Alan Cookman

Goldstone Hall, Cheswardine, Nr Market Drayton

I AM not often bamboozled by menus, but an unfamiliar word or phrase will occasionally insinuate itself on to the page.

What, for example, is a “bath chap”?

Invited to hazard a guess, I would have defined a bath chap as an attendant in some kind of facility for communal ablutions, probably overseas.

“Wake up the bath chap and tell him to bring soap and a loofah.”

Alternatively, a bath chap could simply be a chap from Bath, or indeed a misprint: a Bath chop or Bath chips would make sense in a gastronomic context.

I now know, however, that a bath chap is a traditional West Country delicacy, if that's the right word, which is facing extinction.

Efforts are being made to re-popularise the dish – which consists of cured pigs cheeks in breadcrumbs – and the chef at Goldstone Hall is to be congratulated for doing his bit.

On the specimen menu I'd acquired, the bath chaps were billed as accompanying the medallion of fillet steak with Buttercross Farm black pudding and Cashel Blue sauce.

Recognising my duty to help save the endangered bath chap, I resolved to order this very dish. Unfortunately, on the dinner menu of the day, bath chaps were not wanted on voyage and the medallion of fillet steak was served “on toasted brioche with a sauté of garden broad beans and redcurrant sauce”.

Herself ordered it and I felt that the absence of bath chaps was a loss she bore with exemplary fortitude. The dish was, in short, superb.

Which is what dishes tend to be at Goldstone Hall – “Seat of Shropshire Squires” – an award-winning country house hotel and restaurant set in gorgeous gardens on the borders of Staffordshire and Shropshire.

The present house dates from the Georgian period, although the original was built by Hugh de Golstan in 1390. It's family-run and is indeed a home as well as a business.

We last ate here four summers ago, enjoying sublime food in a small dining room overlooking the garden of flowers, plants, grasses, lawns and pergolas, a sundial and pond.

This time, we dined in the oak-panelled restaurant, finally opting to choose from the dinner menu, which is £27.50 for two courses or £34 for three (the alternative summer menu is £18.50 for two courses, and £25 for three).

Before her steak, Herself had the salad of Goldstone garden leaves (produce that isn't actually grown on the premises is locally-sourced) with sun dried tomatoes, olives and artichoke.

The Son & Heir started with the pan-fried scallops, a trio of fat and juicy molluscs, all the better for having been “hand dived”, which means they were harvested manually by divers rather than being dredged and dragged along the ocean floor gathering grit en route.

My honey-roast pork and duck terrine with orange syrup and apple purée was heavenly, but even this was commonplace compared to the cannon of lamb – the sweetest, leanest, pinkest eye of the loin, rolled and served with chicken and coriander mousse, cauliflower purée and lavender sauce.

This isn't just food, this is Goldstone Hall food. I may have tasted meat this good before, but I doubt it.

The Son & Heir followed his diver scallops with a herb-crusted fillet of cod with a watercress and clam casserole, and Herself drooled over that fillet steak minus bath chaps.

She still found room for Hungersheath Farm strawberries with thick double cream and Pedro Ximenez sherry, however, and the boy polished off the chocolate and garden mint crème brûlée with Jenny Annandale double chocolate cookie.

I contented myself with the cheese selection and the last of the red wine.

I had intended to describe some of the other dishes on the menu – the tian of crayfish and crab, for example – but our lawyers advise that it might constitute cruel and unusual punishment of innocent newspaper readers.