar cannot work out how to spell Château, for example.

The wine smelt citric and tasted like bitter lemon.  Very dry and possibly too dry for seafood, despite the lemon flavour.  Quite ugly and I started wondering if it might at least match cheese.  I got my notepad out and prepared to trash another over-rated, over-priced (£16) wine.

But, being a founder member of WART, I didn’t put the bottle back in the fridge.  Most white wines are better at 10 degrees than 5.  As the wine warmed, I noted that the wine improved dramatically.  Looking at the reverse of the bottle, the crucial sentence was revealed, “Recommendation, serve at cellar temperature (15°C)”, and that was in English!

Blimey.  What a dickhead.  After all my advice not to drink white wine too cold, I ate my own dog food.

At the right temperature (or at least warmer than 10°C), this wine reveals softer more honeyed flavours.  Really delicious, and well worth £16 after all.  Don’t do it the disservice of drinking straight from the fridge.  Do drink it well before the recommended date of 2017, after all, you might die before then.

I was right about it going with cheese though.  Especially soft cheese.

The Mediterranean Café on Berwick Street has been there for yonks and that’s because it’s good.  If you are on a date or looking for a romantic meal with a difference you must try this place.  Don’t be put off by the slightly shabby exterior. The food is great, the welcome is so spot on, and the value is unbelievable.

We had eaten here before but with an hour to kill before Mary Poppins, we nipped in for a quick glass of house white.  A Turkish number called “Cankaya”.  No more information than that, other than the price, £2.95 per glass, £12.50 per bottle.  The taste was much better than I expected with some grapefruit and floral notes.  I suspect it would accompany Turkish food superbly.

It was better than the glass of wine at the Price Edward Theatre where we saw the brilliant production of Mary Poppins.  The stagework was simply breathtaking and very inventive and all the old favourite songs were there.  I only wished I was six years old again.

Although we didn’t eat this time, I can assure you the food at the Mediterranean is just superb and very good value.  A 2 course lunch with a good choice of dishes is only £6.50.  Evening special of the day was a two course dinner with Halibut for about £15 including a glass of wine.  However, it is equally a place to drop in for a drink and a chat either outside in the sun or inside in the souk like interior.

I have to find one bad thing about a place and in this case it’s the wine list.  In an otherwise thoughful selection I found bloody Sancerre les Collinettes.  I shiver every time I see this on a wine list.

Don’t let that put you off an otherwise top eaterie.  Just get down there and try the place.  It’s supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Of course if you would rather feed the birds, you might still find a nice old lady on the steps of St Paul’s selling crumbs for tuppence a bag.

Mediterranean Café. 18 Berwick Street, Soho, London.  W1V 3RG.  T:  020 7437 0560.  F: 020 7494 1202.
E: welcome@mediterraneancafe.co.uk.
W:  http://mediterraneancafe.co.uk