New Yard Restaurant, near Helston

When your restaurant is hidden among acres of wild woodland on a 600-year- old estate, curating a daily menu from produce grown in your kitchen garden isn’t a marketing tool to entice the flourishing field-to-fork following; it’s a given.

This old-school (and spontaneous) approach to cooking is something Jeffrey Robinson thrives on at New Yard Restaurant on the Trelowarren Estate. You’re as likely to find the exec chef (and his right-hand-man Tyler Doonan) pillaging plots in the Victorian walled garden or foraging ingredients on the coast as you are to spot him prepping for service in the theatre kitchen.

What the team can’t grow or rear themselves is sourced from other equally committed local producers and artisans. Beef, for example, is grazed at Boscarnon Farm near Coverack where the team rear what they believe to be the only 100 per cent forage-fed beef in the UK, while fish and seafood is landed down the road at Cadgwith.

VISIT for food that prompts you to pause and examine each element in the dish.

Jeffrey and the team picked up the prestigious 2020 Trencherman’s Award for Creativity and Innovation (joining previous winners such as Devon’s Lympstone Manor, Kota in Porthleven and Bath’s The Acorn) and their ingenuity is revealed in every plate that crosses the pass.

Cooking strictly to the Cornish harvest ramps up the challenge, and the result is a series of truly memorable dishes such as hake with charred lettuce, lemon mayo and the gentle hum of chilli-laced ‘nduja sauce.

An intensely dark chocolate delice dessert is another gleaming example of a dish that delights in the sum of its parts: the addition of crunchy honeycomb, drizzle of fragrant, floral Trelowarren Estate honey and side of torched marshmallow sorbet create a harmony of intriguing flavours.

DON’T VISIT for a hasty supper; this is the kind of experience that deserves a good few hours of your time. And, if you’re planning on working your way through the nine course tasting menu, be sure to give the kitchen 24-hours’ notice.

WE LIKED the inventive drinks list which also makes the most of Trelowarren Estate’s fruitful gardens. Try the homemade vermouth in the New Yard Restaurant Negroni, or sip it straight over ice to savour notes of fig leaf, lavender and hogweed.