Dining with the Devil

THIS York restaurant will open and close in a month. Not because it has failed, but because it is only temporary, set up by Milburns Restaurants in a marquee with yellow trim and formal foliage in Dean's Park for the duration of the York Millennium Mystery Plays in the Minster next door.

Milburns, which has its York headquarters at the 15th century St William's College, is providing lunch, afternoon tea, pre-performance dinner and bars on every performance day until July 22.

In the course of investigative culinary journalism, the Evening Press sent me on an alternative hot date, to dine with the Devil, the man who failed to tempt Jesus with his wilderness invitation to turn stones into bread.

Luckily, I hadn't given Rory Mulvihill's Lucifer a roasting in my review of the Minster production, and Rory was only too happy to oblige, arranging to meet at 6pm. Time enough for the Millennium devil to eat and change into his tail-swishing, figure-hugging red number.

"I start getting togged up at 6.50pm, but there's a vocal warm-up at 6.30pm, so I'm happy to be missing out on that!" he said.

Wine, Rory? Red presumably? "Er, no. With that 14th century Yorkshire vernacular, I slur lines quite enough already, without any wine thank you!" Mineral water would suffice.

Inquiring of the Devil what was usually to be found on the menu board in Hell, he replied: "I don't think that if you're committed to eternal damnation, you can expect the menu to be that exciting, to be honest.

"Mind you, you wouldn't need to worry about the weather for a barbecue, would you? So, everything would be flame-grilled, I suppose!"

Tonight, however, the Devil would be dining cold: the lunch, dinner and picnic basket menus chez Milburns at Dean's Park are, for reasons of practicality and speed, as cold as a Clint Eastwood stare. Our waitress, ever attentive amid the contented hum of the tables, ran through the choice of three dishes: fillet of salmon with spring onion and chive crme fraiche; the vegetarian dish of roast pepper, aubergine and goats cheese strudel with saffron couscous, or devilled breast...

...Stop. Did she just say devilled? Indeed she had, and so Rory the Devil obviously had to order the devilled breast of chicken, cooked in tomatoes and spices. I turned vegetarian for the night, and both dishes were served - as promptly as Tony Blair's idea of instant punishment - with new potato salad and sugar snap peas (with plenty of snap as it turned out).

Rory, who did not provide his own fork, was impressed. "These tented restaurants tend to be more about the occasion than food - like eating strawberries at Wimbledon - but this is a very pleasant meal," he said.

It made a contrast too with his usual pre-show nosh, whether performing in the Mystery Plays or as the doyen of the amateur musical scene in North and West Yorkshire. The Mulvihill dish du jour is usually tuna and cheese. "It's for the energy," he explained. "You don't have anything doughy as that'll lie on the stomach...like this piece of bread I'm eating now.

"Being on stage is the perfect opportunity to burn off all your food, but most actors end up doing what they know they shouldn't: eating afterwards, which is so 'comradely' and we all love doing it!"

Strawberries arrive, redder than Lucifer's dandy stage attire, and already they are up close and personal with cream of the thick and whipped variety. The Devil, being figure conscious, would have preferred strawberries in Greta Garbo isolation.

Fortunately, percolated coffee came with milk. By now the call of the greasepaint was growing ever louder and more urgent, but there was still time to ask Rory for his favourite dish. "I'm a curry man," he said. What else could the Devil be?

The hotter, the better, for Lucifer? "Well, maybe not. My favourite is the egg prawn sagh at The Viceroy, and that's a dish which isn't on the menu. But then I go there so often I suggested they should set up a direct debit account for me!"

Pre-performance dinner or lunch at Milburns Restaurant, Dean's Park, York, costs £9.75. To book, ring 01904 634830/658654