Review: Kota, Porthleven

We ate at Kota on the day after Boxing Day, as we’d gone down to spend Christmas week in Cornwall. I feel it’s worth saying this as I’ve had a few meals around the holiday season that haven’t turned out as excellently as reviews of the restaurant would suggest… and I wonder if it’s that bit harder to source ingredients and have the usual consistency if you’ve chosen to be hospitable and open across the season? After all, many places just close until January. You can see where I’m going…

Kota is described as having a strong “Asian twist” but really these days that needs to be a bit more than just whipping miso into your butter and adding a bit of yuzu here and there. There’s scarcely a chef in the country not using these ingredients now. So Kota is best described as a refined modern British tasting menu. It’s a relaxed and friendly dining room, right by Porthleven Harbour.

Our amuse bouches included a tiny doughnut filled with mackerel pate and a blob of horseradish cream, which was good. And a little cup of celeriac soup with the main flavour of chicken stock and some pickled mustard seeds that were fiercely bitter to bite into. Good little doughnuts though.

The scallop starter included blobs of avocado puree, sea vegetables and a tiny dice of pickled turnip, set in a ponzu dressing. The ponzu was very tangy, and with the turnip on top the whole dish was tooth-shakingly vinegary. A pity as the scallops were generous and very good, fresh and creamy. The second starter was much the best dish of the day, lovely pieces of slow-cooked beetroot glazed with beetroot molasses. This really amped-up the sweet and earthy goodness, paired with a goat cheese mousse full of flavour.

My main was lamb, shoulder and loin. The shoulder had blobs of excellent black garlic miso as a relish and the loin was topped with a piece of cauliflower fungi cooked in a sweet and umami glaze that I absolutely loved. The caulifungi has a beautiful texture like very soft sheet noodles and a delicate flavour. Maureen’s gurnard came with mussels and a good shellfish sauce, brought alive with saffron-yuzu mayonnaise (though only the saffron really came through).

Dessert was a bit odd, three firm chocolate ganache truffles with three little meringue blobs, on a little lake of a very good coffee sauce. The PX jelly sounded nice but I couldn’t really pick it out of the coffee and chocolate. Maureen’s pieces of baked pear came with milk jam and ice cream, although the ice cream was just barely set and turning rapidly back into cream.

The four course tasting menu is £50 before drinks, and I think it would be good value if all the dishes landed as consistently as the beetroot or my lamb. None of the mis-hits were really bad, but they definitely weren’t right either. Sooooo… given my seasonal warning at the start, I’m going to recommend Kota as worth a try, it’s very definitely keenly priced for a tasting menu. But it’s not particularly Asian and it’s not particularly seafood either!