It is five years since I reviewed a pub run by Lucy Townsend, and it was such a memorable trip. Enjoyable food, smart room, pub element intact. Mentored by great British hotelier, Robin Hutson, Lucy has bought her own. Formerly the Greyhound Inn, its newly elongated name leaves the fishing fraternity in no doubt that this lies beside the holy of holies when it comes to trout. This Stockbridge pub even has fishing rights.
I've been waiting for the website, uncompleted long after reopening. By now all seven upstairs billets are booked solid by folk whose luggage no doubt bulges with the last word in breathable over-trousers.
Finally squeezed in, I invite C to dinner on her route from London. Our last dining experience, orchestrated by yours truly, was disastrous, a regular source of leg-pulling. Now, like the fly fisherman, I'm quietly optimistic.
Dashing in from lashing rain (yes, it's a bank holiday) I push the door. A girl behind the bar leads me upstairs. Breakfast is from 8am.
"Till when?"
"Oh whenever, at weekends through till lunch really." Ding dong.
This is posh Hampshire, so I'm not going to argue about a simple, freshly painted double and good linen at £110. I'd like a table for the kettle and conditioner among organic toiletries in a bathroom stocked with thick towels, though, and there is something cheap about a louvre-doored cupboard containing thief-proof hangers.
Descending, I spot a hallway honesty bar. It's lively below, wines chalked up, Ringwood beers on draught, and Lucy greeting customers who are obviously already regulars. I wait in a window seat. When C turns up, we move to the dining room, amid lanterns and modern art, jewel-coloured water glasses on our table.
Guilt (sic) bream with confit potato and tapenade is "A dish with something on its conscience," says C, who then spots braised pork belly and cheek. "Now I like a bit of that with dinner." From a short section headed On Toast, thoughtfully aimed, we guess, at those who nip in for a lunchtime pint, she proclaims Stockbridge mushrooms and sage butter "a wise choice". There is even a separate Salads choice – but cold food would be no laughing matter tonight. We order.
Braised cod cheeks with saffron sauce and linguine, and smoked carpaccio of buffalo arrive, well presented and delicious.
"Now I'm quite pleased winter's gone on a bit," says C as spatchcock poussin arrives in unctuous gravy with garlic mash, at £13.95, a bargain. I pick a £24 sirloin steak, bang-on medium rare, buttery chateaubriand sauce in a jug, and fat chips, crisp outside and soft in. Panna cotta flavoured with lemongrass and a calorific Nougatine glaceé round it all off with pots of herbal tea, a ridiculous bid, after such indulgence, for redemption through caffeine-avoidance.
We are so impressed by what Lucy and chef Alan Haughie have achieved and cannot wait for a hot day. To try the salads. Some will need the lure of fishing (details on website). For us the pub is bait enough.
• Accommodation was provided by The Greyhound on the Test
