Wedding hire (complete with chauffeur) from £300. If you use the Primrose for your reception* the bus is yours for half price, which includes valet cleaning, chauffeur and up to 25 miles.

*conditions apply (of course) – please ask

Fo full details please contact patrick@primrosecafe.co.uk

Flying into Newark airport is something spectacular if your flight path takes you over New York city at nighttime. As the vast sea of twinkling lights hoves into view, the leg-numbing journey from London, crammed into economy class, is swiftly forgotten and you experience a little frisson of anticipation. Then you get closer and can make out the shapes of the individual boroughs. The light-spangled grid of Manhattan island appears below, like a tiny three-dimensional model of itself, laid out with unlikely geometrical precision, and then the Hudson river and Liberty holding aloft her flaming beacon. Then you’re over New Jersey and the contrast is marked – luckily, the darkness obscures the ranks of dingy tenements on the fringes of Jersey City and the industrial wasteland of the Jersey Shore. Newark itself is best speedily departed and the journey made back to Manhattan by taxi, impatiently waiting at the Holland Tunnel in the inevitable queue before debouching onto Canal St in the lower part of the city.

I was travelling with a teenage daughter and her friend and, although tired after the long flight, we were also ravenous, so we headed straight out for dinner. I had chosen the Union Square Café as our first stop; it’s long been voted by New Yorkers as their favourite restaurant and I was anxious to discover why. The restaurant was opened in 1985 by Danny Meyer, little known in the UK but highly regarded in the States. This is the man who crystallised the concept of “hospitality” as opposed to just “service” in restaurants. His book, Setting the Table, should be textbook reading for aspiring restaurateurs. In it, he sets out to explain hospitality as not just providing customers with expert service, but making them feel at home. There is a fine line between over-familiarity and aloofness and few restaurants manage to tread it with any skill but Union Square Café is one of them. Bursting at the seams with contented diners when ewe entered, we were still greeted with unhurried grace and looked after from start to finish. Of course, being treated with such care and consideration makes it all the more difficult to complain when the starters aren’t up to scratch. The wild mushroom soup was thick and turgid and my sardines small, dry and tasteless – when our hostess bounded over to to enquire how we were getting on we guarded our criticisms like a guilty secret, not wanting to offend her any more than if we were guests in her house. Fortunately, the main courses in the neo-Italian restaurant were vastly better, gnocchi light and fluffy, ravioli perfectly al dente with its unctuous filling of gorgonzola and baby spinach, pan-fried striped bass crisp-skinned on top, sweet and tender underneath and full of the flavour you only get with a proper wild fish, not the flabby cotton-wool texture of its poor farmed cousin. It’s always a good sign when a restaurant is prepared to fork out three times as much for the real deal. Tired after our long journey from London, we passed on desserts and headed back to the hotel – a hard day’s shopping lay ahead.

The following day, the girls were after clothes, so I headed up to the Flatiron district, where I’d heard a new branch of Eataly had opened. Pioneered in Turin some 5 years ago, with branches as far afield as Tokyo and now New York, Eataly is a wonderful celebration of all things Italian to do with food. Supermarket, deli, café, restaurant, wine bar and much more come together in riotous chaos in this vast emporium on 5^th Avenue. On entering the store your senses are assailed by the sights, sounds and smells of serious food at work. The concept, though confusing at first, is really very simple: the store is split into departments – salume, cheese (they make their own mozzarella every day) , fish, pasta ,oil, wine, beer, bread and so on -  and attached to each department is a place where you can sit, or stand, and order from a menu showcasing all the best that the respective department has to offer. Of course, if you want a full meal this means you have to up sticks and change restaurants for each course but hey – in Italy lunch can take 4 hours, so why not here?  After foccaccia  at the bakery with its roaring wood-fired oven, a plate of meats at the salumeria and an oozing Gorgonzola dolce at the cheese counter, I finish up with a double macchiato at the espresso bar – odd to think that, for all the lazy informality of the Italian lunch, coffee is always taken on the run. With this in mind, the coffee bar is sited near the door and whilst I stood nursing my perfect little coffee, a stream of sharp-suited Italians (expatriates?) came in, downed espressos in a gulp and disappeared again. This type of coffee culture has never really caught on in England, as more than one ill-considered coffee bar has found out to its cost…

Coming out, I realized I’d been in there for 2 ½ hours, so I anxiously texted my daughter to find out where she was. I shouldn’t have worried – she was in the nearest Starbucks. Why, with all that New York has to offer, was she in Starbucks of all places, with its huge mugs of tasteless coffee and identikit furnishings? “Because I knew exactly what it would be like” she told me and I suppose that’s one of the reasons for the success of the chain (and indeed any similar business) – people are comforted by the familiar, feeling safe knowing exactly what they’ll encounter before crossing the threshold – it’s just a pity their expectations are so low..

