Telephone: 01392 31001
Address: Royal Clarence Hotel, Cathedral Yard, Exeter, Devon
I am a simple man. It doesn't take a lot to make me happy. The sun shone. Al fresco lunchers lolled about on the greensward around Exeter cathedral, its twin towers radiant in the light. And I was lunching at Michael Caines brasserie in the venerable Royal Clarence Hotel that looked out on this heart-lifting scene. In short, all was right with the world, not least lunch itself.
Michael Caines has made his reputation as the chef who brought multi-stardom to Gidleigh Park, which has always been at the top of the top dinner, bed and breakfast joints in the country. If there is a more soothing, comfortable spot, then I don't know of it. But recharging your batteries at Gidleigh comes at a price, and Caines, being the hard working and ingenious fellow he is, has taken the opportunity of bringing his not inconsiderable gifts to a wider audience in a simpler and cheaper form at the Royal Clarence.
Not that he is in the kitchen all the time. His responsibilities at Gidleigh will see to that, but the restaurant at the Royal Clarence carries the unmistakable mark of Caines. While the hotel may well be venerable and have the quiet majesty of years of service, it nevertheless looks pretty bright, spry and on the ball inside, and no part looks brighter, spryer and more on the ball than the Caines wing of it. White walls, chirpy paintings in cheerful colours, wooden floors and lights on tracks on the ceiling strangely reminiscent of the lines of a Hornby 00-gauge may have become standard items in modern brasserie design, but they do lend themselves to the modern demand for informal eating. It is as if these elements themselves are enough to encourage the removal of jackets, the unknotting of ties and a slightly livelier approach to conversation.
For once I had no one to converse with, aside from the charming but occasionally slightly dippy waiters, so it was easy to take pleasure in the chirpy exchanges of my fellow lunchers, as a half bottle of classy Muscat d'Alsace (Hugel) and then a half bottle of companionable Chteau La Tour eased my inhibitions about eavesdropping, as modest intake of alcohol tends to do. The diversions of the solitary eater are many.
For a start, I had to decide whether to follow the menu of the day, which proposed two courses for £10 or three for £14.50, lower than the normal tariff in honour of National Restaurant Week, or to commit myself to the headier prices of the à la carte menu. In the spirit of a good, old-fashioned English compromise, I did both: a first course of gurnard with rocket salad and mango and red onion salsa from the cheap and cheerful set pricer; a second course of local guinea fowl on a bed of braised chicory with spring vegetables and white wine sauce from the thoughtful à la carte; and for dessert, pistachio pithivier with pistachio crème anglaise from the fixed price.
You can tell two things from this roll call: the first is the unquestionable French pedigree of the cooking - sophisticated, assured, but not full throttle haute cuisine. Second is that the kitchen is well tuned to local ingredients. For some incomprehensible reason, gurnard doesn't turn up frequently on our menus, although it is common around our shores. It is as ugly as sin, but has firm, lightly flaky flesh, and eats very well, holding its own easily against the haystack of peppery rocket and a sprightly but well-behaved salsa.
The guinea fowl called for a rather higher degree of skill, because the success of the dish depended on holding a complex balance between the ingredients, so that the individual flavours could each sound clearly. It's easy to flatten the flavours of tiny spring carrots, broad beans and little new peas. As it was, the white wine was a model of discrete elegance, the chicory unusually emollient and buttery, the spring vegetables full of the joys of that season, and the breast of guinea fowl blithe and succulent.
After this, the pistachio pithivier was a minor disappointment, in that it couldn't make up its mind whether it was supposed to be hot or cold, the pastry was dry and friable and the filling rather stodgy. If that sounds like a complete dismissal of the dish, I should add that I demolished it with ease and a good deal of pleasure, not least because it rolled out an unusually powerful charge of pistachio, an elusive flavour of which I am immensely fond.
The potential arithmetical complications caused by my mix and matching of the menus was neatly resolved on the bill, which was very clearly laid out, so that I could tell that my food cost £26.90 (two courses from the fixed price menu at £10, plus the guinea fowl and some chips) and the drinks totalling a bolder £31.50. Ah well, I was all on my own.
· Open all week, 12 noon - 2.30pm, 7 - 10pm. Menus: Lunch, &163;14 for 2 courses, &163;17 for 3. All major credit cards. Wheelchair access with wheelchair WC.