One of life’s simple pleasures is coming across unexpected names for new restaurants, so I was enthralled when the Troublesome Lodger opened recently in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. This single room with a minuscule kitchen attached is upstairs at the Oarsman pub in the centre of Tom Kerridge’s fiefdom, so there’s bound to be some decent hungry passing trade, and most chefs who take over a space in a pub, hotel or fancy department store become troublesome lodgers within about three weeks. More fool you if you let a cook into your property to create their “culinary vision”: within hours, your lifts will be full of lobsters and a consommé spillage will have blown your electrics.
It is rather raffish of chef Simon Bonwick, then, to be quite so upfront, yet the Oarsman has given him this austere, very snug and dimly lit private dining room with one vast, leather-topped, antique conference table of the kind you’d imagine the bankers in It’s A Wonderful Life crouching over. Apparently, the room had been unused and full of dusty boxes and bags of sand until the new lodger took it on and turned it into what is essentially a reflection of his inner mind. Bonwick loves to paint, you see – his penchant being semi-surreal, multi-coloured dreamscapes – and every wall is now covered floor-to-ceiling with exhibits of his work, along with a pencil drawing of Tupac Shakur by one of his nine children; one of the space’s deep windowsills is filled with Bonwick family photos.
The daily set menu – there are five courses at lunch, plus petits fours – is ornately handwritten on a single sheet of A4, and features dishes called the likes of “sea scallop like Mitsuhiro Araki showed me” and beef with “rather nice beef sauce”. And when you’re eating these highly personal dishes, Bonwick himself is all of 10 feet away, cooking in a kitchen that’s smaller than the pantry in my late grandmother’s two-up-two-down.
If that all sounds a bit intense and unusual, then you’d be correct in thinking so: the Troublesome Lodger is the antithesis of the big, corporate, multi-seater for which an expensive design agency has vision-boarded the theme and a huge HR team has been employed to recruit the crew. On this Friday lunchtime, the only front-of-house was the chef’s daughter, and the other four diners were two foodie types who had followed Bonwick from his former Michelin-starred home at The Crown near Maidenhead, and a couple who live just down the road and who usually eat downstairs in the Oarsman itself. I can tell you these facts for certain, because we all ate together, down one end of that vast table, as if we were at an underpopulated wedding. If communal dining with strangers frightens you, abandon all plans to head to the Troublesome Lodger immediately; otherwise, bring your dinner party chat A-game and settle in.
Proceedings began with warm bread rolls and Bonwick’s “top butter” (unsalted, sadly) to accompany “my gravlax of salmon” featuring cured, dill mulch-strewn salmon on a mustardy sauce. Next up was that intriguing, Araki-influenced raw scallop on some weird lentil mush, followed by “the Lodger’s crab dish” of good-quality shellfish in a refined mayo, enlivened by raw apple soaked in vibrant yuzu and arranged in a neat little pile with two teensy potatoes at its base, like baby feet.
The main course was probably the best: poached Highland rump à la ficelle (tied with string) with a rich reduction, beets, carrot, a tiny quenelle of mashed potato, an elaborately curled spinach leaf shaped into a ball and a single – and stone cold – button mushroom. It reminded me of a posh, albeit small Sunday lunch with a world-class gravy that was rather more than “rather nice”.
Bonwick’s style is British flavours with French techniques and Japanese influences, and although you might find more adventurous menus even just up the road, there is something heartwarming about the Troublesome Lodger, where strangers pitch in and share their lives over a meal. We talked about our families, the expense of storage spaces, the state of the traffic on the M40 and the dramatic ouevre of Dame Margaret Rutherford.
The conversation ranged through our starters and main, continued past dessert – a classic French tarte bourdaloue with a lovely, flaky crust, almond cream and poached pears that came with clotted cream and custard, which Bonwick himself scooped out of a pan and on to our plates – and carried on right through to coffees and chocolate truffles, before we were ushered down a curious back staircase that thrust us out into the main street.
Yes, the Troublesome Lodger is a bizarre way to spend three hours, but do try to give it a go before the eviction.
The Troublesome Lodger Upstairs at the Oarsman, 46 Spittal Street, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, 07596 517189 (bookings essential). One sitting per service: lunch, all week, 1pm; dinner Mon-Sat, 7.30pm. Five-course set menu only, £85 a head, plus drinks and service
The next episode of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is out on Tuesday 5 November – listen to it here
