A weekend break in August to a luxury hotel in the Surrey Hills ought to be the stuff of dreams. Barnett Hill, an impressive Queen Anne-style property near Wonersh, is a beautiful building with splendid grounds and excellent walking options nearby. While it was not the fault of the property that the British weather impeded full enjoyment of the outdoor facilities, blame certainly must lie with the hotel for the underwhelming dining experiences that characterised our stay.
Barnett Hill does not have any Michelin stars, but it is the owner of two Rosettes, awarded by the AA. These are apparently given to “excellent” restaurants where the cooking should exhibit “great precision.” We did not see much evidence of precision and to describe the Oak Room even as “very good” might be too generous. Sure, the main dining space is lovely. As the name would suggest, it is oak panelled, light and spacious with mellow pastel furnishings and views looking across the sculpted grounds. Adjacent to the Oak Room is the more informal 1905 Bar, where many of the same culinary options as the principal restaurant are available.
Things began promisingly, with a bottle of local sparkling wine (from Albury, just five miles away), which we enjoyed on the outside patio alongside an incredibly generously sized bowl of olives. We hence started our meal in a positive frame of mind. A quick glance at the menu perhaps should have given us a feel of what was to come. There was nothing inherently wrong with it; rather it was bland, inoffensive and generic. These same adjectives could be applied to the food. The approach seems to be one of playing things safe rather than attempting to push any boundaries. Take the choice of four mains: the obligatory steak option, one chicken dish, one fish dish (salmon) and one veggie option (tortellini). I almost wanted to yawn. Surely, a two-Rosette restaurant could do better? Even if you were to give Barnett Hill the benefit of the doubt, maybe diners might hope for excellent cuts of meat or similar that spoke of terroir or were prepared with love and precision? Sadly not. My salmon could have come from a supermarket, while the accompanying mango sauce was off-key and felt out of place. At least the samphire was prepared well. My dining comrade had similarly ambivalent feelings about her tortellini. A chocolate parfait dessert and a great bottle of Domaine de la Janasse Rhone wine at least ensured that there were some positive moments from dinner.
If this meal was average, then breakfast was unambiguously disappointing. Day-one saw our server forget to mention that there were a la carte options available, forcing us to consume the same old selection of slightly tired looking congealed fried options. When shown the much-anticipated breakfast menu on day-two (for the record, we ate our second evening meal in a nearby pub to avoid repeating the Oak Room experience), both my comrade and I went for the avocado on sourdough option. This ought not to have been too complicated a request for the kitchen, but seemingly it was. We had to wait an hour. When the dish eventually arrived, it comprised one measly slice of bread only and an utter absence of promised pea shoots to accompany it. Not what you might expect from a two-Rosette venue charging £15/head for the privilege. Further, it was a clear failing of the Barnett Hill team not to have warned us that we might have to wait so long. Being London-based, it’s easy to be snobbish about out-of-town dining experiences, but rarely have my comrade and I been wowed by country hotels (Rockliffe Hall being an exception). Britain deserves better.