A new regular feature of this blog will be a quarterly restaurant recommendation. This month I have at last found a relatively local restaurant worthy of my custom. Having visited some very good restaurants in London and France since Christmas, I am very pleased to say that La Luna in Godalming was my favourite this quarter. This restaurant was a real revelation as we have been searching for good restaurant in the Guildford and Farnham area for years without real success. For me the food was worthy of a Michelin Star and they have a lovely Italian wine list to match. We got there by bus from Tongham via Guildford in less than an hour and had a very pleasant rural ride. Our return was by taxi as we left rather late after a leisurely and thoroughly enjoyable meal and although this added to the cost it enabled us to sample the wines chosen for us by Daniele Drago, the sommelier.
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| Jane comparing the different desert wines! |
La Luna is situated at 10-14 Wharf Street in the centre of Godalming and is a modern Italian restaurant. We asked Chef Valentino Gentile to prepare us a tasting menu and this enabled us to sample a fantastic selection of his dishes. Starting off our taste adventure we had some fantastic Sicilian street food, Panelle which are chick pea fritters served with a tomato based dip. They were “to die for” and were accompanied by an excellent Prosecco. Other dishes we tried and can recommend were slow cooked belly of pork, seafood linguine and baked sea bass. Perhaps, my favourite was the stuffed free range quail and smoked ham with Jerusalem artichoke – this is well worth trying. The deserts were also good but the star of the desert course for me was the gorgeous raisiny Sicilian desert wine that accompanied my Tiramisu.
If you live in the area and fancy a fantastic meal out, I would heartily recommend
La Luna. Service, ambience, food and wines were all top class. We went on a Saturday night and it is obviously a popular restaurant. Visit
their web site for a sample menu and prices. For more details on our meal and some pictures, visit wife
Jane’s blog.
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Bottled beer has improved a lot since I was young, when it was all fizzy light ale or brown ale. Nowdays one gets some nice bitters in a bottle. Recently I picked up a very nice example at the excellent Secretts Farm shop in Milford near Godalming. It was a bottle conditioned ale from Susex and had exactly the bitter hoppy taste I like. My reason for purchasing was actually the nice picture of an old grand prix car on the front of the bottle, the beer being called Woodcote bitter after the corner at Goodwood and the Woodcote Cup, a race run there. The beer went very nicely with a Saturday lunchtime salad of cheese, ham, salad leaf, gluten free bread croutons and chorizo leftovers. Salads aren't particularly friendly with wines unless you are very careful with the dressings and lunchtimes somehow suit beer better than wine.
