For a start the hotel is called One Devonshire Gardens, the restaurant is actually called Amaryllis. This isn't somewhere you'll go for dinner very often, but if you want to impress someone, then this is the place to go. The kitchen is supervised by Gordon Ramsay, although he doesn't visit the place very often, I didn't quite understand that, but the food is great anyway.
Now my first piece of advice is to book early. I booked over a month in advance for 3 people and still didn't get my first choice of time. It's not a criticism, just some advice.
Dress Code: You'll probably want to get dressed up to go to a restaurant like this, but don't worry, the standard of dress varied from suit, shirt and tie to trousers and a casual jumper. You don't have to wear a tie, which I was quite impressed by.
1st impressions: We arrived a little early, there was someone waiting to open the door for us and our reservation was checked quickly. It was relaxed even though the staff were all tuxedos. Very impressed.
We were shown to the Drawing Room to wait for our table and have a drink; the room was immaculate with massive chairs with even bigger cushions arranged in two clusters of 4 chairs. We were served 3 glasses of wine by an informed waiter. While we were there a couple came in and sat across from us, the man was small and looked familiar, it turned out to be Robert Carlyle (the Actor in-case you’re wondering, Scottish as well!), this just added to the classy atmosphere.
The Meal: After about 10 minutes in the drawing room, we were shown to the Dining Room and seated at an immaculately set table with the thickest table cloth I've ever seen, and a single flower on one side (an Amaryllis of course). Next the menu came and we were asked if we had been to the restaurant before, we hadn't so we were talked through the menu. You can have 3 courses (a La Carte), this lets you choose anything from the menu and costs £35 each. We went for the Prestige menu which consisted of 6 courses of smaller portions to let you taste a variety of dishes, it really wasn't as much as it sounds and was server over about 3 hours. There wasn't as much choice here, you got 2 starters - I can't remember the names so I'll go back to basics, just remember there really is a lot more to the dishes that this - 1st starter, the tastiest soup I've ever had, really amazing. 2nd starter, duck Pate layered with Parma ham and server with meticulously placed green beans and tiny mushrooms (with a fancy name). Next it was some fantastic salmon, and I don't even like salmon, but it was great. The 4th course was a choice of belly Pork or Lamb, I had the pork and, just trust me, it had so many tastes going on it just rocked. The 5th course was a choice of something with pineapple, or for £5 more (on top of your £45) Biscuits and cheese, it sounds like a bit of a scam, but the cheese trolley really needs to be seen, about 10 cheeses I'd heard of and another 20 I hadn't. Well worth the extra. The final desert was a soufflé (don't remember the ingredients) with a rhubarb sorbet, a perfect end to a perfect meal. £50 each with the biscuits and cheese.
Drinks: We had 3 glasses of wine at £5.50 each. With the meal we had a bottle of still water (£2.70 for a large bottle) this is good value in Burger King, never mind a place like this. 2 bottles of white wine at £24 each, not too bad - very nice wine.
Service: The service is every bit as good as the food. From the minute we walked through the door I was impressed. The food all came at once, even to tables of 10, and was accompanied by a waiter who explained what it was - you'll never remember 6 dishes believe me. They never put much wine in the glass, but it was topped up long before you finished it. Even when you went to the toilet (I'll get to them in a minute) when you returned, your napkin had been folded neatly for you, or you got a new one if it was dirty. In my opinion a good restaurant is great if it has 2 things, nice deserts and nice toilets (is it just me then?) So, the deserts were nice and I can report that the toilets didn't let it down. They were as immaculate as the restaurant, everything worked and they even had individual towels (real towels) to dry your hands.
The only place I didn’t give it full marks was in variety, it did have 8 choices for main courses, but I've seen more. This really isn't a bad thing, because everything there is excellent.
One last thing, just don't expect a lot of change from £250 for 3 people; it really is worth every penny though.
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