A restaurant 822 years in the making just has to be a special event. Step up Rozengrals (The Rose Grail), in a building circa 1201, but can it produce a meal fit for a very discerning Russian princess?

Authenticity counts for something when claiming such heritage. So, traditional dress helps to put the welcome into context.

The wine list is fortunately quite spare and unappealing. This is just as well because this setting seems to call out for a honey beer… even for a princess, it seems! By the way, the cloth comes as a vessel for presenting mini bread roles… as is the custom in times gone by, no doubt. Fortunately, the eating irons are already present in a pot, or else I was going to start flexing my fingers.

The menu is rather simply stated… more focused on describing historical stories than culinary information. As if we’re not concerned with what we’re eating as long as it was enjoyed by some noble gent a few hundred years ago! However, it’s suitably presented in a format that implies you’re partaking of a little bit of history.

Salad starters don’t ring true in my recollection of medieval banquets, but I don’t fancy leaving here having to be winched back up the stairs. The honey baked beet and goat cheese salad was a delicate balance of tart and sweet flavours that tempted more quaffing of the beer. The poultry liver with bacon and almond salad hinted more of times gone by… further back than yesterday, that is…

It’s quite possible that the cost of food here includes a candle tax, as there is no discernable electricity generated light. This creates a great atmosphere, and fear not, it’s not so you can’t see what you’re eating so well! Our choice of main dishes spread our interests across surf and turf. Oven baked sea bass and a rabbit stew with prunes and cedar nuts.

I can certainly vouch for the bunny having lived a satisfied and fulfilling life by the greater quantity of meat falling off bone than my previous pursuit of these animals/pets/cartoon favourites. As for the fish, it was ably dissected and devoured by my partner in these historic crime recreations we happened to be enjoying.

Until we speak again, a candlelit washroom visit brought back other historic nightmares… particularly of power blackouts as a kid in the 1970s.