We were back in a Danny Meyer establishment for dinner. This time, it was Blue Smoke, his barbecue restaurant on East 27^th Street, a noisy but relaxed establishment which celebrates the food of the deep South. There is much controversy about what constitutes an authentic ‘cue, but after mistakenly ordering a mixed plate, I ended up with a whole smoked chicken breast, a full rack of hickory-smoked ribs and a vast heap of pulled pork – slow-cooked till meltingly tender, then literally pulled off the bone and shredded, together with a metal bucket of fries – I really didn’t care. It was as much as I could do to heave myself off the banquette and stagger to the door.

Peasant, in little Italy, was an entirely different proposition. The unprepossessing entrance belies the cavernous semi-industrial space within, all bare red-brick walls and high ceiling. The lighting is low and the open kitchen, stretching all across the far end is a focal point with its bank of roaring wood-fired ovens, small army of sweating chefs toiling to feed the cavernous maw of the baying mob before them. Make no mistake, it is crowded and very noisy here. At the bar, we were squashed like sardines and the restaurant is one of those places where tables are so close together they have to be pulled out to allow you to sit. The menu is traditional Italian and everything arrives with that slightly smoky, piping heat that only a wood-fired oven can deliver. Here I must confess a connection with the place, as one of our long-serving staff has worked here in her distant murky past. Having pulled a few strings on our behalf, we found ourselves treated to what appeared to be the entire menu, plus specials, in miniature, dish after dish being presented for our enjoyment – each one a masterpiece of simple Italian in-your-face understatement. This might sound like an oxymoron, but like all the best food each dish consists of only two or three top-quality ingredients, purchased at their best, bursting with flavour and totally un-messed about with: think burrata with cherry tomatoes and basil, razor clams with lemon and pangrattatta, octopus with chilli and tomato – all are delivered with the minimum of fanfare and deliver the maximum of flavour. I was able to meet the owner, Frank de Carlo, briefly after our meal. With his grey-flecked beard and lazy drawl, he both looked and sounded like Donald Sutherland in “Mash “. Leaning over the pass to shake his hand, I shouted my thanks over the din. “So, you’re friends with Camilla, eh?” he shouted back. “Yes, she works for me now” I replied. “Good girl”, he reminisced with a wistful look in his eye. Then the next check was called and he was back to his stove. We were already forgotten, our table already cleared and reseated. I looked back over my shoulder as we left – the dark space, roaring fires, rushing staff, shouting customers – it all brought to mind Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Eternal Damnation. I shook my head to clear the vision and we returned to the relative quiet of Manhatttan.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the food scene in the US is as, if not more vibrant than it is here; to a certain extent that’s true, but once you leave the major cities and head out onto the highway you soon find that this is not the case. The relentless march of corporate America has ensured that every road is an endless stripmall of Subway, Burger Kings, Dunkin’ Donuts and a host of other large corporate franchises mostly (as yet) unknown in this country. The “Mom and Pop” diner with its jukebox, soda fountain and good home cooking has all but disappeared – either squeezed out of existence by its corporate neighbours or forced to stoop so low to compete that it has outdone even them in its unpleasantness. Coffee is universally appalling. You almost yearn for a Starbucks Latte after trying what’s on offer. “Best Coffee on the Interstate” trumpets  the  Route 81 truck stop but its gleaming Bunn-o-Matic stainless steel and fire-engine red enamel Self Service Beverage Center belies the dismal reality – a bank of jugs of thin brown liquid stewing since God knows when – or even earlier, who knows? – and offered in vast beakers of up to 1 ½ pints, as if somehow sheer quantity would make up for its unspeakable awfulness.

