Let’s get this out of the way now: you’re not going to go to Pine.
Oh, you’ll want to. It’s genuinely excellent: surprising and reassuring by turns, never less than absolutely bloody lovely. Service is beautifully judged: friendly, informative, and attentive; never oppressive or cloying. And, dare I say it, while it’s not cheap, there is value there. Proper value.
But no, you’re not going to Pine because it’s absolutely bloody miles away. Not just for Londoners idly browsing trains and realising that there’s no such thing as a train to Northumberland — Pine is miles away from anywhere. Everywhere, in fact. Even if you’re already in Northumberland, Pine is still a half-hour taxi ride over rolling hills. You’d fall off your bike trying to cycle there. You’d collapse walking. So no, you’re not going to go to Pine.
But you should. Because Pine is very, very special. And the food — every last one of the 16 courses — is gloriously, what-the-hell-did-I-just-eat mad.
The fever dream of chefs Cal Byerley (local lad, lives over a neighbouring field) and Ian Waller (less keen on the countryside, treks to Newcastle every night) and their respective partners Sian and Nessa (who marshals an esoteric, special wine list), Pine revels in a sense of magnificent weirdness.
The space itself is a delight, bordered by massive windows that invite the fierce countryside in. There is not a starched tablecloth in sight. Things start with cocktails — in this instance, a gooseberry sour and a rosehip martini, both perfect, perfumed, but not perfumey, floral but not flowery. In the sour, the “gooseberry raisins” beg a question: “How on earth do you get fruit/veg to taste like that?” It is a question we ask over and over throughout the meal.
Focusing on the local, the wine list leads with British bottles, with the occasional nod to the Old World, but no farther afield. These aren’t familiar favourites: yes, there’s Hambledon fizz, but we also visit Essex, Cornwall, and Monmouthshire, all dispensed with charm and alacrity by Nessa, who genuinely lights up when asked about the journey that UK wine is currently on. And if you can’t get excited about a good cabernet franc from just outside Raglan, well...
And the food. Waller gleefully says that if the team don’t swear when they first taste a dish, it doesn’t make it onto the menu — and f*** me, it shows. In lesser hands, fermentation and compression can scream “test subject”. Not so here.
The first course — a mackerel, cherry and shiso contraption we’re encouraged to “pop in whole” — is a Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstopper of a mouthful. Each flavour hits sequentially, and then endures, crashing against the tastebuds in wave after wave of “how have they done that?!” And this never stops. A scallop dish that’s refreshing and comforting at the same time. A potato and wild garlic thing that blew my mind. A “garden juice” that sounds depressing — I’m here for a blow-out, for God’s sake, not a cleanse — but manages to be the crispest, most refreshing thing I’ve drunk in years.
Or there’s the beetroot concoction where the beetroot — treated as “vegetable charcuterie” (a phrase, along with ”fish ham”, that I’ve enjoyed ever since first hearing) — somehow manages to taste more beetroot-y than seems possible, and at the same time exactly like a purple fruit pastille. Carrots to dream about. A lemon verbena meringue spectacular, scorched table-side in one of the finest pieces of theatre I’ve seen.
This is simply beautiful food, in every sense. The menu lists ingredients rather than describing dishes, and perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay is that, as I write this days later, I can clearly picture it all. I can taste everything.
Michelin stars were originally doled out based on how far you should travel to eat the food, and by that metric, the single one that Pine currently boasts is nowhere near enough. This is a restaurant worth travelling for, a restaurant worth changing at Crewe for, a restaurant worth asking the cabby if he can stop at a cashpoint on the way for. And so no, you’re not going to go to Pine. But trust me, you really should. I will be.
