(cont)

Equally dedicated and offering front-of-house excellence is Stacey Ferguson, who spends a huge amount of time working with Adam to ensure that each member of staff knows the menus, dishes, ingredients and the nature of evening service inside out.

“It’s really important that the service is as good as the food.” Says Adam. “The two go hand-in-hand and each member of staff has to know the answer to a diner’s question and has to make sure that the whole experience is nothing short of perfect from start to finish. The good news is we’re already achieving that – the feedback we’ve had so far has been awesome, both in terms of the food and the dining experience.”

Indeed if awesome was demonstrable anywhere it’s most prominent in the appearance and nature of the food.

The menus seem exciting enough, but when our meal arrived, the presentation made the whole experience all the more stunning. Delicate, colourful and striking with colours as bright and vibrant as the taste of the food itself and creative artistic presentation, large china canvases on which to work with contrast too in terms of the size of each element on the plate.

There are just two menus, one for lunchtime service and an à la carte menu from which diners can choose one of five starters and main courses or an eight course ‘taster’ menu with mini-portions of many of the dishes so that adventurous, diners can sample as much of the kitchen’s talent as possible during their visit. Amusé bouchés, breads, ice cream, petits fours and even the butter served with the bread are all made in house, the latter during our visit flavoured with coriander and black pepper.

Suppliers to the venue including Abbey Parks, which provides the restaurant with vegetables, Bensons of Spilsby for fresh organic herbs and Redhill for pork. Suppliers from Adam’s previous appointments in Scotland, include Island Divers for scallops & smoked salmon and their Skye based supplier of the best Scottish beef.

The team is so dedicated that they even arrange for staff to personally visit the venue’s suppliers so that each knows where the ingredients originate from.