The Elephant by Simon Hulstone
Torquay, Devon
Torquay's finest is barely more than a rope-throw from the Marina, a double-fronted, expansive space run with serene efficiency. Simon Hulstone oversees a long-established, venturesome kitchen that reliably brims with good ideas, against a backbone of mainstay classic dishes that ensure the locals keep coming back. The base price shifted sharply upwards with the transition to a prix-fixe format, but there is no doubting the integrity and class of the cooking. A favoured pairing of gently poached scallop and savoury chicken wing in bone-marrow dressing with sea buckthorn is a masterful exercise in counterpointing flavours and textures. In its spring season, Wye Valley asparagus might be smartly accoutred with barbecued pineapple, a hash brown and macadamias, while the same imaginative energy is on dazzling display in a main dish of poached cod with pink grapefruit and carrot in a coconut curry sauce. That said, confirmed traditionalists will find nothing lacking in a serving of heritage pork with its glazed cheek and black pudding, alongside grelot onion and pearl barley. The voguish savoury approach to desserts sees apricot parfait served with toasted rice and chai foam or gariguette strawberries fragranced with bay leaf flan and peppered caramel. The wine offering doesn't change much with the passing years, other than for the initial offering headed 'seasonal wines we like', which are always worth a flutter – perhaps a Sardinian Vermentino or Rhône-style red from Cucugnan in the Aude.
