Weekend of Gluttony - Part Two.

It's the Saturday morning after the Friday night of copious Italian food and wine. It's sunny, my head hurts a little, and I have to get on a horse. My friend Amy tells me the best cure for a hangover is a horse ride and you know what, she's right. But I would add to that, the best cure for a hangover is a horse ride, half a bottle of Bollinger (once safely dismounted of course) and lunch at Petersham Nurseries.

This is not, contrary to what you may think, a typical Saturday for me. We are riding, and drinking Bollinger at lunchtime and eating at Petersham because it is my friend Vicky's birthday, and we managed to score a table for lunch a month ago. And we are not disappointed by what we find.

The beautiful setting of Petersham Nurseries Cafe.

We start with an aperitif of Petersham rose syrup and rose petal Prosecco. Not too sweet, and with crystallised rose petals which we are delighted to find that you can eat, this makes the perfect pre-wine accompaniment to perusing the menu.

Petersham Rose Syrup and Rose Petal Prosecco

We then move onto the starters and I have the first of many outstanding dishes, courgette flowers with Sairas Ricotta, Borage and mint and basil dressing:

Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Sunday Times Style magazine that he would stab anyone with a fork if they tried to share some of his food in a restaurant, and if they offered him some of theirs. Fortunately, we are sharers and are trying each others food. Birthday girl makes the best call on the starters menu and has salad of tomatoes, nectarine, mozzarella, San Daniele and basil oil. This sounds so simple, but the ingredients are so perfect, so fresh and come together so brilliantly, that although my courgette flowers are very good, I have minor sulk that I didn't order this instead:

Pretty much without fail, I always choose the most expensive dish from the main courses. It's a running joke in my family. Today is no exception, with the salt baked Cornish turbot, potatoes, broad beans, spinach and mayonnaise at £35.50. It is eye wateringly expensively, but very much worth it, soft tasty fish, beautiful, fresh broad beans, new potatoes and an incredibly light mayonnaise:

And the birthday girl has the scallops, roasted red pepper rocket and marjoram salmoriglio, which are also fabulous:

 Rosé in the sunshine at Petersham Nurseries. In the background you can just see our waitress - helpful, funny, friendly and polite, is there anything not lovely about this place!:

Dessert next and we opt to share a summer pudding; the slice is so vast that I dream they have a huge summer pudding in the kitchen. Needless to say, it's faultless:

We end with cheese - the wrong way round I feel - it should always be cheese first then pudding - but it's what the birthday girl wants and I can't argue with someone whose birthday it is. And it's actually a really nice end to the meal, served with a glass of chilled red wine. The cheese is Pecorino Canestrato from Sardinia, with honey:

The birthday girl on the left and me on the right:

We have a little post lunch stroll around the nurseries in the blazing sunshine.

And I cool my wine hot feet in the fountain:

We overhear a customer saying it's a shame that it's more about the restaurant than the nurseries now. I'm afraid I have to disagree - the fact that the food is sourced locally, using vegetables and plants from the nursery where possible, means that both the nurseries and the restaurant compliment each other. And the draw of the restaurant, means that they've got a willing and captive audience to shop for plants post lunch.   This place really deserves its recently acquired Michelin Star and the food being cooked is of such a high standard and in such a beautiful location that it's a strong contestor for Lunch of the Year 2011.