Our pro says...

THE SERVICE

This was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time, which was as much down to the service as the excellent food. Nothing was too much trouble – not even carrying a buggy and baby up and down a spiral staircase. (It helped, perhaps, that we visited on their very frst lunch service and were one of only two tables.) *I wasn’t recognised, although they registered my guest – also a food writer – via her Instagram snap of our lunch.

THE FOOD

Kitchen residencies are a great idea for pubs and chefs alike – the pub (hopefully) gets exceptional food from their existing kitchen and the chefs get to do their own thing without all the costs associated with a brand new venue. When it’s The Cornwall Project behind a residency, it’s an even beter idea. The menu is compact – just two or three starters and three or four mains, plus one pudding, with a vegetarian option each course – but bristles with delicious things to try. We ordered and loved both starters: sweet baby carrots and sour pickled shiitake mushrooms, served with Old Ford cheese and crunchy buckwheat; and fne slivers of baby beetroot arranged around tender duck hearts, scatered with edible marigold leaves. Crispy pork belly was an indecently good main course – meltingly tender with a tooth-shatering layer of crackled fat on top, ofset by smoked spelt grains and a sharp sauerkraut purée. Crisp fllets of mackerel with shaved ribbons of yellow courgete and broad beans were declared, ‘fresher than a spring day’ by my guest. We shared a rustic, slice of beetroot and blackcurrant cake, with a dollop of moussey vanilla ice cream.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Frankly, I can’t wait to get back to the Newman Arms’ tiny, wood-panelled dining room and while away an evening working through the exceptional wine list and the rest of the keenly priced menu. Go, now, before it’s impossible to bag a table. Bill was £80.21 for two, including service