This unique restaurant and bar in the Somerset village of Milborne Port is beautifully set out and serves food that’s the talk of the counties, but perhaps don’t go there on a cold day.
Sir William Medlycott built this striking building in 1864 as a school, so he probably wasn’t too worried about the pupils’ comfort. Education was after all edifying and if the children had to scrape ice off the windows to look out, well it was simply character building.
Us modern softies are made of feebler stuff though and there’s no doubt that, despite the gorgeous modern interior, created by co-owner Mike Fisher’s architectural and design firm, Studio Indigo, with bare stone walls, exposed oak roof beams and polished concrete floor, not much has changed here on the heating front.
To be fair we have come on a remarkably cold evening, and a beautiful airy space like this is never easy to heat. The lazily turning wooden ceiling fans are, I’m told, there to push warm air back down past the stylish chandeliers, but to me they are causing a needless draft.
Upstairs in the very lovely mezzanine bar though, it’s very warm and cosy, with the small fan heaters doing a good job. We’re happy to finally be here, having driven from Lands End in a loaned-by Lexus, all electric UX300e that required a lot of recharging for such a journey.
The car was great in itself, but I was slowly driven insane as I wrestled with ten different apps, along with chargers, that all varied in quality, performance and even just working at all. I am all for saving the planet, but this ridiculously disjointed UK charging infrastructure has to be reformed and rationalised before we can all go electric. Oh and by the way, why do none of the chargers have canopies over them? I also got soaked a lot.
Rant over, back to the food, Chef at Clockspire is Luke Bryant, who joined as an apprentice in 2019 after training with Michael Caines in Devon. The General Manager is David Hill, who coincidentally is, like me, a Croydon boy. What are the odds on that eh? David runs a smooth ship, his relaxed warmth soon thawing me out from the cold rage the day’s charger saga had left me in. A straight up Aperol helped too.
Downstairs at table it was good to see a short menu, it reassures me that the team are focussed on local and seasonal and not taking a scattergun approach. There is steak on the menu though, which I am sure is not the chef’s favourite dish to cook, a bit boring, but it’s something safe to suit anyone who isn’t into fine dining.
Smoked duck breast, duck liver, plum, walnut, celery was very fine indeed, the duck sliced thinly and with remarkable precision. Thick enough to satisfy, not so thick as to be smokily overpowering. Plum and duck are always great friends and the crisp crunch of the celery and the walnut offset the delicious richness of the liver.
Our other starter of Cured chalk stream trout, cauliflower, grapefruit, dill emulsion was equally impressive. There aren’t many chalk streams in the UK, and most are in nearby Hampshire. The trout reared in the crystal clear water have no ‘muddy’ taste and are similar in flavour to salmon. The acidity of the grapefruit was a perfect foil to the trout and I do love the flavour of dill which seems to always work with any kind of fish. Cauliflower so often relegated to a cheesy dish, here seemed well placed and happy in its role.
Happy we were too, my wife even forgetting to mention the draft around her legs as she moved on to Stone bass, nori, salsify, fennel, caramelised apple, cider sauce. Stone bass really is a fish that doesn’t get out enough. Often confused with seabass, it’s a larger fish with a firmer richer texture and darker skin, and because of its size it can be served as thick slices.
The apple cider sauce flecked with green was taut around the perfectly cooked fish and it was good to see a salsify on the plate. Seen in the raw, this unusual root vegetable looks like a Goth carrot, but cooked it has a mild oyster flavour. This example was a bit undercooked actually, but that curious flavour went well with grilled fennel and we both shared some non seasonal Ratte potatoes coated in onion butter
Not fancying steak, nor venison, I went for Monkfish, smoked eel, black garlic, and barbequed celeriac. The celeriac was also a tad undercooked, in my opinion, but everything else was perfect and I particularly liked the smoked eel. Monkfish remains the king of fish for me, although I can be tempted by Hake in Spain. And to think Monkfish was once regarded as a ‘cheap’ fish, with dodgy restaurants passing it off as scampi!
Every dish had been excellent, lots of effort and precision clearly going into each one and presentation always pretty without going over the top. Tweezers had obviously been used extensively, but not excessively.
Desserts followed the same pattern. Sheep’s yoghurt parfait, grapefruit sorbet, dill, milk crisp was refreshing, the yoghurt having that slight tang of sheeps milk cheese while the grapefruit was sharp and to the point. Dill is a herb I’ve not seen used in a dessert before, but it worked.
My own dessert of sourdough treacle tart, pear sorbet, sherry, miso caramel was just as impressive, although I wondered if perhaps the treacle had got ever so slightly burnt. Miso is a magic ingredient that works across all kinds of dishes, from savoury to sweet. The pear sorbet was my favourite part though, luscious with the unique floral and musky taste that properly ripened pears have.
The meal went quite quickly, which was no problem as I needed an early night after the day’s car tribulations, but it could perhaps have gone a bit slower. It’s a tricky balance, a few days before we’d had a Michelin starred meal served so slowly that we were on the verge of walking out rather than wait any longer.
I suppose no one is watching the clock at Clockspire, the focus is on the food and it’s very sharply focused. A lovely location, a beautiful building and very fine dining. Just needs an extra fan heater.
www.theclockspire.com
The Clockspire
Gainsborough
Milborne Port
Sherborne
DT9 5BA