Dean and Deluca is a Mecca for foodies in New York. With its cavernous interior  and industrial shelving groaning under the weight of produce you could easily spend several hours  (as I did) wandering the aisles idly inspecting such wonders as gunpowder mustard and hominy grits. Established in 1985, Dean and Deluca hasn’t fallen into the trap that so many so-called delis in the UK have, starting with noble intentions of purveying the very best the world has to offer and then realizing there’s more money in serving it and turning into a thinly –disguised café or restaurant with the rump deli shoved in a corner, now little more than a glorified gift shop. In Dean and Deluca, you really can (if you can afford it) do your weekly shop and what’s on offer is very good indeed. Their own-branded products are beautifully packaged, counters run the full length of the store offering a bewildering range of fresh produce whilst at the front a vast ziggurat of fruit and vegetables is testament to the fact that small growers are alive and kicking. There is even a man employed to spray a fine mist of water all over them to give them that glistening dew-fresh look. The prepared food counter is  a good thirty feet long and behind it an army of uniformed staff toil ceaselessly to serve the queues of people waiting for salmon en croute, confit of duck, pates, terrines and salads to grace their dinner tables. Sandwiches, while hardly cheap at $10 a pop, more than make up for this in the quality and flavour of what’s in them and of course come beautifully wrapped in Dean and Deluca’s signature expensive white paper. Three sandwiches, freshly squeezed orange juice and some dense moist cookies later and sitting a short stroll away in Washington Square and we really were enjoying a slice of the big apple.

And so on to “5 Napkin”, odd sounding place recommended by, of all people, an investment banker. The name derives from the fact that you need all of five napkins to clean yourself up after one of their meals… This is a small chain of burger bars in some of the hippest areas in town – the one we visited being in Hell’s Kitchen. The menu is pretty long, but what you go for is the burgers – thick, juicy patties in a proper toasted bun with all the trimmings – actually looking on the plate like the thoroughly deceptive picture on a McDonald’s billboard. Sides were good, too – a big bucket of sweet potato fries and some “tater tots” – balls of mash flavoured with blue cheese and deep-fried in breadcrumbs. An excellent mixed leaf salad helped convince us we were eating healthily. Like all good restaurants in New York, the place was rammed, with a constant queue and a table turnaround fast as any I’ve seen: a quick wipe from a bus-boy, new cutlery laid by a server and the Maitre d’ was bringing the next party over – the whole routine taking no more than five seconds. It reminded me of the scene in Live and Let Die where Roger Moore disappears into the floor and a new table is laid in an instant. Mind you, I wasn’t about to complain; the Maitre d’ in his sharp Italian suit was a dead ringer for Fat Tony from the Simpsons, right down to the dead panda eyes and the Fuggedaboutit accent. Looking up at the ceiling of this former meatpacking warehouse where the chain-driven rails of hefty meat hooks wound their way round and back to the kitchen and it didn’t take much imagination to see a complaining punter hoisted up and sent on his way to the mincer with the same slick precision – Badaboom badabing.

Our last day was spent shopping, the girls for clothes, whilst I was thinking more of my stomach. I left them downtown and headed off to Chelsea Market, another converted industrial space given over to all things food-related. Bakeries, wine merchants, cake shops, kitchen paraphernalia, ice cream stores, supermarket, you name it – all is here under one cavernous roof and, just in case you might tire of the shopping, a wealth of small independent eating places are dotted here and there – milk bars, wine bars, juice bars, sandwich bars – eat your way from shop to shop. I had the best pastrami sandwich I’ve ever eaten here – layers of salt beef cut from a freshly cooked brisket positively oozing with flavour, thick cut pickles, sauerkraut and emmental on a toasted rye bun slathered with mayonnaise – the sort of sandwich you can’t eat without making a mess and then spend a good five minutes picking up the bits – all washed down with a pint or two of  Stoatgobbler – one of a network of microbreweries which have been popping up all over the more enlightened states – surviving and thriving in spite of the megabrewers, because thankfully there are enough people who prefer the individual to the bland and corporate.

