Food review: Staff shine at The Lamp Tavern, Cleobury Mortimer

Of course we all make mistakes and the weight of acute embarrassment is habitually a blessing in disguise – we learn more quickly when we make errors, than when we get things right.

One of my own favourite errors came thirty-odd years ago, when reporting on a Walsall kickboxer, called Elvis Parsley. I failed to check the spelling and made the predictable error, reporting on a kickboxer who’d got his opponents all shook up, a-huh-huh. Thankfully, he didn’t kick anyone with his Blue Suede Shoes, including the foolish cub reporter who’d failed to check the spelling of his surname.

Memories of Elvis Parsley came flooding back during a visit to The Lamp Tavern, at Cleobury Mortimer.

It’s a delightful neighbourhood curry house. It’s won a number of awards, though none, it seems, for avoiding the sort of mistakes that this writer made in the days of Elvis Parsley.

A good restaurant experience is one where the customer believes the restaurant is in control. And while there may be plenty of smoke and mirrors involved in bringing that to pass, the smoke and mirrors are important.

So, for instance, the Thai restaurant that left out a vast plastic tub of prawn crackers at the top of a stairwell, rather than hiding them out back, is falling at the first hurdle.

The Lamp, with its badly-proofed menu, can be forgiven for doing something similar.

Fish isn’t spelled with a ‘d’, but then it isn’t about the spelling it is about good food and great service and The Lamp delivered on both counts.

The restaurant’s two front-of-house staff worked hard to deliver when my partner and I visited for a Sunday evening supper.

Both were keen to impress – and impress they did. Polite, efficient, and engaging, they were warm, courteous, and helpful throughout a pleasant evening at a reliable – apart from the menu – and well-respected community restaurant.

One waiter came to our table between courses, letting us know that he’d give us a 10-minute rest, so that we had time to digest. The other offered to bag up a small amount of leftovers, so we could enjoy our curries the following day, in the comfort of our own homes.

Both were impeccable throughout an enjoyable evening, earning the venue extra marks.

The restaurant had a modest number of visitors when we visited – after the rush of Fridays and Saturdays, Sunday evenings are always a lull. Yet there were enough other guests present to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere, with the hubbub of chat as people enjoyed good quality food.

The Lamp’s menu is eclectic and diverse. It’s populated with such regulars as balti, bhuna, madras, and rogan josh. Yet there are also other, interesting dishes, on the house speciality list, like chicken mashur, jhinga masala, mawabi chicken and laal saag.

The standards from the kitchen were relatively high – sauces were great, there was a little over-cooking on some elements, but the flavours were strong and pronounced.

We started with the obligatory poppadoms and they were delivered warm and crisp to the table – no faffing around with yesterday’s, slightly-soft incarnations, as there is at some establishments.

The dips and sauces were okay, without setting the world alight.

A mango chutney was sticky and sweet, though with little fruit, a yoghurt and mint dip was a little too mild and underwhelming, the onion salad was fresh and good.

My partner started with a plate of garlic mushrooms, with a small side salad of lemon, shredded lettuce, and tomato. The mushrooms were fine, if unremarkable.

My chicken chaat was decent, with a great roti and a deliciously warm and spicy sauce. The chicken was a little sinewey in places, though the sauce saved the day and made it a decent-enough plate of food.

Our mains were both good. My partner ate a thrillingly warm chicken madras, filled with intoxicating spice and chilli. Paired with a roti, with which to dip in and scoop up the sauce, it was a decent dish with bags of flavour.

My chicken pathia had a similarly enjoyable sauce that was hot and sour. The chicken was a tad overcooked, making the meat a little too dry, though the flavours of the sauce were assured and confident.

We skipped dessert – the menu wasn’t our cup of tea, filled with sweet, sticky, sugary, frozen stuff that wouldn’t have been able to hold a light to the authentic flavours that the chicken had created with the madras and the pathia.

And so we enjoyed a little reverie before paying an eminently reasonable bill and making our way into the evening.

We’d enjoyed a pleasant culinary experience at The Lamp, and not for the first time.

It doesn’t have the high levels at such restaurants as Ludlow’s Golden Moments, for instance, which, for this critic’s dollar, is the county’s best in that category, but it’s reliable and generally of a high standard.

For sure – setting aside the gripe about the menu – there are small tweaks here and there that might improve the overall experience, but credit where it’s due. Service is great, the sauces from the kitchen are first rate and the prices are very, very fair.

It’s a favourite with locals, and for good reason.