Ocean at The Atlantic Hotel (Jersey)

The meal kicked off with an eel with potato espuma and herb oil amuse bouche which had a lovely boost from the truffle.  The tuna starter had a lovely blend of salt and freshness at the same time and this was an equal pleasure to have along with perfectly fresh white crab and a cucumber sorbet that was as smooth and balanced as they come – very good openers.

However, I was not prepared for the sheer delight of the Fillet beef, with truffled polenta, seared foie gras, crispy Parmesan – this was just absurdly good with onion base that was wonderful.  My only criticism of this dish was the fact that the polenta after a few minutes started to make the lovely jus turn in to a mashed sauce.  However, this was a small side effect.

A pre-dessert of milk jelly, saffron granita, saffron culé was a little odd and was definitely the part of the meal that I thought could be changed as it was a little like licking copper and generally too bitter for me.  The main dessert of Mojito however, was different from the norm in a good way and I enjoyed the sting from the mojito foam but this was only just cooled down by the mint ice cream.  The chocolate was lovely but overall (and these are mirco thoughts), the acid had quite a battle with the soothing ice cream.

So a couple of things that weren’t my favourite but these were soothed by the higher echelon hospitality (which will happen when the head sommeiler comes direct from Midsummer House for example) and the niggles I had were frankly blown out of the water by the outstanding fillet of beef dish with its supporting acts working together so well.  The £95 for dinner for one with some very well paired drinks represented average and fair value for money, with the a la carte of £55 for 3 courses (which turned out to be 5 courses) was therefore very good value for the food alone.  A very nice place overall and in the end I was sorry to be leaving as my timetable could only allow a couple of hours there.