Outlaw’s Fish Kitchen
Port Isaac, Cornwall
‘I saved the best till last,’ commented a visitor to this ‘remarkable small restaurant’ overlooking the slipway. Housed in the oldest building in the fishing village where Doc Martin was filmed, it’s all ancient, gnarled ships’ timbers, a very low ceiling and the definite feeling of pouring a quart into a half-pint pot (the tiny bathroom requires a determined effort at self-compression). The whole place is run with great enthusiasm, with the six-course tasting menu – ‘lovely, simple, brief’ – moving along at a reassuring pace. It’s another string to Nathan Outlaw’s bow, a local, seasonal and sustainable commitment filtering down from parent Outlaw’s New Road at the top of the village. Here, the offerings might take in diced cured bass, dressed in spiced pumpkin ketchup and served on a crisp blue corn tostado (so popular it’s fast achieving cult status); a lobster dumpling in seafood broth, which comes with a piece of sensational sesame toast; and crisply breadcrumbed megrim sole, with pickled slaw and jalapeño mayonnaise. Elsewhere, John Dory was excellent at inspection, big enough in flavour to stand up to an old-school creamy mushroom sauce. With the bounty of the seas getting star billing, you might expect dessert to be a perfunctory offering, but not so. A dome of browned Italian meringue contains seductively tangy passion fruit and lime parfait on a coconut shortbread biscuit base. There are some aristocratic wines on the short list, with both Cornwall and the classic French regions showing up well. Note, the tiny dimensions mean that the Fish Kitchen gets booked up way ahead.
