Review: Lympstone Manor, Devon

Lympstone Manor is in a lovely spot on the Exe estuary and has swiftly earned a Michelin star since chef Michael Caines opened a few years ago. It’s a classic country house hotel, elegantly furnished rooms full of light and lovely things, excellent service throughout. The restaurant offers a classic and a seafood tasting menu and we went for the latter.

We began with a beautiful scallop, diced small and mixed up with a fragrant pink grapefruit vinaigrette. The scallop really shone, creamy and fresh. This felt like a very good opening chord for a seafood menu. This was followed with a confit piece of salmon, perfect texture, with caviar on top. A very neat blob of soy-honey goo paired perfectly, with blobs of gently spicy

wasabi yogurt and cucumber. Next up, a cloud-like nugget of local cod resting in a daffodil yellow veloute which sang with saffron flavour. Plump mussels contrasted with the clean white cod. So far, all top notch and very safe and sound.

The next dish, a boudin of John Dory with langoustine, ramped up the richness with a full-flavoured chicken and vanilla jus. The fish was topped with a delicate set seafood and herb mousse that worked very nicely and the John Dory itself was more sturdy than the cod and fuller flavoured. Beautiful langoustine tail on top. The jus, and the apple and ginger puree, worked very well with the seafood. The main course hit peak butter, with butter poached turbot in a truffle butter sauce. I may have started oozing butter. There were good flavours of Jerusalem artichoke and leek in there, but the the abiding impression is of a sturdy piece of excellent fish and richness. This isn’t a criticism!

Two nice desserts to finish the meal. Pre-dessert was a fine dice of exotic fruits with passion fruit sorbet. Refreshing, and tasted like a highly refined version of classic tinned fruit salad. The main dessert was a very good raspberry souffle, very simple in conception and beautifully executed, with a proper gooey raspberry sauce spooned into the centre.

So it’s £225 per person for the menu and this was classic cuisine at a high level of execution. It’s actually rather a long time since I had a fine dining experience that wasn’t influenced by Japanese flavours and techniques and didn’t make any attempt at pulling in foraged ingredients or emphasis local farm-to-table sourcing. I, personally, like those new influences and find menus more appealing for including them. I also can’t think of any dishes from tonight that stood out as memorable or distinctive, nothing for us to ooooh and aaah over, or to reveal the chef’s particular style. So Lympstone Manor isn’t really for me. But we had a lovely meal, were well looked after and enjoyed our evening immensely. That’s something.