Annexe Life and an Eight-Course Tasting at Innisdog 5 Star Hotel «

Annexe Life and an Eight-Course Tasting at Innisdog 5 Star Hotel

Tuesday 25th March 2014

‘I’m not going in that annexe,’ Val said as our Official car with Xenon driving lights hove into view of Innisdog Luxury Five-Star Hotel, Wales.

We were shown straight into the Annexe It turned out to be newly built, of Welsh slate, with beams. Honed rare woods, slate wall sections, rustic but luxurious, floor-to-ceiling picture windows and FABRICS! Splashy red poppies on silver, someone loved big patterns. Acres of Roman blinds for the windows. Val had a fully silvered chest in his room. The beds we couldn’t think of how to mount. They were so raised.

We were in fact treasured in the annexe. It was their show-piece, their revelation for 2014. I had a Mussolini bathroom, entirely in black and white, with sarcophagus bath on a daïs.

For tea we were in the drawing room of the main building. After Nature we were in a hotel, immured in hotel life. No conversation or preoccupations could match the hotel. There was original art on the walls. The pictures of sheep were huge and in electronic colours with furniture and fabrics to go with. ‘Let’s go back to the chalet,’ said Val, wickedly. We would bathe and pamper and loll. I hoped to exploit my Mussolini bathroom fully, working from toilet to shower to bath. One’s pants were wretched abandoned on the flawless floor.

At last we were back in the main building for pre-drinks before the 8-course tasting. The cocktail lounge was orange with ultramarine and more bright sheep. Val was worried about the looming polyphonic dinner on account of his delicate constitution. The choice was an 8-course tasting or a 12-course tasting. To have asked for a plain poached egg would have destroyed the chef without doubt. All the same we bravely entered the dining room, where one elderly couple and a solitary young man were at work on the courses. The ‘Not French Onion Soup’ was not soup nor onion. I can’t remember what it was. The mackerel, oyster, pork belly and seaweed ensemble was impossible for Val. He could contemplate Jerusalem artichoke but smoked bone marrow – horror!. Prawn – no. Nor the accompanying rhubarb buttermilk lardo. Barbecued and fermented leeks okay but then began the liquid nitrogen phase. We were very taken with the rocket pellets, the wood sorrel pellets (foraging had taken place) and the watercress pellets, achieved by dunking in liquid nitrogen which is so cold it ‘cooks’ whatever is put in it. These pellets accompanied roe deer or the pickled pineapple and ham pudding or the optional cheese course.

After two and a half hours the eight-course tasting docked. ‘Just wait a moment,’ the waitress said. But Val couldn’t. He careered back to the chalet. So alone I faced the actual chef, who loomed with a canister of liquid nitrogen for the final flourish. He was dark and full of mystery and danger. He spoke of eucalyptus cream and something else. It was hard to listen for fear. Next this helpless little white blob like a meringue was being tormented in a metal basin of the cruel liquid gas. ‘Eat it,’ the demonic chef commanded as he fished the poor thing out. It wasn’t very nice.

Next morning I was subject to waves of intestinal pain. I blamed the Elan Valley Visitor Centre’s tuna melt panini but Val thought otherwise. ‘Will the scrambled egg be nuked?’ he inquired as we crawled into the breakfast room.