Tag: eating out

If options for urbanites seeking experiential or themed dining experiences are boundless, they’re lesser so in our rural backwaters. Yet, we’ve returned from a delicious and most memorable Sunday lunch at The Water Gypsy, a working longboat pop-up licensed restaurant cruising the Kennet & Avon Canal; it’s the unique and enjoyable experience you really need to sample for yourself…..

In order to do so you can either check their website or social media for availability and mooring in your area, as they stop at various locations throughout the summer, autumn and Christmas season…. but chase them up and book you must! This spring season has started their third year, and its popularity is such it gets booked quickly. Until your lucky occasion, I can only try to express in words just how scrumptious and wonderful our experience of it was, and boy, it was!

Drawn to The Shed at Dulwich social experiment, where pranksters tricked TripAdvisor into ranking their shed #1 restaurant in London, to the “middle age” scene in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, where Idle and Jones play an American couple dining in a torture chamber, some quirky dining enterprises can be unnecessarily extreme, some exploit desire to discover unique dining experiences rather than conform to parochial restaurant culture. Howbeit, if seeking such experiences you must, The Water Gypsy presents a most honourable, comforting and hospitable repast; Polly and Hank run the show, balance cooking with being perfect hosts, and stop at nothing to ensure you’re fed in finest fettle.

Being they’re currently moored in Devizes, it was a short appetite-boosting walk along the towpath and we boarded this beautifully decorated and pristine boat, warmed by a log burner, welcomed affectionately and seated on the only communal table set for twelve guests. You could liken the reception, and the whole occasion, more to a dinner party than sitting alone in a restaurant.

Drinks are served, and you are not rushed here. It’s all finest ingredients, homemade and using local produce, which they proudly transform into tapas-style plates that celebrate sharing and connection. A grazing board, chockfull of dips and tapenade arrived, with pesto topped crostini, charcuterie skewers antipastisti with melon, avocado & prawns, Moroccan carrot puff pastry with orange and thyme syrup, and harissa tahini yoghurt, and, and, oh, look I’m no Jay Rayner, don’t even sport a goatee, I’m only now aware how my tastebuds will love me forevermore!

Pescatarian and vegan are catered for, but our main courses were beef estofado, a scrummy slow-cooked Peruvian stew, and delicately sliced hasselback potatoes, sticky pork glazed in garlic and ginger, with spicy Asian broccoli, and chicken tikka skewers with tomato salad….need I say more for clues to the way to my heart? Food heaven in gypsy ornamentation charm, canalside!

A perfectly baked brownie with strawberries and ice cream polished me off, though the other choice was a rather smashing looking cheese board, which Newsquest reporter Jamie opted for, and while tempted to nick his grapes, such was the hospitable atmosphere and such was the gorgeous food so beautifully presented, I thought I’d best behave!

Herein arrives the time when, in a typical restaurant, you’re encouraged to get your coat, but I’ve already observed a washtub and broomhandle propped up in the corner, and identified their owners; we’re in for some entertainment, and I couldn’t think of anyone more apt for the occasion.

Polly wants Sunday afternoons to have an additional live music finale, and while we’ve pondered some alternatives, boaters themselves, Nipper and Jellylegs Johnson drop in to tantalise us audibly the same way and with the same proficiency Polly has done with our palate. It’s a show you could never tire from, nor find fault with. The Devil’s Doorbell, cheeky, quirky duo passionately recreating jazz and blues roots with homemade instruments, skiffle, bucketloads of charisma and more double entendres than Finbar Saunders remaking the entire backlog of Carry-On films.

There was an encore singalong, and with conversation and wine flowing, the atmosphere was unlike anything you’d find at a restaurant. The Water Gypsy is, by very definition, the most pleasant and divine, not to mention scrummy, dining experience this side of Milliways, Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe, only this one is a bit closer, just along the towpath!

---