With an hour left to spare I made a final dash into the Whole Foods Market to see if I could pick up a few snacks for the ‘plane. Now here’s a thing – a supermarket selling the very best of responsibly-sourced, ethical, organic and downright wholesome foodstuffs where you can fill your trolley at a not unreasonable price and go home safe in the knowledge that you’ve got everything you need and don’t have to go to a “normal” supermarket to buy all the things they didn’t have – something Fresh and Wild never seemed to latch onto and which certainly contributed to their downfall. I came out with some healthy-looking, very delicious, but probably extremely fattening cookies (and a bag of apples to ease my conscience).

Strangely enough, the aeroplane seat seemed even smaller than six days before…

This is the first time we’ve opened on New Year’s Eve, so why not come and join us for a festive celebration and see 2012 in with good food and excellent company.

The bar opens at 7.30pm and we’ll be serving a selection of hot and cold canapés to go with your aperitifs.

At 9pm we’ll be serving a 5-course celebration menu, showcasing the best the West Country has to offer.

At 11.59 join in the countdown to midnight with a glass of fizz.

Bar open until 1am

MENU

Canapes

Quail’s egg Florentine, with warm spinach mousse, brioche toast and smoked butter hollandaise

Lobster raviolo on shaved fennel with saffron lobster bisque

Chargrilled herb-stuffed noisette of lamb with slow-roasted shoulder, potato dauphinoise, caramelised carrots and shallots, Madeira gravy

Elderflower and champagne sorbet, rosemary wafer

Hazelnut chocolate and tiramisu parfait

(optional cheese course with a glass of port £6.95 supplement)

Our own home-made petits fours to take away

Glass of Fizz at midnight

£49.50 per head

We can of course accommodate your special dietary requirements if any of the above items are unsuitable – please let us know in advance

Reserve your table for only £10 per head deposit

Please note that an optional 10% service charge will be added to all bills

Italy is a land of paradoxes. When I first visited in the early eighties, it was still a country where crushing poverty inherited from the crippling financial burden of the second world war was often the norm. Petrol was rationed and tourists were obliged to buy coupons before visiting to ensure they could get supplies. In spite of the poverty, though, one thing always stood out -  the care and attention paid to food. La cucina was invariably treated with special reverence and whilst meat was way beyond the means of many, the staples, rice, pasta, polenta, together with the abundance of fresh vegetables that only a Mediterranean climate can deliver, was prepared with such inventive devotion that a long drawn-out lunch under a vine-laden pergola could be a positively heavenly experience.

Now, of course, that the country has dragged itself into the 21^st century, much has changed – and herein lies one paradox: the availability of fast food has grown exponentially and yet service can be abysmally slothful, the fare on offer frequently indifferent and sometimes downright nasty. You can still find a small family-run trattoria serving properly-cooked local specialities, but you’re more likely to find yourself being overcharged for mediocre food and then have you change stolen by a waiter sneering over his starched collar. Other paradoxes can be comical rather than demeaning: toilets now have a proper pan rather than being the old squat-and-thrust hole in the floor and yet no need is seen to provide a seat of any description; a new-fangled touch screen electronic till stands idle because the staff don’t know how to use it, bills being hand-scrawled on scraps of paper; a humble road-crossing policeman dressed like an admiral struts around in enough gold braid to rope off a nightclub’s VIP section.

In spite of all this, though, and in spite of the uniformity of everything the EU has brought, Italy still manages to delight and surprise. The language has to be the most beautiful-sounding in the world, its lilt and cadence just bursting with sunshine and romance. I confess I have never learnt it, but my upbringing included a lot of classical music and I have found it entirely possible to make myself understood using a modest lexicon of musical terms: “con tutti veloce” I told a taxi driver when we were late for a train and then screamed “rallentando” when he took this as licence to use the opposite carriageway. “Molto, molto, molto” I told the waiter enthusiastically grating parmesan on my pappardelle  and then “ma non troppo” when the fine threads of cheese started to spill over the edge of the plate. The beauty of the language was thrown into sharp relief when we were treated to a two-hour train journey listening to an American tourist boring his companions rigid with his endless monologue. Like a nightmare from which you can’t escape, his dull monotonous drawl rasped like a saw through my brain. I spent the whole journey either with fingers jammed into my ears or sitting on my clenched fists, forcing myself not to leap over the seat in front to seize his leathery geriatric neck and put everyone out of their misery. I did what every Englishman would, of course, and suffered in silence until we reached Venice, this being the starting point for our real journey and the reason why we had come: to board the Orient Express.

