Eating at Twenty Seven by Jamie Rogers in Kingsbridge

This evening we travelled for Dinner to Twenty Seven by Jamie Rogers in Kingsbridge in South Hams. 

Our Route

This was our route:

We travelled down on the A38 and back on the A380, which is faster later in the evening due to the lack of traffic around Totnes and Newtown Abbot which makes it a longer time of journey at the time the map was generated.

Arriving at Kingsbridge

Kingsbridge, with its population of 6,116, is a small town in a rural area built at the head of the Kingsbridge Creek which is a creek which leads down to the Kingsbridge Estuary and out, via Salcombe, to the Sea.

We left Exmouth at 5:25pm and arrived in Kingsbridge at 6:45pm. We walked through the Town from the Cattle Market Car Park along the quay, noting how busy it appeared.

It turns out that tonight is the Quay Side Classics August Meet in the town, so on our way to dinner we walked past many classic vehicles. As a fan of such vehicles, I'm sure my brother-in-law would have loved it. 

Twenty Seven

We arrived at the restaurant at 6.55, ready for our 7pm booking. 

The restaurant is in the middle of the town amidst other restaurants (there are Indian and Turkish restaurants across, the road, but Twenty Seven is very different from them.

We were seated downstairs with a direct view into the kitchen via the glass in the kitchen door which allowed us to see the waiters, the kitchen staff and a few times during the night the chef, Jamie Rogers, himself. 

Drew was particularly taken by the symmetry and quality of the cutlery. I don't think cutlery has been a big part of my blog posts about food. But it makes the grade today. All the cutlery comes from the Robert Welsh Range and is of high quality fitting perfectly into the hand.

We opted for the Taste of Summer Tasting Menu and it was a good choice as it demonstrated some of the innovation which has made this chef famous.

We began with Canapés, these were a Start Bay crab arancini, a foie gras Mr Whippy, a Creedy Carver duck cigar and hoi sin and Devon blue cheese & truffle crème brûlée

With a little hot water poured over dry ice, the dish became ethereal as it wreathed the table with pretend smoke. Great theatre. But this dish wasn't all about the theatre.

The little crab arancini was delicious, a rich intensity of well-seasoned crab in a breadcrumb with a little dollop of sauce and decoration on top. I could have stopped the meal here and asked for twenty of these for my dinner.

The duck cigars were amazing, you could actually smell smoke, or something pretending to be smoke as you took the lid off the cigar box, then the flavour include rich duck but again a smoky, cigary flavour. I've never actually eaten cigars, though I did smoke one or two back in my roughish youth, but if I had eaten them, I could imagine them tasting just like this, but not as good! 

The foie gras Mr Whippy was what it said it was, foie gras treated so kindly and tenderly that it was whipped like an ice cream, and cool too, making the taste buds and the eyes compete with each other over what they were eating - with the taste buds winning out at this excellent treat.

The Devon blue cheese and truffle crème brûlée, served in china eggshells, also gave a taste bud punch. The crème brûlée was a texture not a taste, the flavours were of delicious sharp blue cheese with the salty earthiness of truffle - yum,yum.

The canapes really were the stars of the show - such innovation, such playful expression of food which has been well prepared and treated. I'm amazed at the treat it gave us.

Second Course

The next course was called cappuccino of haricots blancs and was the combination of a cup of creamy bean soup with a sharp peppery taste, combined with a delicious loaf flavoured with parmesan and onion. As someone who thinks parmesan and onion (along with garlic and chilli) are my favourite flavours it was as if the bread had been designed for me. I think the soup was delightful, but it is the bread that was truly memorable for me. 

The bread was served, if you wanted it, with black treacle and whipped brown butter, a rich texture that would suit butter lovers, but distracted in my view from the core flavours of the bread. 

Third Course

The next course saw us having more of the delicious Start Bay crab. Called Start Bay crab mille-feuille, the flavour of this dish tells you that the crab, caught in a bay 8 miles from the restaurant, is fresh and well treated. It was the real star of the dish, though the other elements complimented it well and drew out its texture. The 'Temperatures & textures' of Sauternes, smoked caviar, cucumber and sea buckthorn along with the crunchy biscuit following the mille-feuille tradition were all perfect. The sea buckthorn gel gave an amazing zing to the tongue, but even that strong flavour enhanced not competed with the crab. 

Fourth Course

Next came Drew's favourite dish of the night a tomato tart, or rather, to use the menu description - Heritage Totnes tomato tartlet with Driftwood goat's cheese, smoked tomato jam and truffle. The desiccated tomato on top of the tart was so rich and tomatoey, like a tomato crisp, that it would have been pleasing enough, but the other flavours, including the herbs and edible flowers all made the tomato flavours richer and more intense and balanced sweet red tomatoes with their sharper green siblings.   

The tart was served with a Consommé of tomato and basil foam. Think of all the nicest tomatoes you've ever had, then think of them being intensified into a flavour which is more tomatoey than any other tomato, add a dash of saltiness and sharpness and you might be coming close to how delicious this consommé was. Then add the strong compliment that basil gives to tomatoes and put it in a foam on top of the consommé and you have some kind of ecstasy or bliss - this is what drinking this little glass full did for us.  

Fifth Course

The fifth course was one where a choice could be made Drew chose to have the Creedy Carver chicken and foie gras roulade with Cherry and candied pistachio with Liver parfait and brioche. This missed the mark for him. He isn't a fan of liver and the roulade was too rich for his taste. On reflection I might have been better picking this one and letting him have the lobster, but perhaps I'd sublimely indicated how much I wanted the lobster which led Drew to choose this dish. 

