Duck or grouse!

I used to waitress in a sweet restaurant in Sussex (sadly no longer the same since the owners retired) in which a brass hanging warned customers to protect their heads from the low beamed ceilings: 'Duck or grouse'.

I love duck. I could eat duck at any moment and the recent post about Confit du Canard shows a new height in ducky obsession. I’m game for game: pheasant, venison, game pie, pigeon pie. But I had never had the opportunity to try grouse.

So when the waiter in the dimly lit, beautifully staffed Locanda Locatelli read out the specials and Grouse was mentioned I knew it was my lucky day. It was just a week after the 'Glorious twelfth' - the start of Grouse season in August - so it was already very much at the forefront of our minds and anticipating stomachs. The Scottish press had suggested it was a 'promising' year for Grouse, too. The gent’s eyes gleamed a little and I could see we were after the same dish.

The first course was like foreplay: a soft-as-clotted-cream goats cheese for me, perfectly dressed, perfectly perfect. The gent indulged in something else altogether. And the wine! The sommelier was charming and knowledgeable, but the gent gently surpassed him and chose an amazing wine which the sommelier approved of heartily. The plonk-chat was lost on me, but I was wild for the performance with a candle and decanting, and the cork being reverently presented in a dish. Top stuff!

It also complimented the grouse madly: I could barely decide which to raise to my mouth, next. The bird was much more gamey than I anticipated. And much pinker, too. The fat lady doesn't sing until the 10th December, so there is plenty of time to reprise the treat yet - and after that, there will still be pheasant. Eating seasonally has never been less of a chore.