The plan behind our second pandemic-staycation-short break in August 2020 was simple: have 2 nights in West Sussex’s South Lodge Hotel, one dinner in close-by Restaurant Interlude and one dinner in one of South Lodge’s restaurants; Camellia.  The hotel’s signature 1-starred restaurant called The Pass was closed during the pandemic (and now seems to have closed permanently because it’s not mentioned on the hotel’s website) but it had always been my intention to dine in Camellia anyway.  Camellia has 2 AA rosettes but no Michelin star, but it’s produced several good chefs who’ve gone on to good things (Matt Gillan, Stephen Edwards), so I was very optimistic of having a good dinner.

Camellia plays on its country house location, with wood panels and very ‘traditional’ (ie. dated) decor.  Service seemed to be from the days of mediocre British dining too; The maitre d’ wore a horribly dishevelled suit, there wasn’t a sommelier or wine expert on hand to offer guidance on the plastic folder of a wine list, and the food menu was staid.  We didn’t receive our Champagne aperitif before the food service began.

The amuse bouche was a bowl of ‘vichyssoise’ with sour cream, chives and a silly amount of cold crispy onions which were horribly overpowering. The soup was thicker than it should have been. Not nice. 1/10

My starter was pigeon breast with a pigeon leg croquette, griddled endive and some forgettable sauces. Although the pigeon looked very raw I actually found it to be well cooked, and the whole dish had good flavour. But some work is needed on the presentation of this dish. 7/10. Mr A had a scallop dish which was actually a pork dish with the addition of a few scallops, which would have scored no more than mine.

My main course was butter poached halibut with crab orso and crispy nori seaweed. (Nori is a seaweed, and isn’t it always crispy?).  Operating as an old style British restaurant, we had been encouraged to order side dishes with our mains, so we chose roast potatoes. But looking at the huge splurge of orso pasta on my plate I saw there was no need for those extra carbs!  The fish was OK, but halibut is a magnificent fish which should always be better than just OK. The orso was overcooked and its crab flavour totally dominated whatever flavour the halibut had retained.  This £34 dish was a huge disappointment, and I couldn’t finish it. 2/10

I’m not mad on deserts at the best of times (diabetes), and I decided to not take a chance on one here, because the preceding dishes had been so poor, so, hungry as I was, I ordered a selection of English cheeses.

Five or six very small portions of cheese were presented with a nice tomato chutney and a not so nice onion chutney, some sliced apple and lavrosh crisp bread.  The cheeses tasted fine, but I received no information about what they were. 5/10

This dinner was a huge disappointment.  I paid my £241.88 bill, but I mentioned my disappointment at check out next day and they kindly took £60 off the Camellia bill. I suggest anyone else who is as disappointed as I was should also seek compensation; maybe then South Lodge will raise its standards. Overall 2.5/10

PS the German word was “womit”, with the ‘w’ pronounced, of course, as a ‘v’.