El Greco is a Greek restaurant in the heart of Stratford-upon-Avon. What would the Bard have made of it, Katie Jarvis wonders.

El Greco, a Greek far-from-tragedy in three courses, set in Stratford-upon-Avon:

Cast: Ian Jarvis as Macbeth; Katie Jarvis as First Witch; Ellie Jarvis as Ross; El Greco waitress as herself.

Course one: Nailsworth

Thunder and lightning. Enter Macbeth and one witch.

Macbeth: How now, you secret, black, and midnight hag.

First Witch: Steady!

Macbeth: Sorry. [Coughs a bit.] I conjure you, by that which you profess, Howe’er you come to know it (for example, Tripadvisor, Cotswold Life’s new Menu app, etc), answer me: Where is’t good to eat, restaurant-wise, in Stratford-upon-Avon?

First Witch: All hail, Father of Ellie Jarvis, sometime contributor to Cotswold Life magazine. All hail, Husband of Katie Jarvis, Cotswold Life’s Chief Writer. All hail to you, Macbeth, Future Editor of Cotswold Life hereafter!

Macbeth, intrigued: Me? Me! Editor of Cotswold Life?

First Witch: Why dost thou start so? Thou coulds’t indeed be Editor, even though thou art an engineer who always believed the word ‘aesthetic’ began with an ‘e’.

Macbeth, highly startled: Dost it not begin with an ‘e’??

First Witch: OK. Maybe that is too ambitious. So back to thine original question: Double, double toil and simmer, El Greco’s supposed to be pretty good for dinner.

Course two: El Greco, 27 Rother Street, Stratford

Nice waitress: All our service in every point twice done and then done double were poor and single business to contend against those honours deep and broad wherewith you load our Greek restaurant; we rest your hermits.

Macbeth: Err. Just a table for three, please.

Nice waitress: Here is a place reserved, sir.

All three look at menu, which is pretty good; like, for example, a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear. Finally, they order the 22-dish Greek Banquet with a bottle of red Makedonikos: ruby red, silky smooth with redcurrant aromas.

Silence, the perfectest [how does he get away with this sort of shoddy grammar? Hmm?] herald of joy descends.

Macbeth, suddenly jumping up, staring wild-eyed into mid-distance, as if seeing the ghost of, say, the slain Cotswold Life editor: Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?

First Witch pointedly puts the cork back in the half-finished wine.

Ross: Drink sir, is a great provoker of three things… nose painting, sleep and urine.

Ross and First Witch look disgustedly at Macbeth, who shifts uncomfortably, though is definitely not asleep.

Course three: El Greco, 27 Rother Street, Stratford

Waitress: How was’t?

First Witch to waitress: O well done! I commend your pains.

Macbeth: Coulds’t I really be Editor?

First Witch, Ross and waitress all exeunt, each muttering variations on ‘nope’, ‘unlikely’ and ‘not on thine nelly’, etc.

SparkNotes-ish:

Set in Stratford-upon-Avon, El Greco is a fab Greek restaurant recommended to us by none other than Mark Child, contributor to this very magazine. I wish I could relate the story he told me of his visits there because it’s very funny. But then he’d be writing this and not me. (Yes, OK, you might well have preferred that. But it’s too late now.) In essence, he and his party tried to book a table for dinner at El Greco, two nights running. After squeezing in Mr Child et al for the first night, the staff were prostrate with grief that a second was impossible: “Bulging eyes were raised heavenwards; arms were waved wildly; the chef clasped his hands to his head and rushed out. That night had been booked up for six months: there would be 28 doctors and nurses in the room upstairs, a party of 15 traffic wardens at the back, and, in the small room, a group from the local garden centre. (You wouldn’t make up that combination if you were writing fiction, would you?)”, Mark related.

Anyhow, in a plot-twist as exciting as Shakespeare himself never wrote, the restaurant shifted heaven and earth and fitted them in. And I can understand why they’d want to go two nights running. Seriously, if I were to list the dishes in the Greek Banquet for £24.95 (minimum two people), I wouldn’t have room to write anything else. (Yes, OK, you might well have preferred that. But it’s too late now.)

There are starters – taramasalata, tzatziki, hummus, spinach and cheese parcels, calamari, halloumi, among others (with olives and bread to boot). While the main courses include moussaka, keftedes, dolmades, stifado, and even chips, Greek salad and rice. Then there’s pudding with it in the form of baklava and kataifi with honeycomb ice cream, “Though I can get you a different dessert, if you prefer,” the lovely waitress says. All for £24.95 each!

You’re probably not going to ask which farm everything is sourced from. Or whether they ever use a microwave. Or if the chef weeps over his own creation menus. But you don’t need to – when food is this fun, good and plentiful, you accept it for what it is.

And the service is so nice: no problem when, at lunch time, two ladies come in simply for a shandy and an orange juice: they’re welcomed with open arms.

The ambience is lovely – though I do have to check my eyebrows are still there after using the fiercest hand-drier I’ve ever come across - and it’s bang in the middle of Shakespeare’s home town.

In short, the real tragedy in Stratford would be to go elsewhere.

Ambience 7

Service 7

Food 7

Value for money 8

El Greco, 27 Rother St, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6NE, 01789 290505; www.el-greco.co.uk

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Our restaurant reviews are completely independent. Katie arrives unannounced and pays for her meal.

This review is from the September 2014 issue of Cotswold Life.

For more from Katie Jarvis, follow her on Twitter: @katiejarvis