The Highstreet Kitchen offers a comfortable fine dining experience focused on sustainable food working in close collaboration with committed local farmers and trusted producers. Chef Gavin Barnes has dreamed of an eco-informed restaurant for over a decade, and now the Georgian town of Lymington - Barnes’ hometown - is hosting that dream.
Decked out with olive-toned banquettes and chairs, marble-topped tables and simple pendant lighting, the restaurant seats approximately 60 guests over a basement and ground floor room, plus a rear courtyard terrace. Barnes’ style takes on simple food cooked well, upholding the honest and uncomplicated - the interiors reflect that ethos. The restaurant occasionally hosts pop-up menu collaborations, so keeping an eye on the events page is a smart move.
The Highstreet Kitchen menu showcases the best seasonal produce that Hampshire and the surrounding counties have to offer. It’s a no-fuss, no-frills menu delivering satisfying dishes with elegance and ease. Think Norfolk chicken, New Forest asparagus, and Isle of Wight tomatoes. The food is classic in style, drawing heavily from British and European cuisine but unconstrained by any one type. The dinner menu includes a Surrey Farm rib eye with hand-cut chips and Cafe de Paris butter and a Dover sole meuniere with shrimps and jersey royals. Also on offer is a classic Sunday roast with all the trimmings, yorkshires and all.
If you can save room for pudding, there are a variety of desserts including a bitter chocolate cremeux with walnuts and coffee ice cream, a passionfruit souffle with mango sorbet, and a Cox’s apple crumble with hazelnut, oats and vanilla. And to top it all off, a cheese course from the Lymington Cheese Company, served with Dorset biscuits and relish.