Once upon a time, there was a cook called John. He was pretty handy, too, winning plaudits and two Michelin stars at L'Ortolan in Berkshire, before setting up shop at the Landmark hotel in Marylebone. But the most notable thing about his food there was the price - it was astronomical, even by London's rapacious standards - and three years later John pulled the plug. He set off for a new life in France, taking with him a television crew, as you do. A year, a TV series and a book later, and he'd made it - John Burton Race was a bona fide celebrity chef.
With his new-found fame, he came home and bought the site of the Carved Angel in Dartmouth, one of the UK's original destination restaurants. Last year, he reopened as the New Angel, got another TV series and book into the bargain, and his old mates at Michelin gave it a star - all good things if you want the right sort of punter. And, boy, are there plenty of folk with big, disposable incomes in south Devon - in some villages, 60% of properties are second homes - and they flock to Dartmouth to share in the Burton Race experience. It's the restaurant as tourist attraction.
The downstairs dining room is the sort of tamely modern space Next might come up with if it were in the restaurant design game. Chunky wooden tables? Tick. Trendy paintwork? Tick (aubergine's in these days, I'm told). Open kitchen? Big tick - it aids the view of the star turn.
Given the location, the menu was strangely light on seafood, majoring on a Who's Who? of dishes catering to the fat purses and cautious palates of the upper-middle classes: asparagus with poached egg, confit of duck and foie gras terrine among the starters; grilled lobster, rib of beef and best end of lamb in the mains.
I kicked off with a salad of roasted quail, quail egg and walnut vinaigrette, while the dinner date took on sweetcorn pancake, caramelised pear and foie gras. The foie gras affair was well conceived and properly handled, the fruit and corn a sweet foil to the richness of the liver, but it wasn't really a dish you'd write home about. As for my salad, the bird and its egg were beautifully cooked, and came perched atop a dainty mound of leaves, but there was something missing: flavour. I don't know about you, but when I'm eating out, I want my tastebuds to go, "Wow!" This was polite fare, safe, reserved - much like the clientele. I was regretting turning my nose up at a salad of pan-fried Beesands scallops, which I'd been put off by the £14 price tag. The day before, the shellfish wholesaler at Beesands just up the coast had been selling fresh scallops at 80p a pop, and I doubt that the New Angel would be paying even that, so to charge this much for a simple plate of four or five scallops, a few leaves and other bits and bobs represents the sort of mark-up most restaurateurs would be embarrassed to apply to a wine list, let alone food.
Maybe things would perk up with the main courses: roast fillet of monkfish, cockles and brown shrimp in a vermouth sauce for me, grilled fillet of red mullet with its own cream, garlic potato and broad beans for her. Each fishy element (mine came with some unadvertised clams, mussels and scallops) was timed to a T but, that apart, there wasn't a whole lot else going on: the saucing in both dishes was underwhelming, the potato and garlic had clearly not spent a great deal of time in each other's company, and the monkfish came with a mound of linguine that added nothing to speak of. Then again, more assertive flavours might be a bit much for the target audience.
As if all this wasn't disappointing enough, we'd sat down at 7.10pm, and were polishing off the main courses within the hour. They were pushing through orders at a pace you'd expect of some high-street pizza and pasta joint, not a high-end restaurant with prices to match. Our waiter insisted they weren't trying to turn the table, so perhaps they just wanted to knock off early.
We negotiated an interlude before the puds, for which we shared a gratin of berries with raspberry sorbet and a lime parfait with shortbread and strawberries. The berry combo stood out: it packed a proper fruity punch and, texturally, the ice was spot on - soft, smooth and moreishly slurpy. But the parfait was another letdown, with little evidence of the sharp, citrus kick I'd hoped for.
With aperitifs, a perky bottle of Albariño (at a not too greedy £29), water and coffee, the bill hit £142. With service, that's north of £160, which for an unmemorable meal leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
The New Angel's approach was summed up by an episode midway through the meal. The kitchen was plating up its umpteenth rib of beef with gratin dauphinois when a commis turned up with an anaemic-looking portion of spuds. "Is that cooked through?" asked Burton Race.
"Yes, chef," said the commis.
"It doesn't look very appetising," said the boss. But he didn't pack it off back to the stove, quickly to brown the top. He sent the dish on its way just as it was. And that says it all, really.
