The Master Builder's House Hotel, Beaulieu

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar, FT Alphaville's bickering restaurant dialoguistes, conscious that they leave the comfort zone of Shepherd Market in Mayfair all too infrequently, have been persuaded to motor down to Beaulieu in Hampshire, home of the Master Builder’s pub and restaurant at Buckler’s Hard.

MrV: Perhaps I shall never complain again about these awful forays to the City and beyond. That really was too far to go for lunch.
MrO: It was a lovely drive. The New Forest moorland with all those tiny wild ponies is quite extraordinary.
MrV: I wonder what they taste like? Probably quite good, although I expect you have to travel to France to try one. I have a feeling I heard somewhere that the New Forest authorities have to cull them and they sell the carcasses to Frace – or maybe to glue factories. Anyway, they certainly weren’t on the menu at the Master Builder’s.
MrO: That has to be one of the most pleasant settings of any pub I’ve been to. It is hard to believe that it was a major shipbuilding centre in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and built three of the ships that fought with Nelson at Trafalgar.
MrV: You are boring me, as usual.
MrO: Be that as it may, it was rather inspired of a previous Lord Montagu to convert the shipworkers’ cottages into an hotel and pub. The place is packed in the summer and quite a lot of the rest of the time, too.
MrV: You’d think, under those circumstances, that they could afford employ some staff in the bar, wouldn’t you?
MrO: There were staff in the bar...
MrV: When we arrived there was one boy who moved as though he was stuck in treacle. The queue was huge and it was only ten minutes later that another boy arrived and he suffered from the same slow motion sickness.
MrO: It was a little testing, I’ll grant you.
MrV: And then they didn’t have the dish I selected from the menu and I had to order the fish and chips.
MrO: Well, I had that too. It was alright. “Sustainable day boat Pollock.”
MrV: What the devil is a “sustainable day boat”? And I reckon they got one letter wrong in that last word.
MrO: How typically coarse of you. Anyway, it arrived very quickly.
MrV: Suspiciously quickly. It tasted, though I have no evidence other than my own impressions to support this, as though it had gone straight from the freezer, batter and all, into the fryer.
MrO: It was a very crunchy batter, that is true.
MrV: And some of the chips weren’t cooked in the middle.
MrO: True again.
MrV: And the waitress sighed and rolled her eyes when we asked for cutlery and napkins.
MrO: Perhaps she was having a hard day.
MrV: So were we by that time.
MrO: But the setting is so lovely that when the weather is mild one can forgive the little deficiencies because it is such a pleasure to sit there and sip at a foaming pint of beer.
MrV: It was a greater pleasure for me to get it over and head back to London.
MrO: You forgot our stop-off in Beaulieu for pudding.
MrV: I’ve never encountered a place with a sweeter tooth than Beaulieu. Sweets and ice cream shops everywhere.
MrO: Perhaps it’s something to do with Buckler’s Hard originally being founded for sugar imports in the 17th century.
MrV: Boring...
MrO: I very much liked the Beaulieu Chocolate Studio.
MrV: Lord Montagu likes to pop into the chocolate studio from time to time, doesn’t he?
MrO: I have no idea.

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar consumed a plate each of fish and chips and a pint of beer at a total cost of approximately £35.

The Master Builder’s House Hotel, Buckler’s Hard, Beaulieu Estate, Hampshire SO42 7XB
Tel +44 (0) 1590 616 253

enquiries@themasterbuilders.co.uk

http://www.themasterbuilders.co.uk/

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