Pebble beach, Marine Drive, Barton-on-sea, Hampshire (01425 627777).
Meal for two, including wine and service, £60-100
I love a good sea view, and the one from the terrace of Pebble Beach is a cracker. The broad stretch of Christchurch Bay curves away below us from the Needles in the east to Hengistbury Head in the west, and sailing boats bob unselfconsciously on the ripple and wash of the tide. The problem for Pebble Beach is that, when I see a view like that, I crave simplicity. And simplicity is not really what this restaurant does. It sits on a coast road, surrounded by suburban houses, and inside it looks suburban, too. The orange curtains that hang by the doors are big and flouncy. The walls are a light shade of burnt umber, to reflect the too-perfect, honey-coloured wood floor. There are uplighters and downlighters. There are columns as architectural features, and reproduction wrought-iron balustrades on raised areas that don't need them. Oh, and a white baby grand piano.
Sadly, nobody is playing the piano. Instead, MOR rock pumps out at a roar. I quickly eye the terrace and beg a table there, away from the fussiness and thrum of the room. But then the menu arrives and the onslaught begins again. There is an avocado, salmon confit and white crab meat tian with citrus dill creme fraiche. There is pan-fried sea bass on a bed of crab and spring onion mash with rocket and a white wine jus. There is stir-fried monkfish and tiger prawns with pak choi, mangetout and shiitake mushrooms in oyster sauce.
I am tired just reading this stuff. The sun is shining. The sea is below me. I want fish. And I don't want anyone crowding it out across the plate with unnecessary adornments. So I study the menu until I find a way to put together the simple meal I want. The fact is, I am keen to like Pebble Beach, and so far it is doing everything in its power to make me dislike it. Still, I do find those dishes. There is a grandly titled 'assiette of crevettes', which is as pretentious a name as those columns are a decor feature. It is just a generous portion of king prawns on crushed ice with some mayonnaise. To follow, I order a whole grilled Dover sole, the most expensive item on the menu at £22, but it is worth it. The fish has been cooked with immense precision and care. The fillet separates perfectly from the bone. Chips are crisp, a salad well composed and dressed with a fine roast garlic and balsamic vinaigrette.
It is at this point that I realise my problem with Pebble Beach. I am disappointed with it because it isn't what I'd like it to be, not because of what it is. As a friend said to me once, don't criticise an ostrich for not being
an elephant. OK, I may think whoever decorated the main room had a taste bypass, but everything I eat is good and the service is charming. I ask for a glass of ice for my mineral water and they bring a refill without being asked. They are interested without being overbearing. Around me in the sunshine, people are celebrating birthdays and I can see why they would be having such a good time.
It is when the pudding arrives that I finally get the measure of the place. It is an iced raspberry souffle, the colour of a five-year-old's birthday cake. At the bottom is a crisp, dark-chocolate shell. On the top is a thin disc of meringue. Around it is a fruit-rich coulis. In its deep, saturated colours, its enthusiastic assault on excess, it looks like something that might have appeared in a Duran Duran video. And that's when it strikes me: Pebble Beach is exceptionally Eighties, a throwback to a time when more really was more; when tians ruled and everything was served on a bed of something else.
This makes absolute sense. The chef here, Pierre Chevillard, spent the first 25 years of his career at Chewton Glen, which pretty much defined the luxury of the country-house hotel during Thatcher's decade. That's what he is doing here. I see him in the open kitchen and he is even wearing a toque, a really high one, like you see in children's books. I haven't seen one of those on a chef's head for years. But Chevillard has one because he's that sort of chef, and he wears it with style.
In short, I have been won round by the professionalism of the enterprise. Would
I still be well disposed towards Pebble Beach if it were a rainy day and I were incarcerated in that death-by-interior-design dining room? I doubt it. Still, it is a sunny day at the beginning of a summer which promises more to come and I know that if I found myself on this terrace, watching the sea ripple, listening to the gulls, and eating some simply cooked fish, I would be a happy man.
jay.rayner@observer.co.uk
