Shropshire Magazine

Head chef Mark Astbury puts the finishing touches to a lunch.

Neil Thomas drops in to the nineteenth hole and finds quality to the ‘fore!’  Pictures: Russell Davies

I don’t have happy memories of the last time I visited Hill Valley, but this is entirely my own fault. It involved that ludicrous pastime of trying to hit a white ball the size of an unlanced boil with the metal equivalent of your grandmother’s upturned walking stick and expecting it to travel a quarter of a mile and disappear down a rabbit hole in four strikes. Ah, is there anything so bitter as an inept golfer? Fellow hackers will know exactly what I mean.

So picturesque is this Whitchurch course that I decided to examine virtually every tree and bush in close detail, handily combining this admiring inspection with the search for lost balls. The score on my card rose in tandem with my blood pressure. 

I hadn’t been back for 15 years (those golfers caught up in the teeing-off traffic jam caused by my ineptitude must have been heartily relieved) . . . until now.

Oven-roast organic Scottish salmon with wilted spinach, écrevisse potatoes and dill-and-white-wine sauce.

However, my return to the scene of this sporting nightmare proved far more rewarding. I’m now rather in love with Hill Valley. To begin with, it’s radically changed. I knew it primarly as a golf club, whereas it’s now the Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel, Golf and Spa.

I can vaguely remember driving along a back lane to get to the course, but today there is an impressive, tree-shaded, manicured entrance off the main Chester Road, which leads you through sumptuous private grounds to a first sighting of the four-star hotel. There are two classy 18-hole golf courses, a new luxury spa and health club, and conference facilities for up to 300.

The golf-mad Minshall family – accomplished amateur players over three generations I know of – had built up the business over the years before joining forces with the Macdonald Hotel chain to produce this £10-million-plus overhaul in 2004.

To all intents and purposes I was at a different place than on the occasion of my 1994 golfing travesty. In addition, this time I took the far more sensible approach of relying for a good time on someone else’s talents – and head chef Mark Astbury and his staff in Borders Restaurant didn’t let me down.

This was one of those spontaneous dining-out occasions. My wife Vanessa is fundraising manager for Hope House and was visiting Hill Valley to collect a cheque from Alan Poole, a longtime supporter who has raised thousands for the children’s hospice through his annual seniors’ charity golf day. I needed a restaurant to review and she suggested killing two birds with one stone. Now I can’t recall The Shropshire Magazine dining out in Whitchurch in recent years and it may well be that the choice of restaurants isn’t huge (if there’s anywhere fantastic in the town that we’re missing please let us know), so eating at Hill Valley seemed a bright idea.

Sumptuous

As we were courteously shown to a window table in the conservatory, overlooking the sumptuous rolling green of a course bathed in the glorious yellow of a sunlit May evening, it appeared an even brighter idea.

This was fully confirmed as soon as we sat down and, after our drinks orders arrived, a waitress appeared with a trolley loaded with loaves of olive and wholemeal bread accompanied by olive oils and balsamic vinegar. She carved off thick slices of the crusty fresh bread at our behest. How many places have a bread trolley? Fabulous.

The ham hock terrine starter was full of salty flavour, tender enough to retain its rich taste yet sufficiently firm to provide something to get your teeth into. The fruit chutney provided a pleasing contrast of sweet and savoury.

My braised lamb shoulder was equally well-prepared, tender yet with a texture to delight any self-respecting carnivore. The slight tartness of the red cabbage provided a pleasing contrast while the parmentier potatoes were delicious roasted cubes scattered around the plate’s perimeter. Mint gravy was the perfect accompaniment.

Vanessa described her cornfed chicken on a bed of root vegetables and sautéed potatoes as thoroughly enjoyable.

The dining room.

The desserts were miniature works of art on a plate. We all know how moreish chocolate can be and it constituted one of the best sweets I’ve tucked into for a while. This chocolate truffle tart was rich, dark and a little racy, a dish so deliciously addictive that it could have ended with me checking into chocoholics’ anonymous had not a generous helping of fresh cream put the brakes on.

Vanessa’s crème brulée was topnotch and served with a chunky homemade shortbread.

Sensibly, Borders Restaurant sticks to simple, well-made dishes, applying its own touch to perennial favourites that are guaranteed to appeal to a wide range of tastes. For instance, when we visited other starters included homemade carrot-and-coriander soup, prawn cocktail, melon with fruit compôte and Caesar salad.

Mains featured rib-eye steak with hand-cut chips, pan-fried cod with leeks, mashed potatoes and a tomato coulis, and panzotti and rocket salad with parmesan shavings.

Among the desserts were sticky toffee pudding and a range of ice-creams. Cheese and biscuits were also on the menu.

All very safe and sure and perfectly understandable; the last thing you want when you have trekked around a golf course for three hours working up a healthy appetite is some puffed-up chef with his eyes solely on stars dishing up what he arrogantly believes to be a square meal – two mouthfuls of meat and an infant carrot served up with drizzles, foams and smears.

Efficient

Service was swift, efficient and full of good cheer. The staff mingled easily, cracking jokes with diners and generally creating a pleasant atmosphere. Borders was healthily busy for a Tuesday evening, which is always a reassuring sign. 

The restaurant’s layout rather cleverly takes account of the fact that couples looking for a quiet, relaxing meal together may not necessarily wish to sit cheek by jowl with a dozen-strong golfing party buoyed by the accomplishment of a round in which they only lost 30 balls between them.

The staff exuded bonhomie and good cheer throughout, unwavering even when their patience must have been tested by a group of a dozen young men who turned up at twenty to 10 for their 9pm reservation. I don’t know whether it was a case of the charms of the 19th hole possibly being rather too magnetic, but sauntering into a restaurant mob-handed 40 minutes late shows a thoughtless indifference to the staff that borders on plain rudeness. If they’d done it across me I’d have spat in their soup, but that’s perhaps why I’m not cut out to be a waiter.

Needless to say, the Hill Valley team greeted them with the same warm smiles we had received nearly three hours earlier. Now that’s professionalism.

• Borders Restaurant at Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel, Tarporley Road, Whitchurch SY13 4JH. Telephone 0844 879 9049. www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/hillvalley

The hotel sits amid the rolling landscaped greens and fairways.