Venice must be the most romantic location on earth to board this most romantic of trains. The Santa Lucia station is quite unlike any other: You could spend hours on the steps just soaking up the atmosphere, looking down at the Grand Canal with its flotilla of gondolas, water taxis and vaporetti all vying for position, as busy as any station approach in the world and yet infinitely more charming.

The Orient Express, of course, is another paradox, though of a different type. You could call your compartment the most expensive hotel room in the world in terms of its square area. There is no air-conditioning, no shower and you have to share a toilet with all the other passengers in the carriage. This, of course, would be to miss the point. It is undeniably expensive (but bear in mind that our trip from Venice to Budapest cost no more than a couple of business-class flights between the two cities) but this is a very cynical view to take and a cynic, as Oscar Wilde once wrote “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. The Orient Express is a glorious anachronism, a gleaming relic from an age when travel was an end in itself. The carriages have been beautifully and lovingly restored, wood panelling polished to a mirror finish and resplendent with all the original brass and chrome fittings, right down to the little hook padded so you might hang up your fob-watch without fear of damaging it. Little expense, it would appear, has been spared in faithfully recreating what was long the favoured mode of transport of the rich when on their grand tour.  A uniformed steward – there is one for each carriage – pours a glass of champagne into a crystal flute before departure and the train manager knocks at the cabin door to introduce himself to every passenger shortly afterwards. Of course, there are reminders that one is not landed gentry travelling in the 1920’s – but they are mostly external. There is no whistle to announce departure and the engine doesn’t huff and puff away in a cloud of steam, a nondescript modern locomotive doing the pulling nowadays, but at least this means you can lean out of the window and not get a face full of smuts. The view, as well, can be less than inspiring – soon after leaving Venice you enter the unashamedly industrial city of Mestre and thence the dull utilitarian landscape of the Northern Veneto. As the train evidently doesn’t feature in the schedules of the modern rail network, we were constantly pulling into sidings and waiting, sometimes for hours, for more modern expresses to roar past. For the Orient Express wafts along at a far more sedate pace, rarely exceeding 50mph. The lack of air-conditioning can be troublesome, especially in the 30 degree plus sunshine of our particular journey. Fortunately, you can open the gleaming brass-framed windows wide on this old train – although a word of warning – I stuck my head out to get some fresh air and almost had it ripped off by the bow wave of a passing Eurostar.

The staff – and there are many – are without exception extremely accomplished in their work. Our steward, Rupert, was unfailingly cheerful, informative and polite during the journey, being on call for nearly 24 hours, dispensing drinks, advice and general banter to everyone in his charge. He had that rare skill of juggling the needs of eight very different couples without appearing rushed and yet being able to make each of us think we were somehow enjoying his special attention. The only fly in the ointment, and I suppose there had to be one, was the maitre d’hotel, a tight-lipped, unsmiling figure who, whilst frighteningly efficient in dealing with dinner arrangements, made you feel less than comfortable in his presence. The clipped German accent didn’t help, nor the savage crew-cut and the rimless spectacles. I couldn’t help thinking that if there were to be any murder on this Orient Express he would be prime suspect.

The etiquette of the compartment takes a little getting used to. Although there were only two of us in it, changing for dinner required one to stand in the corridor whilst the other took an “Italian” shower and completed their toilet. This, together with the transformation to sleeping compartment (the steward carried this out while we dined) and bunk beds with attendant ladder reminded me of nothing so much as childhood holidays in the family campervan.

Although there are only twelve passenger carriages, each carrying a maximum of 16 people, the Orient Express boasts no fewer than three restaurant cars and a bar car complete with grand piano  – the logistics of getting this last item on board defy belief. Like the passenger cars, the restaurant cars have been salvaged from different trains of the past and this is reflected in their designs. We were due to dine in The Cote d’Azur, beautifully designed by Rene Lalique in his timelessly elegant art deco style with his signature glass panels on a silver background set into Cuban mahogany – originally built for the Cote d’Azur Pullman express in 1928.

