Food ✪✪ Ambience ✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪
Macdonald Linden Hall
Longhorsley
Northumberland
NE65 8XF
0344 879 9084
Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free? Yes
www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk
It’s funny how the past can turn up in the present. A couple of weeks ago I decided I’d walk, rather than drive, to a meeting in Jesmond Dene. Traipsing past the sad, burned-out husk that used to be Fisherman’s Lodge I was, Proust like, whisked back to memories of its former glory. This used to be the number one place in Newcastle.
I remembered, in particular, a perfect dish of enormous scallops, seared to rusty bronze, with a purée of spiced golden raisins. Given the number of restaurant meals I've consumed over the years, it takes something rather special to stand out in my mental Rolodex of plates, especially decades after the bill was settled.
Later that night I got chatting to a waiter called Leo. I was dining at Linden Hall, a country house hotel about 10 miles north of Morpeth, and I could have sworn I recognised the guy from somewhere. Turns out he was the very gentleman who'd served me that plate of scallops all those years ago.
We got to talking about fine dining, restaurants and what a special place Fisherman’s Lodge had been. He'd worked there for ages. Suddenly I felt quite old.
