Telephone: 01841 532700
Address: Riverside, Padstow, Cornwall
Rating: 17.5/20

What, you may well ask, is the point of reviewing a restaurant that is already one of the best known in the country, that is already booked up from here to eternity, and that needs no puffery from another critic? My only answer is to say that I had never before been to Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant, and I thought that it was about time I did. After all, it's only been there for 25 years.

Twenty-five years! The only thing that seems to have changed about Stein over the years is his name. He was once known as Richard. Since then he went demotic, became Rick, a kind of latter-day Doc in Steinbeck's Cannery Row, cheery, impassioned, knowledgeable, self-deprecating, philosopher of tidal estuary and TV screen, saucerer and fish cook supreme. In spite of success and celebrity, I get the feeling that he's still the lovable old hippy he was in the 1960s.

In its way, the Seafood Restaurant is as revolutionary a restaurant in the regions as Kensington Place was in London, only rather earlier. Both made the deliberate appeal to democratic instincts; good eating was for everybody. And that really hasn't changed. OK, the dining room must have had a lick of paint in 25 years, but the feel of the place, the vibe, the tempo, the customers, are all rather jolly, relaxed, open and inviting. It is also immensely capable. This is not surprising. Some of the staff have been here since opening day.

The Seafood Restaurant manages to maintain this air of democracy even though the set lunch is £33.50 for three courses and the set dinner £39. This is pretty stiff pricing even by metropolitan standards, and can only be justified on three grounds - the quality of the ingredients, the generosity of the helpings and the skill of the kitchen. On each of these criteria, the Seafood Restaurant is triumphantly vindicated. I had hot shellfish with parsley, olive oil, garlic and lemon; fillet of hake with butter beans, tomato, parsley and chilli; and chilled black rice pudding with coconut cream and mango sorbet. Oh, all right, I also asked for an extra course to be thrown in for good measure: a warm salad of seared monkfish and Australian Endeavour prawns with fennel butter vinaigrette - I just couldn't resist the temptation.

I did slightly regret the feebleness of my resolve by the time I got to the end of the hot shellfish mountain. This was an aquarium of clams, mussels, cockles, razor clams, a brace of scallops, a lobster claw, a crab and a langoustine or two, each with its own particular brand of marine sweetness, paddling in their liquor, sharpened by lemon juice, grassy with parsley, begging to be sopped up with bread.

Stein's cooking tastes have always been catholic. There are traditional classics - Dover sole meunière, roast turbot with hollandaise sauce, fish and chips fried in dripping with mushy peas, and skate with black butter and capers - but alongside these are shark vindaloo, stir-fried mussels with black beans, coriander and spring onions, John Dory with olives, capers and rosemary.

What marks out the dishes in each respect is the way in which every element is subjugated to the objective of enhancing the status of the principal ingredient - namely, the fish or the shellfish. These are defined by their freshness, and their freshness is definitive.

Herbs and spices, too, are used carefully, just to point up the characteristics of each. The hake dish was a case in point. Hake is a fish of great subtlety and delicacy, which can be spoiled by the slightest inattention to detail. Its melting softness contrasted with the thicker, heartier pastiness of the beans. There was the emollient, herbal richness of salsa verde and a discreet dash of chilli to bring light and shade.

In short, and in long, the reputation of the Seafood Restaurant seems to me entirely justified. There's no point in going there expecting the carefully choreographed rituals of Michelin stardom, or the hush and flutter of the senior experience. That isn't the point of the place. Fish is the point. It isn't cheap, but fish of this quality is never going to be. Nor should it be. Perhaps one day we will begin to appreciate the true value of our natural resources, begin to respect the inherent quality of great ingredients, and be prepared to pay and eat accordingly.

· Open All week, lunch 12 noon-2pm, dinner 7-10pm. Menus: Lunch, £33.50 for three courses; dinner, £39 for three courses. Wheelchair access (no WC).