SORREL, DORKING

Chef Steve Drake has chosen a picture-postcard-pretty Grade-II house in Dorking for his latest solo venture, where he’s whipped up an inventive British menu.

The cosy space with luxuriously thick carpets and velvet banquettes makes for a fine place to peruse the menu. There’s a nine- or five-course tasting option (we opt for the former), alongside conventional starters, mains and puds. Amuse bouches kick things off, one immediately startling – a broccoli and kiwi number. It’s outlandish but enjoyable, the crunchy, salty brassica balanced expertly with tangy kiwi crisps. A pumpkin mousse is a masterpiece. Salty blasts of aged parmesan dance with the sweet squash, nuttiness from a sunflower seed praline and smoky paprika – it’s colourful and moreish.

Another clever combo arrives as meaty monkfish, delicately smoked on a yakitori, with a film-thin shaving of lardo, a single buttery potato, leeks and mushroom milk. Our main, locally reared duck, comes as breast topped with sticky Moroccan spices and flavour-packed leg meat, and a liver meringue, which is far better than it sounds: two crisp slivers hold a rich liver-and-date mousse, which bursts in the mouth.

A dessert of ‘Carrot Tobacco’, inspired by childhood memories of sweet-shop coconut tobacco is playful but puzzling, so instead order the blackberry Waldorf – apple, sorrel and blackberry sing alongside celeriac parfait. sorrelrestaurant.co.uk (Words by Chloe Scott-Moncrieff)