It may surprise the female fatbankers out there that a boy’s weekend in Devon playing golf could contain any degree of sophistication but that’s exactly what was added to our Tour when we ate at 11 The Quay in Ilfracombe on Sunday evening. Buried among the mass of golf, beer, curry and karaoke this restaurant was a little nugget of classy calm.
Damien Hirst’s previous restaurant venture, Pharmacy in Notting Hill, proved slightly beyond my means for most of its brief life, as I was a (poor) student during the majority of this time. Fortunately, the clean and light Harbourside room in which our rabble was placed on Sunday features some of Hirst’s “Modern Medicine” artworks, including a cabinet full of packaged pills and potions so neatly stacked that even the most meticulous OCD’er would be able to relax in its presence.
Presented with an adequate but unadventurous £25 set menu with forgettable starters, the real men amongst us went for steak mains, while yours truly sampled the half-lobster salad. The steaks certainly didn’t last long, so I assume all was good in red-meat-land, while my lobster was tasty and fresh. Dessert was a deeply good bakewell tart.
(As an aside, I always struggle with Lobster; it’s such a delicious meat but so damned stingy. There you are, presented with this great beast of a crustacean, your lips salivating at the prospect of the bountiful fleshy deposits hidden within, when, before you’ve even properly begun to enjoy your feast it’s finished, over, gone, nada no more. So much shell, so much fiddle and potential for eye gauges, but so little reward. I’m always left feeling slightly empty at the end of it all. A bit like the poor lobster I suppose.)
Given the amount of wine flowing up and down our long table I’m pretty sure a few members of the party awoke the next morning feeling very much like one of the Hirst’s formaldehyde fish that was on display. However, nonetheless, this was a very pleasant place in which to enjoy a pleasant meal.
Ilfracombe
Devon EX34 9EQ
01271 868090