Pre-dinner drinks are taken in the crowded bar car to the chords of period classics from the resident pianist. It is at this point that the glamour of the journey becomes apparent, for no-one spares any effort to dress up for the occasion. Any qualms I might have had in being overdressed for the occasion in white dinner jacket and silk bow tie were quickly laid to rest. This, and the dinner which followed, were surely the high point of the trip. Everyone here is celebrating a special occasion – birthday, honeymoon, anniversary – and all enter into the spirit, making for a very special experience indeed.

Dinner (there are two sittings) was a masterpiece and the high point of the journey. I had feared prior to the trip that the food would be its undoing, but we enjoyed a meal worthy of any Michelin-starred establishment. Starched linen, heavy silverware and crystal glass set the table. Chef  Christian Bodiguel and his team, working from a tiny cramped galley, produced a meal of quite stunning simplicity and beautiful in its execution.

Although a limited a la carte is available (with Beluga caviar topping the bill at €390) one eats table d’hote on the Orient Express. We started with a simple roulade of bass with pine kernels and sun-blushed tomatoes. Crisp-skinned on the outside, moist and flaky on the inside, with the concentrated punch of the tomato in the middle, it demonstrated the skill of someone who can work magic with just a few top-quality ingredients. It took me a fair amount of the excellent home-made bread to clean my plate.

From the vantage of where I was sitting and courtesy of the mirror-polished panelling I could see the chefs’ production line, plating up in perfect time to the counterpoint of white-gloved waiters who were taking the finished plates and presenting them to the diners, the whole routine expertly choreographed by the sinister maitre d’hotel.

Then came a roast duck breast, pink as ordered and, more importantly, properly rested to ensure its tenderness. On the side, pan-fried foie gras with a crumble topping slipped down a treat and a pleasingly bitter chocolate-infused sauce cut through the richness of the dish. We washed this down with the most expensive bottle of Pinot Grigio I’ve ever ordered (at €40, the cheapest wine on the list! – it’s worth noting that, whilst all meals and mineral water are included in the price of the ticket, other drinks are not – it’s perfectly possible to run up a tab of more than €100 with even a few modest drinks) served from a silver ice bucket by our sommelier. Cheeses were cut at the table from an exclusively French selection and served with a variety of breads, biscuits and chilled grapes. Dessert was a melt-in-the-mouth lemon tart with raspberry meringue and Limoncello.

Then we were treated to another demonstration of the skill of the staff when a waiter (and this appeared to be his only job) appeared at the table and proceeded to give the linen cloth a “crumbing down”, armed only with a dessert spoon. He managed to waft it across the table top in such a way that all the crumbs were miraculously swept up in seconds. How he did it, I have no idea. We – and several others, I noted – surreptitiously tried to emulate the procedure with no success. All we managed to do was shovel crumbs into our laps or onto the floor.

Dinner was finished off with coffee, poured with aplomb against the swaying of the train without a drop spilt but left way too long in the pot and the only low point in the meal, some delicate petits fours rounded everything off nicely and we retired well after midnight to the bar for a nightcap. Incidentally, the bar stays open until the last guest has gone, so you can stay up and party all night, if your wallet can stand it. When we made our way back down the train to our compartment, we found it transformed into a snug and cosy bedroom, with a monogrammed tin of sugar pastilles on the pillow to see us off to sleep. The train was stationary at this point and the oppressive heat made it difficult to sleep, but once we moved off again, the gentle swaying of the carriage had a soporific effect and gently lulled us off.

The morning found us through the Alps and into the more inviting scenery of the Austrian lowlands. A discreet tap at the door at a prearranged 8.30am announced our steward, ready to convert our compartment back to its daytime configuration whilst we stood in our VSOE (Venice Simplon Orient Express – to give the company its full title) monogrammed robes in the corridor. This took him a practised few seconds, whereupon he brought us our breakfast on a silver tray. This time the coffee was fresh, the orange juice even fresher, and the croissants soft, flaky and buttery – had they baked them on board or picked them up en route? Given the selection of breads at dinner, I suspect someone was working through the night to make these..

