The merry meals of Windsor

Marc Reeves discovers the gastro delights of Windsor

the centre of town, where there are also two rail stations with good links to Slough and London.

The four-star MacDonald Castle Hotel couldn’t be more central. It overlooks Windsor Guildhall – scene of the most recent Royal wedding – and street-facing bedrooms have a stunning view of the main tower of the castle as it peers down on the town.

We arrived mid-evening on a Friday, and stretched our legs before dinner on a short walk that took us down a cobbled alley behind the Guildhall, where a couple of old-fashioned pubs hide from the main tourist drags. The Carpenters Arms has enough guest real ales to maintain the interest for a whole evening, but we had time for just one before returning to the hotel.

Pan-fried scallops were a good choice for starter, and I opted for sirloin while my wife picked out the duck. The steak was reliable and satisfactorily rare, while the duck was a triumph, thanks to the clever inclusion of duck liver in the rosti, culminating in a smoky, tingling explosion of flavour.

"Homely" may not be the first word that comes to mind when describing Windsor Castle, but it does have a remarkably human – almost personal – quality. Perhaps it was a combination of our early visit (it opens at 10am) and the relatively low number of tourists that allowed us to take in the details. We could take our time walking up to the main courtyard, stopping to admire a middle eastern-style garden oddly at home as it nestled against the walls of the old Norman round bailey.

Queen Mary’s dolls house is a wonder of intricate detail that you need time to truly appreciate, and an exhibition of photographs from the Queen’s life and reign is a fascinating and intimate record that can’t be appreciated in a rush. But for sheer breath-taking wonderment, the current exhibition of drawings from the Royal collection is unbeatable. Almost alone in the gallery, we studied pages from the notebook of Leonardo Da Vinci – at such close quarters that we could see the indentations of his quill.

The state apartments and grand rooms are predictably on a grander scale, but St George’s Chapel again rewards the off-season visitor with surprise discoveries. A glimpse into the silent, plain crypt where the Queen Mother now lies with her husband was unexpectedly moving in its quiet dignity.

On the other side of the castle walls, Windsor’s main shopping drags – Peascod Street and the High Street – contain the usual retail temptations, but with more exclusive designer label shops that in the off-season provide a perfect Christmas gift hunting ground.

We headed over the bridge to Eton – a ten minute walk – where the atmosphere is distinctly more laid-back, with an eclectic mix of craft, antique and food shops. We lunched at Gilbey’s, whose modern, easy décor and menu belies its 30-year history under the Gilbey family.

 A hearty pumpkin soup countered the chill, and a main course of rocquefort tart was washed down with a bottle of Pheasant’s Ridge bacchus, a silver medal-winning wine from the Gilbey family’s own English vineyard. It’s a light but not insubstantial white that’s a perfect lunchtime refresher, and – like all Gilbey’s wines – is available by the 50ml carafe (£11.75).

Windsor is nothing if not varied in the range of restaurants it offers, and it would be easy to overlook our next recommendation, as the out-of-town visitor may all too readily dismiss it as a another run-of-the-mill flock-wallpaper ethnic eaterie. But nothing could be further from the reality of Moroccan restaurant Al Fassia, a delight of a find that clearly has a loyal – bordering on the fanatical – local following.

An unpretentious interior and somewhat cramped layout only add to the conviviality of this lively venue, and the rustic and painstakingly authentic menu serves up honest Moroccan dishes as they were meant to be savoured. We each had a tagine – a Moroccan stew – served in the earthenware pot of the same name, with a bowl of couscous. While not overly exotic in flavours, good ingredients and the great atmosphere of the place made it well worth a visit.

Not all the culinary delights of Windsor are to be found in restaurants. Just five minutes’ drive west of town, beyond the Great Walk, is Windsor Farm Shop, where produce from the Royal family-owned farms is sold, as well as the inevitable Duchy brand goods.

If you’re visiting, allow plenty of time to browse: the place is supermarket-sized. If you’re going just before Christmas, allow even more time and give yourself a generous budget. There’s fresh fruit and veg, sloe wine, chutneys and cakes, organic meats, game pies, sausages and all manner of herbs and spices. For an old anti-shopper like me it’s a great opportunity to tick-off most of the Christmas gift list for the minimum of effort and make it look like I’d thought of little else since August.

To round-off the weekend, we stopped for lunch at the Palmer Arms at Dorney, just beyond Eton Wick, and – technically – in Buckinghamshire. Unprepossessing from the outside, this most comforting and welcoming of pubs was the gastronomic hit of our break. The brisk chill outside drove me to the beef and vegetable broth to start (£4.50), and I couldn’t resist the roast beef for a main course (£12.50). The broth performed its function perfectly, with that intensity of flavour that makes you sit back and sigh. The roast beef was as rare as it promised – a fine piece of meat cooked so slowly it retained every atom of flavour.

Carrots flavoured with carroway seeds complemented the beef, and the Yorkshire pudding carried a hint of olive oil. I asked for a rioja-style red, and was recommended the Los Llanos Gran Reserva 1999 (£16.50/bottle). It ably underpinned the warmth of the beef.

A sweet of white chocolate brulee came with just two halves of strawberry that packed a whole summer’s worth of flavour into two tiny bites. Altogether a superb, memorable meal. Windsor’s accessibility and up-market style, and the region’s kaleidoscopic array of restaurants are to be savoured out of the tourist hunting season. Put it at the top of your list for weekend break destinations.

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MacDonald Castle Hotel 0870 400 8300, macdonaldhotels.co.uk. Executive suites cost £210 per night based on two guests on a B & B basis.

Gilbey’s Restaurant, Eton. 01753 854921 gilbeygroup.com

Al Fassia. 27 St Leonards Road, Windsor. 01753 855370

Windsor Farm Shop. Datchet road, Old Windsor. 01753 623800 windsorfarmshop.co.uk

Palmer Arms, Dorney. 01628 666612. thepalmerarms.com

Information and more weekend break ideas: www.visitsoutheastengland.com/2ofus