William Sitwell reviews Millbrook Inn, South Pool: ‘A fabulous place in an exquisite setting’
The tide, as we know, waits for no man. And nowhere is this more relevant than at the Millbrook Inn in Devon’s South Pool. In fact, I gather, so fed up with missing the tide times was the new owner of the place that, having yet again found himself stranded and needing to cough up for a room for the night, he decided to buy the place.
South Pool neighbours Salcombe and, especially in the warmer months, those with thirst, hunger and an appetite for fun take boats up Southpool Creek as far as a little jetty where you can moor your vessel and hotfoot it to the Millbrook Inn.
And if you get there at high tide that should give you a six-hour browsing and sluicing window, before you’ll be left high and dry.
Not feeling the need to mess with boats, we drove there, bagged a table for dinner and a room for the night. And it was at low tide, mercifully, because when the Salcombe hordes come they come en masse, hundreds of the blighters, a dozen deep at the bar and spilling on to the street.
This, I heard, they had done at lunch that day, consuming their weight in magnums of rosé, and equal amounts of grilled lobster and steak, before hastening back to that pretty South Hams resort town.
Which meant we could experience the glories of the pub in peace. And it is a fabulous place, with low ceilings, a beautiful bar, the panels and beams painted in clubby racing green, the tables and chairs mismatched and charming. There are seats outside at the back by a little stream and a dining room upstairs, its ceiling crowded with large, balloon-like lampshades.
The menu has a strong influence of the owner’s nearby farm and charcuterie business (respectively Fowlescombe and Rare & Pasture) so we chose the carpaccio, echoing those skills and made with their own beef, and local Salcombe crab to start.
The beef was as light as anything and prettily pink, although they seemed a little cautious in exposing you to its full flavour, dousing it in a horseradish cream, before adding shavings of truffle and Parmesan, and baby salad leaves. But I could detect fine produce shouting for attention under that avalanche.
The crab was very decent and under just a modest pile of the same leaves (note to chef: avoid this when sending two plates of food to create sweet points of difference at the table). And it came with bread, very good with lovely butter, but a little mean at only two slices.
We also split the mains, joyfully chomping firstly on a lovely pair of fillets of mackerel, butterflied, cooked just right, seasoned perfectly, with samphire and roasted new potatoes. And there was a sturdy-looking block of Fowlescombe sirloin. It was pink inside, the meat offering a healthy exercise for the gnashers and acres of grassy flavour. We had it with “hispi cabbage from the Josper”, migrant culture from east London finally landing in South Pool, covered in Marmite mayo and “crispy onions”, but delicious all the same.
There was a fabulous tart of bitter chocolate to end. But did they have to serve it with raspberry sorbet? I’d have liked the option of cream. When one’s been a good boy one demands the full works, the full pleasure, rather than a narky bite of raspberry.
The Millbrook is a very fine old English inn, in a beautiful village, in the exquisite setting of the Devon coastline. And the chef needs to somehow cast off the shackles of his new role and put his vessel into full power, as if he were racing against the tide.