The friendly welcome went well with the equally friendly set-up of the dining room and the front-of-house approach, and it was a shame that the restaurant was almost completely empty with just one other table in use on the evening. We opted for the larger tasting menu, and my wife was served an alternative to the oyster starter without any problem. The wine list was rather limited, temporarily we were told, and there was no English fizz. The canapés were good, a celeriac velouté with dehydrated onion crumbs and a smoky, crispy cod’s roe tart, and I would have enjoyed my oysters more if there had been less of the, for me, unnecessary chilli. My wife’s bland salmon, with compressed cucumber, pickled shallot and confit potato suffered from too much lemon peel, an influence which would have more welcome with the charred broccoli that followed. Things looked up again with the interesting balance of tastes and textures in the burrata salad with beetroots and horseradish and a good beetroot orzo, but this was followed by a cod dish that was rather below-par, the texture of the fish being rather dry and the seasoning very much overdone. The best thing on the menu was undoubtedly the tender, tasty duck, cooked to perfection; unfortunately the caraway and onion pastille that came with it was chewy and had a rather unpleasant filling, but there was some decent charred onion. Normally we would have had the cheese course, which was part of the menu, but the portions had been larger than we are used to, so we passed and went on to the palate cleanser/first dessert, soft, sweet compressed pineapple with interesting coconut cake, a touch of lime and pink peppercorn in the background. Our meal was completed in good style with blood orange sorbet, dark chocolate streusel and a delightfully light parfait. We had wanted to like this restaurant but unfortunately there were too many negatives for us.