It’s a rarified world we foodies live in. With GBM on the telly every year and reams of print on the topic of food it’s easy to forget. But we stopped tonight at the Premier Inn less than two miles from Nottingham’s only Michelin-starred restaurant, the 2 star Restaurant Sat Bains. Asked the receptionist for a taxi. “To where? Never heard of it. Is it far?” He spoke to the taxi company. They’d never heard of it either. Langton Lane, we offered. Oh, must be near the casino. Right-o.

I’m glad the taxi driver found the right spot (just off the dual carriageway, a narrow farm track on the edge of the industrial estate, sheltered in the lee of electric pylons) because we sat down to my favourite meal of the year so far. Over ten courses we enjoyed an array of strong flavours confidently combined with scarcely a missed step among them. I’ll just punch up some highlights…

The crab salad was epic. White meat combined with enough brown to pack it full of flavour, on a salty peanut sauce with flakes of crispy peanut brittle, topped with shredded pickled mooli. Really confidently banging the drum for sweet, salty, sour.

I’ve had baked onion before, but this one was baked to gooey, sweet, don’t-need-a-knife perfection and served with thyme granita. I’ve had thyme granita before; it’s nice and whispers thyme gently across your tongue. This granita belted out thyme like a marching band.

Oh, and I must shout out the duck liver. Who would have thought apricot puree, slivers of green bean and pickled cranberries would be such a hit with nitrogen-frozen duck liver shards? Green bean and duck liver. That was enlightening all by itself. The granola on top added a simple crunchy sweetness.

I’ve been saving myself for the main course. It was pressed lamb, what must have been a fairly fatty piece of meat but with the fat cooked out through the meat so totally that only the wonderfully deep lamb-y taste remained. And this was such a light main, with a goat cheese mousse, a lamb consomme and slices of pickled radish and sweet onion. Summer on a plate. I could have been romping across the grassy hills taking bites out of the gamboling lambs around me. Or something.

The most brilliant pud was the first: sweet “curry”. It’s a brave chef that uses cumin confidently in a dessert, and salt. But that’s what made the mango sorbet and fruits so marvelous. Its only in the French tradition that sweet is invariably the dominant flavour in a dessert, with sour (citrus) and bitter (caramel) the lone combatants against the sugar. Great to find chefs bringing clear eastern influence to the sweets.

I did like the last pud too. It’s easy to mess about with strawberries and screw up one of the few foods that nature gives us in its essentially unimproveable form. In this case the strawbs are pretty much left to themselves, but partnered with a frisky wood sorrel granita to cleanse the taste buds. I’m familiar with the wood sorrel leaves scattered over lamb or seafood for a citric edge, but this is the first time I’ve seen them step into the pudding world and it was lovely.

This was a confidently inventive £85 tasting menu, a real eye-opener with plenty to talk about. And it was faultless. Despite the surprising location, the restaurant itself is modern and welcoming, set in converted red-brick farm buildings. Service was up to 2-star Michelin standards (although of course Michelin stars are only about the food, of course), the wine list was good and our sommelier very helpful, but there’s nothing at the cheaper end. I’m not saying anything new when I conclude that Restaurant Sat Bains is definitely one of the UK’s best destination restaurants. Go, go!

Hm. When a customer tells you that a dish is delicious – really delicious – but that the pork shoulder was seriously over-salted, perhaps you shouldn’t get into a debate with them about whether it was or not? Especially when all seven people at the table agree. “Haha, seven against one, I guess you win!” he eventually conceded. Ye-es, I think we do. Perhaps also because we are your customers. But hey, we had a great meal and our waiter was generally friendly and good fun, he just stepped over the line that one time.

We were dining at Alimentum, Cambridge’s most central Michelin-starred restaurant, and enjoying a ten-course tasting menu that was definitely one of my top three dining experiences this year. The restaurant is oddly situated on a commercial road within spitting distance of Nando’s and the local multiplex cinema. Inside the decor is wine bar classy, with plenty of black and the odd splash of red or gold. Our table had windows into the kitchen for extra entertainment, which was great until we spotted the one chef who tasted absolutely everything he plated, with his fingers, in between occasionally scratching his head and wiping his brow. No idea whether this is normal but, testimony to the great cooking, it didn’t put us off!

The little amuse of pea mousse and cottage cheese that opened the batting was ridiculously good, perhaps because it was such a hot summer day outside. The next dish of asparagus and chanterelles with a clean goat cheese sorbet kept up the quality both in good looks and taste. Smoked eel with crisp apple cubes and a grating of horseradish and truffle couldn’t really go wrong. Alimentum puts out very pretty plates of food and that’s definitely part of the joy. Our final starter was a gooey, crispy, unctuous little tranche of lamb belly with a more robust pea puree and a little crumble of goat cheese.

The fish course was a lovely plump piece of halibut with textures of butternut squash and caviar. The salty punch of the caviar saved this dish from mediocrity. Meh, I just don’t rate butternut squash unless it has griddled black tramlines or is made into soup and properly overwhelmed with roasted garlic.

And so to the porky main, which was superb. The whole table mmmoo’d like a herd of contented cattle. I think the chief delight was a black pudding puree that was just deep and rich with animaly, irony goodness. I’d love an enormous tube of this that I could spread on toast, bread, croissants or indeed my toothbrush! The pork medallions were pink, squidgy and perfect in their salty wrap of ham, the gravy sublime. Instead of potato we had a couple of thick slices of sturdy swede and I smiled because I wouldn’t have thought of it and it worked perfectly. The sticky pulled shoulder was tasty but criminally over-salted, but who cares?

Odd little experiment of a cheese course. A dollop of Epoisses on a spoon, in bowl of dark onion soup with cubes of apple and truffle powder. The tastes combined very splendidly, and top marks for invention, but I think a tiny slice of crispy French toast with it would have brought a necessary texture and starch.

Loved the pre-dessert, lemongrass mousse and ginger beer granita. Great combo. The first dessert was superb, a mango sorbet with honey mousse, toasted almonds and a slightly marshmallowy vanilla cream described as a “Japanese panna cotta”. I wish I’d remembered the proper name to look for a recipe, as it was magical. Second pud was crumbled hazelnut cake with chocolate sorbet, coffee mousse and meringue. Nice cake but couldn’t match what had gone before!

Alimentum offers inventive, delicious and beautifully presented food. It’s a much more satisfying experience than a whole tranche of other 1-star fine dining establishments around the country, and than its own peculiar location would suggest. This 10 course tasting menu was £85, which strikes me as about right, and the wine menu offers some very good value options. I like a sommelier who, when you ask their opinion of two bottles, opts for the cheaper one. The menu was very well balanced, we left feeling replete rather than stuffed. Yes, Cambridge definitely has a top-class destination in Alimentum.