It was a last-minute trip. We wanted to go somewhere, and England is almost around the corner, a short flight from Copenhagen. My wife had her eyes on The Black Swan in Oldstead.
Why The Black Swan? I do not know. She knew about Tommy Banks, who became Britain’s youngest chef to hold a Michelin star at the age of 24. She had a feeling. Sometimes that is enough.
We booked The Black Swan first and built the trip around it. L’Enclume was one bonus. The north of England, new territory for us, was another.
We arrived at the Swan after our lunch at The Abbey Inn, a couple of minutes away by car and also a Tommy Banks restaurant. The building dates from the sixteenth century and now also serves as the hotel reception and the starting point for dinner.
Check-in was handled by the restaurant manager, who explained everything about the hotel with the kind of ease you do not forget.
The room was not ready, so we sat down and ordered a glass of wine from the frisbee, sorry, the iPad. I still hate them. The same iPad-based as at Roots in York, and the wines were familiar too. Still, there were some genuine standouts by the glass, and soon the kitchen surprised us with a few delicious snacks.
Then my wife asked, “Can you smell that?” I could smell something but could not put my finger on it. Or I was too busy smelling the wine.
We did not think more about it and walked to our room, one of the garden rooms behind the restaurant.
The room was small, small enough that an open suitcase became a logistical problem. It was damp, damp enough that the towels felt wet. Outside were two chairs overlooking the garden.
Later we went back for dinner. The smell was still there, and now we could place it. Diesel.
The Black Swan runs a large generator at the back of the property, only metres from the garden rooms and not much farther from the main building.
The evening began downstairs with three more snacks and a broth.
The room had a genuine sense of history, although the chairs and benches did not need to be historically uncomfortable as well. The snacks were promising. There was no wow factor, but it was a good start.
Even there, we changed places because of the diesel fumes.
Then we went upstairs, where the generator had saved us a table.
We were given a table in the large dining room. I looked at my wife. She looked at me. We were thinking the same thing.
Either we move to one of the two smaller rooms and hope for the best, or we return to The Abbey Inn for dinner and drive away early the following morning.
We moved to the smaller room on the right, half a flight up and as far from the generator as the building allowed. It was not free of the smell, but it was bearable. So we stayed.
We asked the staff, and to their credit, nobody pretended otherwise. The generator runs from morning until the kitchen closes.
The staff said they could no longer smell it. Perhaps working beside a generator five days a week has that effect. That might be the most telling detail of all.
The first dish was a pork skewer. I thought it was good. My wife was less convinced.
Then came a lion’s mane, a huge fluffy white mushroom we had never seen before, brought to the table whole for us to look at and touch. It went into the sauce.
The taste of the sauce, I do not remember. That is its own verdict.
Another rustic dish followed, hogget with kohlrabi and bronze fennel. We then joined the other guests in the large dining room, where a chef prepared a pre-dessert with lemon verbena and made the customary small talk while he worked.
Two quite nice desserts closed the evening. The cooking was clearly better than at Roots in York and, judged on the plates alone, worthy of its Michelin star.
But not one dish followed us home.
There was a star that night. It was not the food, and it certainly was not the diesel hanging in the air. It was the new restaurant manager.
He checked us in, answered every question directly and somehow made the evening feel like more than it was. We told him, honestly, that he was too good for the place. He was that kind of good.
The sommelier was another story. At another table, one guest asked basic wine question after another. The sommelier stayed there for at least ten minutes, answering each at length, while the rest of the dining room waited.
He seemed in no hurry to move on. He reached our table once in three hours.
A young woman had to take over the wine service. It was not her role, but she did her best.
Even so, I eventually had to get up, collect the carafe from a nearby table and refill our glasses myself.
The generator was switched off overnight and started again in the morning.
As we loaded the car, with the generator running loudly, the fumes hit us one last time.
We both felt dizzy. Standing beside the car, completely serious, my wife said she thought she might need to go to hospital for a check-up.
We would not return, and it was not worth the money, not when the room, the wine service and the diesel fumes are considered alongside the food.
Without the fumes, it could perhaps have been a good evening. Not great, but good. Not worth the detour. The cooking held its star, the old pub had charm, and the manager was exceptional.
But a generator placed so close to the restaurant dominated the dinner and everything around it.
If you go, our advice is simple: check which way the wind is blowing.
Not every dish makes the review. The rest ends up on Instagram →
Almost every restaurant we have visited, in one list → The Restaurant List
