The caterer sent a friendly email suggesting we skip breakfast, and we took it for a joke.
It was not a joke. The tasting in the Fernwater kitchen began at ten and ran to nine courses, each one small and each one very good, which is a dangerous combination. By the fifth plate we were nodding at things we could no longer taste properly.
What we kept
Four dishes made it through: a pea and mint soup to begin, roast beetroot with whipped curd for the garden plate, hake with brown butter for the fish, and lamb with wild garlic for the main. The child's plate was the only one settled without a fight, because it is pasta. Those choices are the same ones you will find on the reply form.
Nine courses before noon is not a tasting. It is an endurance event.
What we would do differently
Eat a proper breakfast, whatever anyone tells you. Take a notebook and score each dish while it is still on the table, not afterwards when the memories have blurred together. And ask for smaller portions of the first five, so there is room left to make a fair decision about the last four.
We slept through most of the afternoon and woke up hungry again, which the caterer said was the correct outcome and the sign of a good menu.
