Paul Ainsworth at No. 6

Our second visit, but the first an anniversary treat was 4 years ago, and expectations were high.

Arriving slightly early, and were shown to the bar on the first floor, in this swish area, where we had our meal in the past, this is a comfortable and attractive bar, with a very good barman who was happy to talk us through the wine list.

Nice menu, where you build your own tasting menu, three choices for each of the starter, second courses, and five options on the main,four for the deserts, if you choose the fairground (more later) there is a separate menu to ensure you can understand the options that will be delivered.

First - Crapaudine beetroot for my partner, I went for cod. Each were attractively presented and very tasty.

Then a additional course, today’s scone, a cheese scone with seaweed butter, surprisingly tasty especially the butter.

Second - smoked haddock quiche Lorraine, nothing like a quiche and an interesting experience, my partner had the red onion tart, different from the one on the menu to take account of my wife’s allergy to Soya. This had been prepared in advance and on the chance that she would choose this option. Inspired!

Mains. Chicken tournedos Rossini for her and monkfish risotto which was simply outstanding, the risotto was brilliant and nothing like I have had before. My wife was slightly disappointed with the chicken which she just did not like. The staff offered to replace this with something else, but she chose not to replace the course.

Then another extra course “yesterday’s scone, this was ground up to a consistence of breadcrumbs and the with a number of different sugars added,and roasted - really interesting experience.

Then the piece de la resistance the fairground tale, very different from the one that the proprietor won the GBM with in the past, this one has three elements, Old Tyme Coconut shy, a soufflé, the carousel, Mandarin comb, with crunchy brown butter choc ice, and finally all the fun of the fair, a variation on monkey bread.

This was all washed down with a reasonably priced white wine and finished with fresh mint tea.

The experience did not finish there, as we were leaving we were invited to have a chat with the kitchen team including the head chef who was friendly and happy to chat to us and talk about the food .

An experience to savour and enjoy this is truly a special place with a special team at the helm

We managed to get a few local strings pulled to get a booking at short notice, but were obliged to accept a table in an alcove slightly away from the main dining room, which had the disadvantage of being cut off from any atmosphere there might have been in the restaurant, but the advantage of a very good view of the kitchen and all the culinary activity. Before expressing any opinion on the food, we have to say that the staff did not come across well. With one exception they were anything but natural and seemed to be trained to follow a script, thus exhibiting no personality and no ability to interact with the diners. On top of this the extremely reasonably priced selections of wines by the glass that we chose were brought to the table, plonked in front of us without a word and certainly never a bottle to be seen, and in addition a couple of the wines were served in inappropriate glasses, for example a Pinot gris in a Chardonnay glass. On the positive side, there were spoons on the table which served well for finishing off sauces. The meal started off well with a delightful Porthilly oyster fritter and its smoked roe and seaweed sauce followed by a quite large first course of scallops in fines herbes with seaweed, a lovely ‘two roe’ beurre blanc and a tasty Yukon gold potato crisp. The only question we had about this dish was: does nobody worry about food miles any more? The scallops were from the Orkneys, the restaurant is in Cornwall! We chose different mains - my wife had a generous portion of decent chicken Rossini with excellent roasting juices and a good brioche, while I went for local hogget pudding, which was disappointing, largely because although the lamb itself was very good and the sweetbread fricassée brilliant, the whole thing was let down by the undercooked, claggy suet covering on the meat, and again there was possibly too much on the plate, certainly sufficient to prevent us making any real inroads into the massive broccoli and truffle sides. After a brief pause we decided we would have a dessert, a chocolate ‘turnover’ matched well by a nice ginger yogurt sorbet and brandy plums. To finish off we decided that, because of the portion sizes and the puzzling price, we would share one plate of petit fours. All in all this was the most traditional and the least impressive Michelin star meal of our three day trip to the West Country.