Follas’s love of foraging is evident right from the starter: both are delivered in hearty portions on wooden butcher’s blocks garnished with wild leaves and edible flowers. The brill ceviche is fresh and delicate with a whisper of zest, lacking only a grain or two of salt for my taste. A flash-fried and optimally cooked pigeon breast comes with a chunky compote of dark berries and beetroot. It’s delicious.

Mains are equally generous in size and flavour. A whole baked lemon sole appears on a plate of hubcap dimensions, but still looks elegant. It’s a classic recipe, with a lemon caper-butter sauce, and executed to classic standards. Better still are a pair of Barnsley chops, pink and succulent and complemented with a coarse, crunchy pesto. The head waiter suggests local beers from Bath Ales and Weymouth’s Dorset Brewing Company to pair with the food, and his advice is right on the money.

The common thread through each of the savoury dishes is the taste of every ingredient. Follas doesn’t flummox my palate by throwing the larder at every plate. Good produce and well though-out combinations do all the work. I can only imagine that the baked Dorset mackerel with a tomato and tamarind sauce and the spelt nettle risotto were infused with the same ethos. Desserts, in contrast, are competent but unspectacular. Eton mess is tidily presented in a tower nest, and tastes as it should; a well-built lime tart is a bit short on the lime, and therefore tang. But they are my only real reservation about the food. The Wild Garlic serves up cooking of the highest quality in surroundings designed not to intimidate—there’s highchairs for the kids, well-pitched service, and even a pack of Huggies waiting in the baby-change room. Good portions and fair prices ensure that Follas’s small dining room (just 30 covers or so) is often full, and rightly so. I’m planning to head back again next month.

The Wild Garlic
4 The Square, Beaminster, Dorset DT8 3AS
+44 (0) 1308 861446
Lunch £70 for two inc. drinks

In the spirit of open data, crunch her numbers however you wish. They are after the fold / below the photo.

Adventureland
La Cabane des Robinson: 9/10

Le Passage Enchante d’Aladdin: 5/10

Frontierland

Big Thunder Mountain: 3/10 [Yes, I know, I really shouldn't have "persuaded" her to ride this with me...]

Legends of the Wild West: 8/10

Rustler Roundup Gallery: 5/10

Main Street U.S.A.

Shopping, shopping, and more shopping: 7/10

Mickey’s Magical Party (show): 10/10

Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade: 20/10

Castle Lighting show with Mickey and Friends: 10/10

Fantasyland

Sleeping Beauty Castle: 9/10

La Carrousel de Lancelot: 2/10

Peter Pan’s Flight: 3/10

Dumbo the Flying Elephant: 10/10

Alice’s Curious Labyrinth: 10/10

Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups: 8/10

“It’s a small world”: 10/10

Discoveryland

Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast: 10/10

Orbitron: 9/10

Videopolis: 7/10

Autopia: 10/10

Disney Studios

Playhouse Disney Live on Stage!: 10/10

Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic: 4/10

Flying Carpets Over Agrabah: 10/10

I must also give a shout out to the kind folk at Frommer’s who gave me their Paris & Disneyland Resort Paris With Your Family to test-drive for the weekend. Remembering (in the spirit of disclosure) that I also write for them, I’d give the book’s Disneyland chapter 8 or 9 out of 10 myself. Crisp descriptions helped me immensely in choosing rides age-appropriate for my little companions. (I take full responsibility for the distinctly ill received decision to ride Big Thunder Mountain, okay.) We’d have achieved much less without the book’s explanation of the FastPass system. Perhaps the only thing missing was a bit of help finding our way to the shortest queues. But then, in the run-up to Christmas, maybe there just aren’t any after the park opens to the public at 10 a.m.

If you have any Disney feedback, or scores of your own to share, please do leave a comment. I’ll see it gets back to the appropriate six-year-old.

Tel. 020 7388 3344

Set lunch menu: £18

Main courses: £14–18

There are many Saturdays when I can’t afford to lunch at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, and last Saturday was yet another of those. Because, and let’s get this straight up-front, the York and Albany isn’t a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Not really. The “Patron Chef” is Angela Hartnett, Ramsay’s talented right-hand-cook, but quite what an Executive/Patron Chef actually does isn’t always clear to me. I picture her getting a menu faxed through every now and then, scrawling “fine” on the bottom and faxing it back to Head Chef, Colin Buchan. But then I’m a cynic.

Chicken with foie gras and chicken liver parfait

The Y&A opened in late 2008 in a converted John Nash pub between Camden Town and Regent’s Park. It offers what they like to call “a complete lifestyle experience with food at its heart“. For the rest of us, that’s a swanky pub with bar meals (£8–9), a restaurant, Nonna’s deli and 10 rooms upstairs.

First impressions of the dining area are favourable. It’s stylish, but not too stylish. The cool and modern upstairs room is well served by natural light. The intimate, banquette-laden downstairs, on the other hand, feels more like an upmarket Parisian brothel with an open kitchen bolted on. If you’re lunching, like I was, ask for a table in the daylight, even if the perches are a little close together.

Salad of Parma ham, chicory and poached pear

The seasonal menu puts a heavy emphasis on simplicity. There’s little in the way of French fannying about with the ingredients. They’re cooked and served in a style that retains the taste of each. It’s gastropub cooking, and then some. My set-lunch starter of Parma ham, chicory and poached pears tossed in red wine vinaigrette was light and clean, like a meaty sorbet, and set me up (but didn’t fill me up) for the main. Pan-fried, curry seasoned cod floated in a saffron and mussel sauce that was so delicate and balanced, I’d happily pour it on my Corn Flakes. My companion went a la carte: a ballotine of chicken stuffed with foie gras and served with chicken liver parfait and apple sauce, followed by a light cassoulet-style stew of halibut, chorizo and white beans. All good.

Looking around in the pause between courses, I was reminded that recessions seem never to affect a certain class of London diner. The place was packed, and while the upper crust were much in evidence, I wasn’t uncomfortable in jeans (no trainers, alas) or drinking a beer: Old Speckled Hen served, as it should be, slightly chilled (£4 pint). When I asked, the duty manager advised me that a couple of weeks’ notice is advisable if booking for a party larger than 2. If you’re dining a deux, they can usually fit you in at short notice if you’re flexible on time.

Service is perfectly pitched, and when my dessert of apple tatin and praline ice-cream arrived, I was readier than a lioness circling a limping wildebeest. The tart was soothing, and nicely alcoholic, but rendered the insipid ice-cream a bit pointless. They should have just served it with decent cream. The warm madeleine that came with the coffee was a nice touch; but not as nice as the bill. Under £70 for top-rank cooking including service (a discretionary 12.5%) and booze is value enough to tempt me back, that’s for sure.

Curry-seasoned cod in saffron and mussel sauce

There’s more in the way of (largely positive) Y&A review coverage from AA Gill in The Sunday Times, Giles Coren in The Times, the Evening Standard, the Independent, and TimeOut.