As I was treated to the Liver parfait after my own dish, I can say it was a deep and tangy in flavour as chicken liver can be. In addition, it was so smooth that I could imagine someone in the kitchen spending five or six hours carefully blending it to get it to this level of smoothness.

My own dish was another triumph the Salcombe lobster ravioli with Thai purée, pickled shiitake mushrooms and Asian spiced broth hit all my taste favourites perfectly. The pasta was light and amazingly thin, the lobster inside was finely chopped and bound together (by egg?) and gave a great lobster taste. The puree, mushrooms and broth were like eating a dom yang gung, with all the flavours of Thailand. Imagine all that pleasure and then getting Drew's parfait. I'm spoilt.

Sixth Course

The next course was Hand-dived Beesands scallops 'Bellini' with crispy Rose Farm pig's head, pea and mint, peach gel and champagne sauce. I'm not sure what happened in the kitchen or whether the intense heat had overcome the chef's brigade, but unlike the other courses which had come out with similar gaps between them it was twenty minutes between the end of the fifth course and the arrival of this one. Perhaps some people like large gaps between courses, but the waiting staff seemed a little overwhelmed by this time too, so kept apologising for keeping us waiting, which made us notice the gap even more.

When it arrived, it was worth a little wait. The scallop was sliced in two and served around a delicious brawn (well that's what we called pig's head meat in my day) shaped in breadcrumbs into a dome. The pea and mint went very well with both the brawn and the scallop. The green leaves they were served with had a lovely sharp vinaigrette flavour. The brawn and scallop, like black pudding another meat often served with scallop, worked very well together. The peach gel and champagne sauce were an odd addition for me - the sweetness seemed out of place on this savoury dish, but it was possible, with a large plate, to experience the pleasure of the main ingredients and let the gel and sauce sit below. 

Main Course

The time between courses got longer again before the arrival of the Borough Farm beef Fillet beef, crispy short-rib beef, celeriac and truffle, potato risotto and bone marrow sauce. I wondered at one point whether I should pop over to the Indian restaurant, I could see through the window, and have a snack while I was waiting!

Again, for me, when it came the dish was a delight. The fillet cooked rare, which is just how I like it, was light and delicate, the short-rib formed in a rectangle with little gels and other goodies on top was rich and luxuriant, the potato risotto (finely sliced potato) and the celeriac were good accompaniments and the bone marrow sauce was to die for. A large bowl of this with a chunk of the parmesan and onion bread would keep me happy.

You'll have noted I said 'for me' in the last paragraph. For Drew this was not the case. I think his exact words were: "Have taken so long to serve this you think they could have actually have cooked the meat." The bloodiness of rare meat isn't something he would choose and his overall assessment of the dish was - it might be all right for some people, but it is just all wrong for me. [Co-pilot's note: I, dear readers, like steak tartare and love carpaccio, I just happen to feel that if you are going to serve a piece of beef that size, that rare, and expect someone to pay for it, you should tell them it is going to have blood coming from it.]

Pre Dessert

The dessert courses got back to a reasonable pace of service. The pre-dessert was lemon posset, tropical salsa and coconut foam this, according to Drew, was a tale of three halves!! The Lemon posset was beautiful, fresh and fragrant, this was located in the bottom third of the cup; above the posset was the tropical salsa, lovely refreshing bits of mango etc, on top of this was located the coconut foam - I'm not sure why, but I don't believe that coconut reacts well to being foamed, it has a very peculiar texture and taste. So, generally good, but it would have been better if you didn't have to dig through the foam to get to the good bits. 

Dessert

The dessert was strawberry pavlova with spring Meadow strawberries and strawberry sorbet, Drew enjoyed this dessert made up of various components that were each very nice. The biscuit was crunchy, the sorbet was fresh, the mousse was light and fluffy and the merengue was airy and hid more strawberry inside it. The only issue was that it was very sweet, without any sharp aspects to balance the dish. A bit of mint or another herb might have led it to be a bit more balanced. 

Coffee

We rounded off the meal with espressos and Petits Fours. These were White Chocolate with passion fruit and a Raspberry Macaroon. The macaroon was crisp and crunchy with a good taste, the chocolate in it was rich and dark. While passion fruit isn't my favourite flavour the white chocolate with it was crunchy and crisp, so overall it was fine. 

Overview

If the meal had finished at the fifth course, we would have been very positive about it, but the long waits between that and the next two courses were unexpected and unwelcome. These later two courses showed none of the innovation and flare that had been so present in the earlier part of the menu - perhaps the chef had run out of ideas with all the earlier creativity? I suspect if I eat dessert, they may have redeemed the situation, but as I don't that didn't happen. A pity, as the start of the meal was so strong. 

I know post-Covid time is hard for staffing restaurants but having such a strong start and weak conclusion to a meal seems very strange indeed. I'd judge it as 8 out of 10. Drew focussed more on the end than the beginning would think he was generous giving it a 5!

  

Travelling back to Exmouth

We left the restaurant at 10.30pm got to the car at 10.38pm and drive back to Exmouth - arriving at 11:55pm - by far the latest night of the holiday. 

We had travelled 97.6 miles to Kingsbridge and back and had 19% battery - 23 miles range left. So, we put the car on to charge overnight and were in bed just after Midnight.