Inside the new Allium restaurant at the Vices York where you eat squirrel

It’s not the first time I’ve eaten squirrel. I had it once at the cultish Moorcock Inn, near Sowerby Bridge, where it was mostly lost in a dark, rich, red wine stew, part of the Moorcock’s fabulous eclectic menus.

Now those pesky squirrels have popped up at the newly opened, no-expense-spared hotel, restaurant and “wine archive” at the Vices in York, “a private-house hotel” made up of three luxurious suites, a bar, a wine shop and a 14-cover restaurant set in the dour, red brick, former police station of suburban Alma Terrace.

It’s the dream of Italian owners Moreno Carbone, an engineer turned property developer, and Daniel Curro, the sommelier and the epitome of cool in black turtleneck, thick-rimmed specs, chunky loafers (without socks) and a beguiling Italian accent. For three years, the two of them have worked on the restoration and in January they opened for dinner.

They must have spent an oligarch’s riches on the rooms, a tribute to contemporary Italian design – the Listone Giordano parquet floor, the Antonio Lupi crystal bathtub, glass, brass, marble, gemstones and Japanese paper lanterns have all been incorporated and you can stay here for an eye-popping £350 to £500 a night. All this in uptown Fulford.

Dinner is served in the all-black “wine library”, lit by drop spots over the communal table or in the equally coal-black Allium restaurant, with a viewing hatch to chef Luke Sanderson’s kitchen.

The six-course £60 (now £70) dinner is served to everyone at 7pm. Expect no choice, no dietary exceptions, no amendments, no children. This is increasingly the way of posh restaurants, post-Covid. To hell with your veganism, allergies and finicky fads, it’s the future.

Two snacks to begin, one a cone of crisp pastry filled with a mild whipped goat’s cheese, the other a petit pastry case with Brussels sprout, pomegranate and speck. The former is pleasant, the latter even better.

A bread course is served with chive, goat and homemade butter reminiscent of old-fashioned farmhouse butter.

A slice of charred onion, with a silverskin and a dot or two of mayo, is given a rich, deep, burnt onion broth. The onion is pleasing but I could have happily drunk the broth all on its own.

Raw langoustines are served as a lively tartare topped with some kind of crackling and “head juice”. Sanderson demonstrates by cracking the prawn head between his fingers and suggests we suck out the juice. It’s an intense hit of liquid prawn.

Then we’re onto the squirrel. Wild, free-range, sustainable and a certified pest, grey squirrels are an invasive species. There really should be nothing wrong with eating one and yet…

We are served a small strip of pale and tender, slightly gamey, meat. A bit like rabbit, a bit like chicken. Perhaps a bit nutty, or maybe that’s my imagination. For the record, these are not the cute little guys found in York’s Museum Gardens – they are sourced from a wild game supplier in Lincolnshire.

Alongside the squirrel is a fermented grain risotto studded with hazelnuts and made with a rich stock and finished with some crisped leaves with an agreeable squirrel fritter alongside.

Perhaps because they can’t be farmed, or because there is not much meat on them, or because they are a pain to prepare, it’s to Sanderson’s credit that he has made something good out of squirrel, but I can’t help thinking it’s more attention-seeking than the taste.

To drink, we are guided by Curro to a full-bodied Primitivo from a wine list that is long, exclusively Italian and very expensive. There is one bottle at £40, then it leaps to an eye-watering £65 and continues skywards to £300+.

Dessert is panna cotta, you know, the perky, moulded, wobbly pudding that always fails to set on MasterChef. Same here, unless the puddle of cream, topped with what appear to be strips of pink gel, is deliberate. It was a low point in an otherwise accomplished meal.

Accomplished, but not quite knock-out. I acknowledge it’s a tough call for Sanderson, a young chef whose CV includes the Grand Hotel in York and the Pheasant at Harome. He’s being asked to create a sophisticated menu that matches the extravagance of the hotel and, while I’m not averse to the ubiquitous tasting menu, if there are multiple courses, petit dishes and novel ingredients, then it has to be absolutely spot-on and Allium is not there yet.

The Allium Restaurant, The Vices York, 15 Alma Terrace, York YO10 4DQ, 07490 460232, www.thevices.co.uk. Open: Wednesday to Saturday, 7pm-late. Price: dinner for two inc. bottle wine and service. £230.

Welcome 5/5

Food 4/5

Atmosphere 4/5

Prices 4/5