A reason to visit Milton Keynes

This review was first published in October 2000

It's when you open the wine list that you discover that all is not quite what it seems. Here you are, sitting in what looks like a perfectly normal Greene King pub in a commuting village between Milton Keynes and Bletchley. It's got the thatched roof, the scrunchy gravel car park, a bit of lawn for the kids, and the Greene King name plastered down the outside of it. You've just had a pint of light and quenching IPA (well-served, as the Cask Marque accreditation promises) in the bar.

There are two restaurant sections where you can sit down for a meal. It all looks pretty normal, though maybe the glasses are a bit larger than you'd find in your local Beefeater or Harvester. A glass of wine, dear?

Er, there are 320 to choose from. If you fancy a glass of Ausone '88, of Haut-Brion '70, of Dujac's Clos de la Roche '86 or of Grange '92, you've come, improbably, to exactly the right address. This is a château in pub's clothing.

Anyone who has ever visited Brown's 1837 restaurant in Albemarle Street, about which Fay Maschler and I wrote two weeks ago, will know that there is a list of dazzling breadth and diversity there, and that it is all available by the glass. It was originally the creation of John Gilchrist, whose partner, Emma Sexton, worked as head chef just around the corner at Nicole's in Bond Street. When I met John a couple of years ago, he said he was planning something of his own, with Emma, just outside London. Having looked at 30 different possibilities, they finally chose The Crooked Billet. And Gilchrist was determined that his hallmark - the complete list by the glass - would continue.

How on earth can you serve 300 wines by the glass in a quiet Buckinghamshire pub? The answer is that you've got to want to do it.

Not all the wines are open at one time, of course, but if someone wants something then Gilchrist will always serve it, and make an effort to sell the rest of the bottle to other customers over that evening and the next. If it doesn't sell, he'll drink it himself as a nightcap. But with so many wines to choose from, most customers are perfectly happy to be guided in their drinking, meaning that the logistics are less troublesome than one might imagine. The wines are served in 175ml measures (a proper drink, just). While the top wines are inevitably expensive (the Haut-Brion is £30 a glass and the Grange £20), there are plenty of inexpensive options, too (no fewer than 45 wines between £2.50 and £3 a glass), and not a Blossom Hill Blush Zinfandel in sight. Gilchrist admits that he couldn't do it without the help of his sole supplier, Anthony Byrne Fine Wines, which allows him to take all the wines on a sale-or-return basis. I don't applaud the principle of sole suppliers (since every agent ships some dud wines), but Byrne's list is one of the most diverse in the country, and opening everything on a by-the-glass basis reduces the risk of disappointment to acceptable levels. The menu, changed every Tuesday, consists of 10 starter dishes at £2.75 to £5.75, and 10 main-course dishes at £7.50 to £12, giving plenty of opportunity to duck and weave on the wine front.

I went with my parents, who are probably the most appreciative codiners available outside the ranks of the malnourished, and we all wolfed down three dishes and four glasses each, giving us a range of 108 potential food-and-wine combinations to try within one meal. My dad, who has a curious and largely unsurveyable attic of a mind, even knew what a crooked billet was (not a squiffy bedroom but a billhook for cutting withes). Emma Sexton's cooking is exuberant, generous, rough-and-tumble stuff: a starter of Tarte e Flet, for example, is a bacon and potato assembly of Alpine inspiration, topped with Stinking Bishop cheese; home-made chicken-liver pâté had real warmth and grain to it; and watercress soup made up in peppery power what it lacked in cosmetic charm. We were sad that the six-hour braised daube of beef still had an hour or two to run, but tender marinated pork fillet bravely served with curly kale and an intelligent vegetarian triptych (plum tomato and garlic ragout, goat's cheese and roasted onion crostini and baby spinach and pecan salad) both offered good value and tender eating. Crispy sea bass (the breadcrumbed skin side of the fillet had been fried) with spicy sag aloo, tomato chutney and big chunks of chorizo was, in the end, slightly over-explosive and defeatingly rich.

Of the wines we tried, four were fantastic, and highly recommended. I had no idea how good the 1995 Drappier Blanc de Blancs Champagne is (£7.50 a glass): such ripe, snow-fresh scents and such delicate, curling, teasing richness of flavour. Alain Brumont's clever 1998 blend of Gros Manseng and Sauvignon Blanc made a superb, apple-and-pineapple aperitif with just the faintest touch of sweetness (£2.50 a glass); while Olivier Zind-Humbrecht's 1998 Tokay Vieilles Vignes is dandelion-yellow, laden down with every nose-haunting fruit you can think of (£10.25 a glass; perfect with the Tarte e Flet, despite its sweetness). The other great wine was Alain Graillot's 1998 St Joseph (£4.75 a glass), packed full of smoky blackcurrant, and much better with the pork than the rather shrill, soprano, over-acid Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon (£8.75 a glass). I was grateful to have tried the waxy white Chinon Les Chanteaux of Couly-Dutheil (£4), the easy-going 1997 Redwood Trail Pinot Noir (£3.75) and the clean and curranty red Cotes de Provence Cuvée du Bailly from Château Minuty (£3). If Gilchrist suggests the thin and varnishy Pinot Noir from Materne Haegelin (£4.50) to you, or the terminally odd 1994 Château Verdaugie Monbazillac (£3.50), just say no.

Local suppliers are credited and thanked on the front of the menu, and Gilchrist and Sexton have been surprised by the warmth of the reception they got from the villagers, who were worried that the pub would be chained and themed. Instead they got an open fire, good real ales, an imaginative menu, and 300 wines by the glass. Dream on.

The Crooked Billet
2 Westbrook End, Newton, Longville, Milton Keynes,, MK17 0DF