The Longs Arms, Bradford-On-Avon: 'Not the bubbling orgy of barely contained dairy I was hankering for'

Seldon Curry visits the UK's 30th best gastropub

All good meals begin with bread

Well, the King's stepson liked it.

In 2016, Tom Parker-Bowles wrote a slap up review of a slap up lunch at The Longs Arms. He visited with his South West secret squirrel and Bristol food journalism godhead Mark Taylor, a man close to my heart if not for anything other than our shared passions for Nick Cave and the Badseeds and long, boozy lunches. When I saw Fisherman’s Friend ice cream was on the menu a hitherto latent desire was triggered to try such a concoction and befriend its creator.

The Longs Arms is also a frequent flyer on Michelin Guides, Good Food Guides, Top 50 Gastropubs et al so all signs pointed to an absolute belter of a dinner. Not to mention a bit of looker, looming like a beacon of warmth when we pulled in on a bitter and pitch Wiltshire winter’s eve.

'people said you were easily led

and they were half right'

As somebody who recently purchased Alice Lascelles’ truly excellent book The Martini I am now a bona fide expert in that particular ice breaker. And it was the ice that was the issue really; it was nothing like cold enough and thus lacking the crisp, chilly and instant hit I was craving. I used to create similar drinks as a young man searching for sophistication by essentially drinking any manner of hard, clear spirit in an unchilled coupe.

The margarita was pretty decent.

Though the margarita was good, the martini could have done with borrowing some of the lobster’s chill

Oysters are a given, if available, and were offered here fried and raw with a choice of three dressings each. That's a lot of choice. I did slightly balk at Lindisfarne being their origin when this end of our island has so many tasty bivalves - but they really were excellent; fried with buffalo sauce and crème fraiche gave a little heat whereas raw with basil and yuzu was a more subtle and exotic treatment. If I was the stickler type, I may have noted that a £4 increase from the online menu for three oysters (which are now £14) seemed a little hefty (it’s a sample menu, I know I know), but it had been put to good use in the highly glam and reassuringly weighty silver oyster stands they arrived on.

I’m a magpie when it comes to shiny tableware

Cullen skink (£9) was a smokey, silky winter warmer and I especially enjoyed the dumper truck approach to the pile of chives garnish.

Less generous was the smoked Devon red soufflé (£12) with tomato chutney and possibly a smattering of herb oil. It felt a little parsimonious and not the bubbling orgy of barely contained dairy I was hankering for. There can be no questioning the execution, but the end product was a little dry and not bursting with life. The salad-like garnish, aiming for crisp and clean, fell slightly short.

I ordered the lobster, pickled strawberry, kohlrabi, gentleman’s relish, clementine and dill dish (£18) mostly out of curiosity to see if there was a skilled enough hand to grab a big handful of great ingredients and make it a night to remember. It was not wholly unsuccessful, but there was an issue with temperature. Oddly, a neighbouring, and I think frequent, diner was exclaiming happily how the lobster was the perfect temperature - but it tastes of little when fridge cold. I perhaps wouldn't have noticed other than that the very generous amount of Cornish crustacean sitting on my plate was noticeably icy, needing more of that gentleman's relish to make it sing. Or just a bit of time out of the fridge.

The lobster had been feeling the January chill

It is perhaps worth noting that this is symptomatic of one of the more tedious foodie complaints that a dish could be produced better at home. Of course if I was in the earlier days of trying to impress the in-laws then, yes, the lobster is getting cooked and left to drain and not seeing a fridge before lunch. However, after that first two years and indeed in a restaurant setting, you do what you can. The opinion one can create better at home is essentially claiming you can recreate and improve on one dish with all the time in the world. A restaurant is a catering machine, in which the deliciousness of the food is certainly paramount but maybe not final word. If I had 20 people booked for dinner and a junior chef asked me how many lobster to get out of the deep chill then I would be thinking more about wastage than anything else.

The monkfish (£32) was harder to love. It didn’t seem properly trimmed so had an overly taut layer of membrane making the whole shebang seem a tad overcooked and certainly not packing that pearlescent flesh money shot when showing well. It had a foam for company which was advertised as lavabread (sic) and nicely aerated if that is your seaweed jam. Pommes dauphine were a touchy soggy under the foam; a shame for one of the more show-offy potato preparations.

Lava or laver?

Maybe if I was not a chef who spends a bizarre amount of time admonishing others for preparing fish poorly then I wouldn’t have noticed. I also have queries as to who is growing white asparagus at the fag end of January.

We return to both ours and the Fisherman’s Friend, here in lovely ice cream form; an exemplary texture and perhaps sensibly not quite as bracing a menthol attack as the lozenge itself. A brandy snap made the whole thing about as much fun as you could expect to have out for three quid.

My new best bud

Caramel fondant (£11) was a humdinger, beautifully made and, after the initial cut, erupting over the plate like a delicious volcano straight from the the mind of Willy Wonka. Tonka bean ice cream can be divisive but to my mind is the perfect counterfoil to anything seeking to pummel you with its sweetness. Little honeycomb-like nuggets were strewn for textural variation, as is the modern way. Lovely stuff.

Just 20 odd minutes from the big city, The Longs Arms would be a lovely place to hole up on a rainy day and hit the pub classics menu before retiring for a nap at their cosy cottage a stone’s throw away.

All words and photos by Seldon Curry

The Longs Arms, Upper South Wraxall, Bradford-on-Avon, BA15 2SB

---

Read next: