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Wine List Confidential: The Avenue at Lainston House

03 February 2025 By Douglas Blyde

Douglas Blyde visits MasterChef: The Professionals winner Tom Hamblet’s Hampshire restaurant, finding “an over-reliance on one supplier” for the wines leading to “predictability” in the list.

Lainston House sits amid bucolic bliss which stirs poets and makes dogs wag tails, in a county famed for chalk streams and wildlife-rich damp spots. At its heart is The Avenue, a fine dining establishment named for the lime trees stretching from its windows like arboreal soldiers.

TripAdvisor’s Tanya M calls the menu “faultless and inspired,” while MasterChef alumnus, Steve Edwards praises head chef, Tom Hamblet’s rise as “extraordinary”.

Refurbished by Russell Sage Studio – though cobwebs remain – the dining room includes a proper kitchen table for those who enjoy a voyeuristic touch. Hamblet’s cuisine, rooted in Hampshire’s finest produce, earns applause from Square Meal for its “squeeze them ins” petits fours. So deft is his craft, you half expect the lime trees to bow in gratitude. But does the wine list dazzle or merely mumble in the shadows?

Design

Lainston House is a country pile with a past juicy enough to make a Restoration playwright blush. Commissioned in 1683 by Charles II as a royal palace, its destiny was cut short by the king’s untimely death, leaving behind not a palace but a retreat fit for a mistress – namely Louise de Keroualle. By 1744, the intrigue thickened. Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston, secretly wed Augustus Hervey in the house’s chapel, only to become the subject of a sensational bigamy trial at Westminster Hall, drawing a crowd of 4,000 curious onlookers.

Even the gardens, replete with overgrown sundial, have a flair for drama. The lime avenue – England’s longest – was planted in 1716 by Sir John Evelyn, gunpowder heir and Renaissance polymath. His motto, “explore everything; keep the best,” echoes in the dappled shade of these stately sentinels, which have watched centuries of whispers, seductions, and schemes unfold.

Today, Lainston House has traded its scandals for a sense of sophistication. As well as dining at The Avenue, guests can wander the storied lime avenue, perfect a soufflé at the Season Cookery School, or indulge in wood-fired fare at The Wellhouse. There’s a helipad for those who like their entrances as grand as their exits.

Drinks

Overseen by Riesling devotee Alberto Almeida, the drinks programme promises vintage tales, but delivers mixed results. Born in the Douro, Almeida learned young that wine isn’t made but willed into existence. From Portugal’s vineyards to Neuilly’s Burgundies, his journey led him to Lainston.

By the glass, the sparkle dims. Ridgeview Bloomsbury NV (£16.50) and Taittinger Reserve Brut (£18.50), served in muffling flutes thick enough to withstand war, are supermarket staples, uninspired when the local Waitrose stocks both. Improvement comes with Stellenrust’s 2019 Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc (£18.75), its richness almost justifying the price, though cheaper at The Plough over the field, and Tignanello 2019 (£72.50), a glossy showstopper.

Yet quirks abound. Typos like “Malrborough” [sic] and “Pinot Meunière” [sic] feel amateur, while innuendo-rich descriptions – “plenty of length” – add unintentional comedy. An over-reliance on one supplier leaves little variety; assistant sommeliers, seemingly scripted, push Ridgeview relentlessly. This wine is unavoidable – from the towering reception displays to the halibut sauces, it’s been decreed essential, saturating the entire hotel collection like an overplayed chart hit no one dares to skip. One almost expects it to appear at turndown, nestled beside the pillow with a knowing wink, or emblazoned across staff uniforms in sequined script, with sommeliers performing interpretive tasting notes in the library.

Amid the predictability, treasures gleam: Guado al Tasso 2017 (£299) and Springfield Estate’s The Work of Time 2015 (£88). Yet these are overshadowed by uninspired staples. Despite Almeida’s roots, just six Portuguese wines appear – a missed chance to weave his story into the list. Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim Vintage Port (£12 per 50ml) and Alto Touriga Nacional from a former football club CEO (£126.50) intrigue, but a disclaimer warning, “It is not possibles to guarantee continuity of all wines or port vintages,” kills confidence.

This list hints at brilliance but, like an over-eager wine, needs patience, polish, and a little personality to match Hamblet’s creations.

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Dishes

At the stoves of The Avenue, Tom Hamblet, a culinary wunderkind and 2023’s MasterChef: The Professionals victor, commands attention. Hamblet sharpened his knives at Camellia, a South Lodge residency, before turning his talents to The Avenue, where Hampshire’s edible riches, plucked from the hotel’s own kitchen garden and Evogro fridge, take centre stage. A Horsham native with chef-parents as progenitors, he began his career at 14, sweating it out alongside his father at South Lodge, before ascending to Latymer and Interlude. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also imparting his knowledge at the on-site Season Cookery School.

Dinner began not in a staid dining room but at the kitchen table – a ringside seat to the tri-partite pass, hemmed in by the historic building’s brickish borders. A playlist of endearingly random bangers (Chesney Hawkes rubbing shoulders with The Doors) accompanied snacks designed to disarm. Duck croustades, sharpened with Sherry vinegar, flirted with truffled Comté and Gruyère gougères. Then, fennel pollen laminated brioche with butter inspired by Baked Alaska, its piment d’Esplette dusted golden twirls hiding a garden herb core – a butter which, frankly, deserved a standing ovation.

Hamblet’s take on wood pigeon on toast was less a dish, more an aria: breast meat like velvet, leg-led mousse rich as Croesus, and crisp toast backed by Madeira sauce as deep as Proust. Potent Medjool dates and cool celeriac added poise, but Almeida’s wine choice – Dinastia Vivanco’s 2017 Rioja Riserva – strutted in, all alcoholic ego and elbows, drowning the plate’s nuances, its boldness misplaced.

An intermediate course of Portland crab, a gentle interplay of curried carrot, fennel, and a crab bisque Américaine kissed with yuzu, proved a triumph. The dish’s various incarnations of carrot and crab – soft beignets, white meat lightened with crème fraîche, and the zest of lemon – found their soulmate in Balfour’s Cinque Ports 2019, a still white from Kent. Champagne’s lesser-known grape varieties – Arbanne, Petit Meslier – added intrigue without upstaging the plate. Now this was a partnership!

Venison loin arrived, having never seen a water bath, blushing, with a beetroot-coated foie sphere masquerading as a tomato, a caramelised onion playing coy, and a duck liver sauce bringing the festive cheer. Combined, the components sang; apart, they argued. Almeida’s Burgundy – Vincent Morey’s 2022 Santenay Les Hates – brought orange whispers to the gamey, sanguine meat, rounding off a deeply satisfying main.

Cheese offered a moment to pause and savour. Bungay-born Baron Bigod – oozing, unpasteurised – was accompanied by Dow’s 2013 port. This, the sommelier’s lone nod to his Portuguese heritage, was regrettably shackled in a joyless “ISO” glass, as if its potential might otherwise escape unchecked.

Then came Muscat Beaumes de Venise from Perrin – a wine Douglas Adams might have dismissed as “mostly harmless”. It tiptoed into obscurity. Thankfully, Hamblet’s pre-dessert ice creams saved the day. Kaffir lime, in its dazzling debut, sparred brilliantly with buttermilk, while mango, dried verbena, and rapeseed brought their own alchemy. A fleeting reminder that Hamblet doesn’t do ordinary.

Dessert proper ensued with chocolate and coffee mousse, cocoa nibs, Pedro Ximénez, and coffee-soaked sponge. Domaine Lafarge’s 2021 Maury joined in – a capable wingman, though hardly a headliner. A chocolate tuille, resembling some cosmic body from a science poster, added flair, but one caveat loomed: bananas. If you don’t love them, this dessert doesn’t love you. Your reviewer, loathing then, determinedly adhered to the advice of the disgraced Gregg Wallace – “Get your pudding spoon out and man up”.

The final flourish? A pâte de fruits, which, for once, justified its existence. Ginger and apple snapped and zinged with a clarity which sliced through the sugar haze.

Last word

Hamblet dazzles, no question, but The Avenue itself needs an edit. The wine programme, while occasionally inspired, remains tentative, like a script searching for its cadence. The house – charming in a dusty, frayed way – requires modernisation and a very deep clean to catch up with its culinary star, whose trajectory, one suspects, will outpace the property’s ambitions. For now, Hamblet’s brilliance is the reason to come. The rest? Well, it’ll have to catch up.