Intelligent cooking and spot-on service.

With its additional options of the relaxed brasserie and popular terrace, Andrew McLeish’s upmarket venue has wide appeal. The more formal restaurant sets a refined tone with its crisp linen tablecloths and vibrant gastronomic artwork on the plain white walls. Deceptively spacious with wood floors, dark blue furnishings and pale blue panelling, the decor is contemporary and comfortable.

Long established and well supported by the locals, the ambience is chatty and friendly, with well-drilled waiting staff in formal black waistcoats and aprons. Whether you go for the carte, or the wallet-friendly menu du jour, McLeish strikes an inviting balance between assured modern European cooking and the desire to offer value. There is an obvious understanding of classic techniques and the dishes are finely tuned favourites rather than trying to reinvent things for the sake of it. Seasonal ingredients from a network of high-end suppliers mean that the menus change all the time, depending on what’s best at the time and what arrives in the kitchen. Chicken and girolle mushroom ravioli with onion Lyonnaise, chicken and celery jus makes for an arresting starter, as does treacle-cured salmon with soya sesame dressing and chargrilled spring onions. Main courses bring further evidence of intelligent flavour combinations, perhaps tandoori monkfish with curried cauliflower purée, sautéed spinach, roasted cauliflower and cumin sauce or roast guinea fowl, potato gnocchi, hispi cabbage, roasted sweetcorn and smoked guinea fowl jus. Desserts continue the form with an indulgent peanut parfait, double chocolate brownie, Kentish raspberries and raspberry sorbet or a poached blackberry and passionfruit mille-feuille with blackberry sorbet. And if there’s still room, the English and French cheeses with fruit toast, Lavroche crackers and spiced apple chutney is hard to resist. Time a visit, perhaps, with one of the restaurant’s popular gourmet evenings.

AA Restaurant Guide 2022