Drink & Dine
Press
Evening Post
The Market Place feels a lot more like a pub than The [former] Ivory did. The garish decor has been toned down with cool mint walls, gold mirrors and upturned white lampshades hanging from the ceiling. It feels airy and more welcoming than before.
Huge blackboards advertise the menu and wine list, and the owners are already attracting as many drinkers as diners. Gem and Butcombe Bitter are on draught, there is a decent selection of premium lagers and an impressive selection of 20 whiskies.
The wine list is 30-strong, with 13 wines by the glass and plenty of bottles under £15. We plumped for the Chateau Senailhac Bordeaux Superieur, which at £24.95 was the most expensive red on the list but worth every penny for its blackberryish fruit and subtle tannins.
The food is essentially Modern British and there is much evidence of local sourcing, with farms and suppliers named on the menu. The joy of using good quality produce is that you don’t have to do too much to it and the provenance of the steak and chicken was allowed to shine through on the main courses.
The Redhill Farm rib-eye steak was pretty faultless – nicely seasoned and tender, it had a deep flavour thanks to its 28 days of hanging. It arrived with some very well made hand-cut chips and some perfectly cooked purple sprouting broccoli, which had been steamed to retain the colour it loses when boiled. At £11.50, it was also excellent value.
Best of all was the breast of roast chicken which was as good a piece of poultry as I’ve been served for a long time. It had been cooked with care so that the golden, nicely seasoned skin was crisp and the meat was seriously succulent.
Asparagus made another appearance with this dish (I must have eaten my bodyweight of the stuff in the past month but you’ve got to grab it while you can as the English season is so short), as did some roasted Jersey Royal potatoes (again, a seasonal treat).
There is some solid cooking go on in the kitchen and the passionate commitment to seasonality and local sourcing is to be commended.
I have a feeling this is a place that will get better and better and I really hope it lasts longer than its predecessor. It deserves to.