There’s always a bit of a buzz when Adam Handling opens a new restaurant.
Having made a name for himself in London, he made his debut in Cornwall in 2021 with Ugly Butterfly at the Carbis Bay Estate.
Over the ensuing three years it’s become one of ‘the’ places to get a table, so when it was announced in May that Handling was to open his second Cornish venue the following month there was excitement amongst foodies.
Based at Carvynick Farm, off the A3058 near Newquay, the Tartan Fox (said to be inspired by Handling's Scottish roots and the location of the pub which, much like a fox’s home, is a den to escape in the countryside - although it also nods to its predecessor on the site, The Fox’s Revenge) manages to pull off effortless elegance while still maintaining a pub feel.
Dried flowers at every corner – and even cascading down the wall in one seating area – are echoed in the place settings, while the walls have been given a fresh coat of white paint to brighten the whole place.
We were greeted to our lunchtime booking with smiles and an arrival drink – a glass of the Adam Handling own label brut (he also has a rose and a Blanc de Blancs) that comes in at £96 a bottle.
If fizz is your thing, the highly respected Cornish answer to Champagne, by Knightor, also makes an appearance on the list, as do the big name brands Tattinger, Krug and Moët & Chandon. Should money be no object, you can even enjoy a bottle of the 2000 Dom Pérignon that will set you back £1,652.
It should be noted, however, that for those on more of a budget you can get a glass of wine for a more purse-friendly £5.50.
One notable aspect of the menu is the choice, coming in at seven ‘snacks’ (either a smaller starter or something to nibble with drinks), eight ‘smaller’ dishes and ten ‘larger’ dishes (main course sized) to choose from - 13 if you include all four cuts of steak: sirloin, ribeye, fillet and tomahawk. The first three come in a choice of a 250g or 350g portion, with price points ranging from £37 to £55 (£80 for the tomahawk), and all are served with a choice of peppercorn sauce, whisky sauce or garlic butter – and can be topped with roasted bone marrow, garlic prawns or fresh black truffle for a supplement.
Even my famously fussy friend (she won’t disagree!) managed to choose with relative ease.
Wanting to pace herself, she opted for the intriguing cheese doughnuts (£7) from the snacks list to begin. Other choices include black pudding bon bons (£8), ‘our’ hash browns with truffle cream and caviar (£21) and bread served with either chicken butter or salted butter (£7).
Starters include beef tartare served with egg yolk and wagyu fat toast (£18), crab cocktail with yellow curry (£15), ham hock toastie with piccalilli (£13) and barbecue mussels with green chilli and ginger (£14/£22).
However, I couldn’t review an Adam Handling restaurant without sampling his signature dish ‘Mother’, which can be found on all his menus.
The story goes that on the night Handling was due to open his restaurant Frog, in London’s Covent Garden, his mother had decided to become a vegetarian. With nothing suitable on the menu, he quickly constructed something from ingredients to hand – and a legendary dish was born.
It features a mix of black truffle cream cheese, lime and dates, topped with a just-set egg yolk and all wrapped up in a neat parcel of thinly sliced, salt baked celeriac - balanced onto which are thin strips of julienne sliced apple and a generous amount of fresh black truffle.
Given the ingredients it’s perhaps unsurprising this is the most expensive starter on the menu, coming in at £25 – but what an experience.
Served cold, these are sophisticated flavours all carefully balanced. Tangy but sweet, it has a deep aroma from the black truffle, although the flavour is less intense when eaten as an ensemble.
This is a grown up dish, for a grown up palate, and one that I will remember.
But what of those cheese doughnuts? It’s not an obvious combination, with popular culture conditioning us to consider doughnuts a sweet treat, more usually filled with jam or custard.
What a revelation. Crispy on the outside, softy and doughy on the inside, with a full-flavoured cheese centre, they come topped with more yet cheese. On the savoury doughnut front, consider me converted.
Main course proved a harder choice, simply because there was so much I wanted to try. From mac and cheese ‘our way’ (pasta tubes stood on end and filled with cheese sauce - £15) to the smashed burger with Cornish gouda and house burger sauce (two smaller patties quite literally ‘smashed’ together – £21) these are dishes found on many a pub menu up and down the country – but done with same Handling twist that saw him reach the finals of Masterchef: The Professionals and in April last year win the BBC's Great British Menu Champion of Champions award.
