Washington Post, 26 June 1994,
             Magazine p. 19-20.

                DINING
          By Phyllis Richman

KESWICK HALL--701 Country Club Dr., Keswick, Va.  804-979-3440.  Open
daily: for breakfast 8 to 10 a. m., for lunch noon to 2:30 p.m., for
dinner 6 to 9:30 p.m. AE, MC, V. Res- tions suggested. No smoking.
Prices: lunch $26 and $32; dinner $55. Full dinner with wine, tax and tip
about $90 per person.

IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE THAT SOMEone would spend $45 million to open a
country inn (our waiter's estirnate), then leave the guests starving for
service.
    "I'd <love> to have dinner," pined the woman at the next table one
Saturday evening.
    "I know we can't get <food,> but couldn't we have some wine?" pleaded
one of her companions to the waiter.
    At the table on the other side of me, a couple who'd arrived at 8:25
didn't get their entrees until 10 p.m.
    We, who started our dinner before the rush, felt lucky. In comparison
it seemed little enough inconvenience that we had to pour our own wine
and that we never got the second roll we'd requested; the wait for our
food wasn't nearly as long as the others'.  But then the waiter had rec-
ognized me as a restaurant critic.
    Keswick Hall is the third country inn owned by Sir Bernard Ashley,
first husband of the late Laura Ashley; he also has the Inn at Perry
Cabin in St. Mi chaels, Md., and one in Wales. Keswick is a splendid
property just outside Charlottesville, a 48-room Tuscan-style villa.  Its
original section was built in 1912,and the estate is being expanded to
include home sites.  At Ashley's properties, a promotional brochure
boasts, "the energetic can sail or buy antiques in St. Michaels, fish for
salmon or shoot pheasant in Wales, play golf or buy a house on Keswick
estate."
   Then presumably hire one's own staff.  

	Otherwise, the $45 million seems to have been well spent. The
public rooms are sumptuous, with inviting sofas clustered around stone
fireplaces and game tables nestled here and there. A broad upstairs
terrace is available for tea or just lounging, and the downstairs terrace
off the dining room would be perfect for any meal--except it was closed
during our balmy weekend visit, reportedly because of understaffing. On
weekends, afternoon tea and breakfast are served buffet-style for the
same reason.
   But back to the attractions. While the architecture of Keswick Hall
looks Italian, the interior is pure Laura Ashley, though more serious and
tailored than the flower-dominated prints at the Inn at Perry Cabin. The
dining room is a glory of chalk-white walls with a dozen immense arched
French doors. Venetian glass chandeliers seem to float over the tables,
which are set with white tapers in tall silver candlesticks. Muted pastel
undercloths and upholstery offer the only col- or. Except for the
flowers, of course.
   An evening holds such promise. Dinner begins with a little plate of
hors d'oeuvres--darling tiny puff-pastry and phyllo-wrapped things--to
tide you over while you contemplate the menu. Dinner costs $55, whether
you choose the three-course menu or the five-course tasting menu, which
seems reasonable given the style of the place. But it escalates, not just
due to tax and tip, but because the large, eclectic wine list is heavily
weighted with bottles running to three digits.
   This is a menu that consistently reads better than it eats. Boudin of
chicken spiked with truffles turned out to be slices of zucchini that had
been hollowed out and stuffed with chicken mousse. Only by fishing out
one of the tiny rounds of mousse and carefully tasting it could I tell
what it was; zucchini, a mild enough taste itself, dominated. I was
equally underwhelmed by the lush-sounding game and foie gras pie with a
beaumes de venise jelly. This was a puff-pastry nubbin filled with
compacted ground meat that had no residual taste or texture of foie gras.
   Our entrees were both better and worse. You can't go too far wrong with
rack of lamb as long as it is not over-cooked, and this was not. It was,
furthermore, impeccably trimmed. Beyond that, it deserved little praise.
Its sauce poivrade suggested that the chef was afraid to offend anyone
with aggressive spices, but the lyonnaise potatoes showed he wasn't
afraid to offend with grease. The cooked carrots were the hit of this
plate. Braised monkfish with sauteed shrimp and gingered shallots also
showed star quality only in a bit player, the vinegar-sharpened, aromatic
whole braised shallots. The fish was watery, and while it had more taste
than the shrimp, we wished it had less. It reminded us how far we were
from any sea where monkfish dwell.
  The menu didn't tell us we were going to have a salad after the entree,
and it was a double surprise, since this toss of arugula, radicchio and
chicory was easily the best course of our meal. Certainly it showed up
our desserts, a vapid passion fruit creme brulee and a hot miniature
apple tart whose crust was so hard to cut we were tempted to pick it up
and eat it like a cookie.
   Of course dinner isn't the only meal one is likely to eat at Keswick,
since tea and breakfast are complimentary for the inn's guests. Breakfast
could have been glorious if it had not been a buffet, since the pouched
eggs were prefecly cooked, the scrambled eggs were silky, the oat-cakes
were far more interesting than everyday pancakes, and the array of
sausages, bacon and ham was sufficient to secure Virginia's reputation
for its pork products. The problem was that the muffins under the eggs
benedict hardened in the chafing dish until they required a steak knife,
the scrambled eggs grew crusty on the bottom and the oatcakes turned
gummy. Even so, one could deliciously work around this problem with the
fresh fruit and the nice lemon muffins and croissants. Juices were
freshly squeezed, and coffee was strong (though decaf could have passed
for tea). Yes, English country house life can be lovely--unless you come
five minutes late for breakfast and are turned away because it's time for
the brunch buffet to be set up.
   Surely the English management would see properly to the afternoon tea,
And it does. Tea is served in handsome china pots with silver strainers
(though not with a pot of water for diluting too-strong brew). And while
I was disappointed to find none of the little sandwiches that draw me to
a tea table, there were some of the best scones I've ever eaten,
accompanied by lemon curd tingling with bits of peel. I wished the cream
had been real Devonshire rather than acidic creme fraiche, but as I ate
the scones with the thick, tart lemon jam, I thought to myself, this is
worth a two-hour drive.
   Tea, it must be noted, was the first meal I tasted at Keswick. And it
turned out to be the only one conceivably worth that two-hour ride.
Adding tennis courts, golf, an indoor-outdoor pool and a charming bedroom
in a manor full of antiques and art makes the trip more nearly worthy of
the effort. But then when you figure in the insufficient service and the
room cost--$195 to $645 a night, without dinner--even such luscious
scones can't keep the balance tilted in Keswick's favor.  [END]

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