The chaplain was Willie Booth, who used to be my school chaplain, and took a Compline service in St Faith’s Chapel on Friday nights, after prep, in the dark medieval heart of Westminster Abbey. Although it was open to everyone at the school, it always seemed to be just Willie and me, my best (well, only) friend, Bob, and a very thin scholar called Angus. They were godless years, the Eighties, and Compline ate into football time.
It was an eerie thing to cross the empty schoolyard in the dim light issuing from the boarding-house windows, to the little arch in the far corner, and duck down into the pitch-black cloisters, where you had to find your way by memory alone, and there was only the tiny, fearful click of your small shoes on the ancient flagstones, and the cold smell of ghosts.
Once you were into the Abbey proper – sometimes there was a security man with a torch, sometimes not – it was a right turn up the south transept towards Chaucer and right again at the column-mounted bust of Blake (or was it Milton? I forget) into Poet’s Corner, at the back of which, its door ajar and a glow from inside lighting your way, was the tiny chapel of St Faith, who was roasted to death on a red-hot iron bedstead at Agen, near Toulouse. (Southwest French cuisine being what it is, she was perhaps lucky not to have been steamed slowly to death in a cauldron of duck fat and haricots.)
And at the altar, Willie, all in black, kneeling. Hands together, eyes closed. Some silence. And then all the very best that the Book of Common Prayer has to offer a lonely child in a dark, scary building: “The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end… our adversary the Devil, who walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour… born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried…” and then the Nunc Dimittis from Luke (“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…”); the Lord’s Prayer (I’ll assume you know that one); two or three Collects (“Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this place, and drive away all the snares of the enemy…”).
And then out into the Abbey in silence, while Willie stayed behind for a few minutes to discuss one or two things with Him that were not for the ears of small boys. And the Devil didn’t get me. And still when I read a few words of the service my skin tingles. And so the least I could do, 20 years on, was take my protector out for lunch.
The Goring was Willie’s idea. He had been a couple of times since it was refurbished by his boss’s nephew (Lord Linley) and reopened late last year, and said it looked lovely. It’s also quite convenient for St James’s Palace, where he lives, and for Buckingham Palace, which houses the rest of his flock.
Since I last saw the place, four or five years ago, the running has passed from George Goring to his son Jeremy, and the chintz has passed on, thank the Lord, to a better place. It’s all cool, smooth alabaster now, with soft, warm, silencing carpet and seats upholstered in taupe fabric with shiny stripes of shimmering colour running up the back of each, which are picked up, rather disconcertingly, in the back-lining of the waistcoats of some of the waiters. As if, in their commitment to unobtrusive good service, they hope to be mistaken for furniture.
I’m not absolutely sure that the double-breasted, four-button, herringbone waistcoat under a brown jacket with a metallic tie is absolutely as restrained and unbustling as it was meant to be, but I do approve of the three rather risky chandeliers, which are Swarovski crystal, apparently, and sparkle all amethysty silver in a clash/complement to the spare, lively brightness of the room and the jaunty, neo-classical architecture visible outside through every window.
I planned to eat game, what with its being the season, and game being very much the Goring’s thing. Willie didn’t. “I’m not really a fan of game,” he said. “There’s a lot of it about at the palace, so I’ll eat it if it’s there, but not when I’m out.”
“A lot of it about at the palace.” I had visions of Prince Philip rolling another carcass off the roof-rack on to the pavement outside the kitchen and Willie, passing by on his way to succour a doubting gardener, catching sight of it and thinking, “Hey ho, game again this week.” But Willie won’t be drawn on gossip. I’ve been trying for years. He’ll go as far as, “With the Queen, what you see is what you get.” But it ain’t gonna pay for dinner (well, actually it is, but that’s because I’m billing the magazine, not the news desk).
I asked him if he’d seen The Queen yet. He said, “No, I’ve been meaning to. Does Helen Mirren make a good job of it?” I said I’d rather hoped hewould tell me.
Anyway, Willie had a modest and godly little salad which was made with a really quite staggeringly good avocado, peppy watercress and excellent, Pringle-shaped crisps of Lincolnshire Poacher cheese. Then he had roast Suffolk chicken, which was thigh, breast and leg of a fantastically meaty bird, all golden and crispy with a dense, aromatic sage-and-onion stuffing and a side pan of rather common-or-garden mash. (They might consider buffing it up with a bit more butter and, at this time of year, even a scraping of truffle.)
I had rabbit soup and then venison, because I don’t (to be honest) much go for feathered game. I eat it sometimes to play along, but if there’s four-legged stuff going I’d rather pay homage to the season that way. The soup was great: the body of it and the top notes provided by wild mushrooms, but then shreddy chunks of wild bunny giving exotic chewing moments and a really mannish, foresty, autumnal depth. Wild rabbit is soooo good. Farmed rabbit is soooo pointless.
The roast venison was also shot wild, and while it was a very noble bit of meat, it came medium, which rather hogtied it in the tricky endeavour of impressing my palate. And I’d maybe cook the red cabbage down more, to exploit its sweetness more than its sourness – but then I thought that when I had it with the venison here in 2002, so it’s obviously the way they like it.
Many other dishes grabbed me, including numerous crustacean starters and most of the avalanche of great British place names which constituted the list of mains: noisettes of Devonshire lamb with a baby cassoulet, calves’ liver with Suffolk bacon, Devon monkfish, Cornish halibut and sea bass, and (bonus double-pointer) Cornish Dover sole. There was roast grouse and roast grey-leg partridge, and the daily special was a loin of pork which looked spectacular coming past on its trolley (its juiciness and golden crackling, not its driving).
We were too full to eat the pudding to which our £32.50 set lunch entitled us, which was a shame, not least because someone told Willie they do the best crème brûlée in the world – and people don’t lie to a priest.
This is very good, old-fashioned London hotel eating the way you don’t really get any more. And it’s a lovely, elegant dining room in which to eat this sort of food, without the old place being in any way too big, or too quiet.
But then Willie and I, as I explained earlier, have quite high standards when it comes to old and big and quiet.
The Goring
15 Beeston Place, SW1 (020-7396 9000)
Meat/fish: 8
Cooking: 8
Service: Compline (ha, ha!). No, but seriously, 8
Score: 8
Price: As above
The Wig and Mitre
30-32 Steep Hill, Lincoln, Lincolnshire (01522 535190)
Robert Redmile writes: “This is a good gastropub. The bad news is it’s in Lincoln, which is quite a way up north, but it is very nice and they have got nice plates and everything.”
The Ryther Arms
Main Street, Ryther, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire (01757 268372)
Mark Kelly writes: “This place is saweeeeeeeeeeet. Loads of choice, frankly the best steaks I’ve ever seen, and a decent wine list. Get there.”
E-mail feedme@thetimes.co.uk if you know somewhere nice, and maybe we’ll go there together
