It’s funny how, four years down the line, Covid is still playing tricks with my perception of time. I could have sworn it’d been about four or five years since I last reported in these pages on the Star at Sancton but, when I check my records, it turns out to be a whole eight years. Considering all that’s occurred over recent times, that’s an eon in pub years. So return I do, to find the Star pretty much as I left it – big, confident, welcoming and friendly.
The lamb is, of course, perfectly cooked, and then served with an array of cleverly balanced additions. There is a slab of potato cooked in lamb fat, there is a cube of crunchy, flavourful lamb belly fritter, there is simple sprouting broccoli, and then there are various blobs and cubes consisting of caper ketchup and broccoli stalk pickled in lamb jus. It’s hard to work out if the dish is delicious because it’s clever or clever without threatening its deliciousness.