SUPPER CLUB AT THE ODDFELLOWS
The Exeter bar and restaurant proves to be a home away from home for Harriet Noble
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hen you look back at notes you’ve made from a restaurant review they can sometimes be, frankly, unintelligible. Dimly lit rooms where you can’t see what you’re writing and a couple of glasses of vino will have you writing nondescript phrases like “starter yummy, weird texture” or “fab loos” with a smiley face emoji. Such mutterings a good review does not make. What you really want, apart from all the morsel-bymorsel detail, is to articulate the atmosphere for the place. Because that’s what people really want to know isn’t it? Yes, brilliant and exciting food is on the need-to-know list, but the heartbeat of a place is everything. My busy squiggles from The Oddfellows say, in capital letters, with biro sun-rays coming out at 360 degrees, FEELS LIKE HOME. Which is odd in a sense because my home isn’t half as nice as The Oddfellows gaff, but it’s something about the feel of the place. It’s got all the right kinds of ambience by the bucket load. And on the Friday that my pal and I head there for one of their supper clubs, it proves to be a great way to kick off the weekend. The aesthetics help: the sage green walls, little alcove
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dining area, dainty tea lights, pretty wallpaper, chunky wooden furniture, wall hangings – paired with really friendly and relaxed service and the mellow voices of Cat Stevens, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan singing to us throughout our meal. And then there’s the food. The six-course taster menu kicks off with a dazzler: tea and crumpet – a forest fungi mushroom tea course that is quite possibly the cutest, quaintest dish you’re ever likely to see. What arrives is a chintzy teacup and saucer, with spoon, hosting a beautiful Asian-influenced tea. It’s thin in consistency but ocean deep in flavour, with earthy flavours melting into layers of sweet cinnamon, and sharp pickled onion. We drink it out of our teacups, we slurp it from our spoons and we dip into it with our gorgeous holey crumpets: I absolutely love it. It’s delicious, almost medicinal (in a good, healing sort of way), looks a treat and scores full points for originality. Next up is the salt baked beetroot, celery, pear and walnut. It’s light but creamy; the celery and pear contrasting nicely with the crunch of the walnut and astringent punchy beetroot. Third course is fish for my companion, a Brixham lemon sole which comes with shrimp, capers and a herb butter which gets the thumbs up. Normally a man of few
