LYMPSTONE MANOR, EXMOUTH. SIX MONTHS AFTER OPENING, IT ALREADY HAS A MICHELIN STAR. ELLA WALKER PAYS A VISIT
whisked off down to the water’s edge, or cycled the two and a half miles to Exmouth.
Michael tells the concierge to keep an eye on the sky, and to call us when the sun begins to set. “You can’t miss it,” he tells me, “we get spectacular sunsets.” He’s right. Like a scoop of orange sorbet, the sun bleeds and melts into the Exe, before plunging into creamy golden clouds the exact colour of the Brixham scallops we’re served at dinner.
Indoors, there’s no stuffiness, despite the plushness (turn up windswept and sand encrusted from a quick surf in North Devon en-route from London, as I did, and they’ll still let you into the gilded bar).
When designing the layout for his new hotel, Michael envisioned a luxurious New England vibe: “I don’t do shabby chic or period dramas.”
He’s all about being contemporary, and has no interest in pretending Lympstone is some ancestral seat. Instead of dynastic portraits on the wall, there are delicate murals of estuary birds in flight, and each of the 21 bedrooms and suites comes with its own set of GHD hair straighteners.
Michael wanted the house to connect with the landscape. Hence why the bedrooms are also themed around birds, and decorated to mimic their plumage – our Gannet suite is all iridescent blues and greys, and even has a decadent outdoor bath, so you can really, ahem, get back to nature.
Feeding you is the crux of what Michael Caines does
However, dinner is the main event. The signature tasting menu (£140), eaten in the Berry Head dining room – named after the headland you can see from the bay window, and whose tables spiral around a black and white art deco marble floor centrepiece you can’t help but want to dance on – starts with those scallops, frosted with truffle and doused in cuminscented foam.
Despite being eight courses, portions aren’t skimpy – you get a whole bread basket of mini baguettes and warm split buns, served with ridiculously delicious butter.
The fillet of beef from nearby Darts Farm, is sticky in the dark red wine sauce that did manage to escape on to Michael’s collar, and livened by sweet-sharp shallots and beads of velveteen celeriac puree. Pudding is a staggeringly good white chocolate candle you blow out – everything is full of detail and fun.
Return in another six months for the vineyard. Come April, a swathe of rubbly, grassy earth out front will be planted with vines. Michael marches me through the bar, bottles glinting in the late afternoon sunshine, and outside to see the plot, explaining gruffly that producing champagne – within five years – is the aim.
For now, visitors must be content with a mixture of global and locally sourced plonk, from the likes of Devon’s Lily Farm and Lyme Bay Winery, a Williams Elegant gin and Fever Tree tonic on arrival and head sommelier Marko – the smiliest man alive. During dinner he bounds up to explain each glass in the wine flight as though letting us in on a secret he has only just stumbled upon himself and needs someone else to confirm it in equal rapture.
Fortunately, he’s not in the least bit put off as we smile back, increasingly wildly, with each glass.