More unusual dishes include pork, cauliflower and kimchi (£24) and potato, broccoli, black garlic and smoked almond (£18).
However, on the advice of our extremely knowledgeable server Nicole I went for the roast rump of lamb with courgette and basil (£26) while my friend had the pie of the day (£22), which on our visit was smoked chicken and leek.
What a choice that was. I’ll admit to having some serious food envy over that pie. The chicken (shredded, not cubed; a nice touch) was smoked for flavour, without being in any way overpowering, and really elevated it to a new level – the influence of the king of smoked food, Andi Tuck, we were informed. Added to the mix were individual pearl onions and some seriously good chicken stock.
And we’re talking a proper, shortcrust pastry top, sides and bottom pie too – not one of those dish-with-a-pastry-top pretenders.
This came served with a small pot of herby crushed potatoes and a jug of gravy. If there was one note on this, my friend felt the flavour of the gravy was more suited to accompanying a roast dinner than chicken pie – but this was a minor point and personal taste.
Meanwhile my lamb, served rare, was beautifully tender.
More commonly served with mint (a flavour combination I’ve never enjoyed) I hadn’t considered it paired with basil before, but it really worked and was far preferable to my tastes. Coming in the form of a basil cream, the pungent, faintly anise flavour cut through the richness of the lamb and took the flavour off in a totally new direction.
The meat came paired with courgette in two ways – roasted batons and thinly sliced rounds, which had a tasty tang to them.
Nicole recommended that I order a side dish to accompany it and suggested the Jersey Royal potatoes with brown butter, which proved buttery, salty and crispy skinned, in a generous portion.
Despite all the food already, we found a small hole for dessert – naturally.
While I badly wanted to see the Adam Handling take on a deep-fried Mars Bar (served with frozen honeycomb - £12) I feared batter at the end of a large lunch would result in an uncomfortable drive home. Instead I opted for the chocolate pudding with sour cherries (£13) and had zero regrets.
Deceptively simple in description, this was the perfect way to end a meal – and I mean perfect.
While the chocolate pudding was truly delicious (dark, dark chocolate – I would guess a 90 per cent cocoa content; not bitter but not sweet) in fact - and I can’t believe I’m writing this, as a lifelong member of the chocoholics’ club – the stars of this dish were the cherries.
I am really not a fan of conventional cherry flavour and try to avoid it wherever possible, but it’s a different story when it comes to fresh cherries – and these were as fresh as they get, simply bursting with fruity flavour. I scraped that bowl of cherry juice.
After some deliberation my friend went for the warm treacle tart with nutmeg, which came served with rum ice cream.
The treacle tart had some texture to it, as it should, and was sweet but not cloying, with skilfully thin pastry.
What she really raved about, however, was the ice cream. Soft and creamy, with a solid rum flavour, it came topped with little chunks of fudge and – the pièce de résistance – de-alcoholised rum honeycomb. Incredible.
Too late, we realised we had missed our chance to sample the Tartan Fox trifle. Does it replicate the dessert Handling created as the official pudding for the Coronation of King Charles III in May 2023, made with Parkin, ginger custard and strawberry jelly? We’ll never know, but it’s something you can enquire about, dear diner.
Sadly we were both driving so couldn’t continue our exploration of the alcoholic drinks menu – more’s the pity, given the exciting sounding cocktail menu that included delights such as a Scottish Pornstar (thyme infused vodka, passionfruit syrup and Irn-Bru no less - £12.50), Garden Spritz (rosemary infused gin, lemon cordial, white peach and jasmine soda - £12.50) and Salted Caramel Banana Espresso Martini (vodka, discarded banana peel rum, Cornish sea salt caramel syrup, liqueur coffee and espresso - £15). However, our mocktails were equally worthy of mention – a cherry lemonade (as it sounds) and an apple mojito which, no word of a lie, was as good as the original and even more refreshing; I didn’t even miss the rum.
This is fine dining but in an informal setting. There’s no airs, no pretensions, and staff wear shorts and big smiles.
Judging by the impressive number of diners for a Thursday lunchtime it’s a combination that works.
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