A few idle hours later and it was time for lunch, this time in the Etoile du Nord restaurant car with its beautiful walnut veneer and floral marquetry. I noted that the design on the menu covers, which of course we stole as mementos, reflects the style of the particular carriage – a thoughtful touch, meaning that we’ll have to go on another trip to complete the set…

Lunch was presided over by the sinister maitre d’hotel  again. I half expected him to say “I’ve been expecting you, Meester Smeeth” as he greeted us with a thin-lipped smile – not as fanciful a notion as it might seem; Bond fans will remember a fight to the death with the dastardly Red Grant of SMERSH in a compartment of the Orient Express in From Russia with Love. No matter, lunch mimicked dinner in its quality and execution. White and green asparagus spears, soft-poached egg, truffle sabayon and oscietra caviar – all beautifully presented even if I find caviar a little slippery and salty for my taste – perhaps if I eat enough of it I’ll grow to like it. On to a pan-fried fillet of John Dory with wasabi cream – a good choice of fish as foil for the pungency of the sauce – Dory might be light and delicate but it packs plenty of flavour. For afters a cinnamon rice pudding in a chocolate basket, which even I couldn’t finish – three meals and no exercise in the past fourteen hours had defeated me. All we could manage was to stagger back to the cabin and stretch out for the remaining few hours of the journey.

All stops are pulled out for the arrival in Budapest – red carpet laid, gawping hoi-polloi roped off and emperor Franz Josef’s personal waiting room opened especially for the occasion. All the staff lined up to say goodbye – adding to the other-worldly experience and perhaps slightly embarrassing, but who secretly doesn’t yearn to be a member of the aristocracy?

Was it worth the expense? Undoubtedly. Would I do it again? Certainly, but in maybe another twenty years – the Orient Express is, and should be, a very special and rare extravagance.

Come and join us for Christmas this year at the Primrose Cafe. We’re offering a mouthwatering festive menu from just £25 for three courses showcasing the very best of local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients. Our two intimate private rooms are available at no charge, either singly or together, for parties of twelve and up; smaller parties can be catered for in our buzzing downstairs dining room. Please book early – we’re filling up fast.

Christmas 2011 information pack

Wild mushroom season is upon us. Come and enjoy this year’s bumper crop – we’ve got some magnificent ceps, wood hedgehogs, trompettes, slippery Jacks, parasols and many more. Try our gnocchi with fried ceps, sage and gruyere or a wild mushroom risotto. The season’s pretty short so get your skates on…

our grumpy forager Alan Sparks shows off his magnificent specimen...

email info@primrosecafe.co.uk for further details

MENU –

A tasting plate of both hot and cold meats including, but not limited to:

Air-dried 12 month prosciutto (Duroc)

Smoked Wiltshire-cured ham, mustard and honey glaze (Old Spot)

South Carolina-style pit-barbecued pulled pork shoulder (Berkshire), whiskey-rubbed, with barbecue sauce

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Skewered Cornish scallop in pancetta (Old Spot) with squid and chorizo (Berkshire), mixed leaf salad with moscatel dressing

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Roast loin (Berkshire) with fennel and rosemary, Cornish new potatoes and seasonal vegetables

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Gratin of summer fruits with elderflower sabayon, raspberry sorbet and raspberry ripple ice-cream

Matching wines selected by Raj Soni of RS Wines will be available by the glass or bottle. A paired glass with each course will be offered for £15

Dinner  will be served at 8pm – please feel free to arrive anytime from 7.30pm

We are very pleased to have been able to support the revival of interest in Britain’s heritage and rare breeds of pig. Many of these were on the verge of extinction following the government’s drive towards unification and intensification in the 1950’s. Many others have already been lost.

Of course, it is only by eating pork that we can support their survival and we feel that the extra cost is more than compensated for by the vastly better eating qualities of these older breeds.

So far, we have had Duroc, Gloucester Old Spot and Berkshires in our herd; we are looking forward to obtaining some British Lop (very old-fashioned and very rare) later in the year.

It is possible, as they say, to use every part of the pig except the squeal and we’ve had great fun rooting through old recipe books to come up with ideas for the lesser-used parts of the pig. Sausages, salamis, chorizo, pancetta, brawn, black pudding and Wiltshire ham are just a few of the things we have made over the past year. Our first air-dried (Parma-style) hams are reaching maturity now and we will be organising a pig evening in the restaurant soon when we will showcase some of the products we have made from this most versatile of animals – matched, of course, with some suitable wines…Watch this space.