Trevibban Mill Vineyard cuts a beautiful picture in the bright Cornish sun. The grand building entered via a bridge walkway, overlooking the eight or so acres of vineyards. Some seats sat within the edge of the vineyard where we would finish off our meal drinking the land’s bounty and more inside for wine tastings. Below, the reason we are here, Barnabys. Sibling of Prawn on The Lawn in Padstow some three miles and twenty quid away. They tempted us over with a menu of stuff that included ‘Chicken thighs, burnt jalapeno, ginger, lime’ and ‘Scallops, chilli pickle butter, black sesame’. We are that simple as punters.
We had both of those dishes, plus five other courses, some frozen margaritas, a glass or two of the Trevibban Mill sparkling rose which is excellent and a glass of their white that I took a bottle home of as a memory of a really good lunch. In truth I knew I was going to like from the initial, most simplistic courses; a Turkish flatbread doused in melted wild garlic butter and a labneh that’s been treated to a lick of excellent olive oil and dusting of zatar full of sharpness and heat. Treat it simple. Make it interesting.
The two best courses come immediately afterwards. A slice of toasted sourdough is the platform for a thick smear of muhammara, who was not only my favourite He Man baddy but also a beautiful Turkish red pepper and walnut dip. On to this goes a huge amount of white crab, some frisee leaf, and walnuts. It’s too good to share. Beautifully judged so that the crab still shines, it’ll be up there with the best things I eat this year alongside the scallops in chilli pickle butter. It has heat and purpose, feeling original and dare I say it, a bit daring. It’s stuff like this I leave the house for and spend the amount that I do on food. I ask for the pickle butter recipe and it is provided. I ask for the pink hot sauce t-shirt. They don’t have my size.
The rest don’t reach the same dizzying heights as those, but they are still very good. Asparagus with a bright mojo rojo sauce, the aforementioned chicken thighs that don’t really punch but rather cuddle you with an almost Chinese-like salsa, and roast carrots that teeter slightly too sweet thanks to a pomegranate molasses glaze, and are just about pulled back into line by a rather brilliant naga chilli yogurt. The bill is £161 and upstairs we drop another fifty buying wine to drink in the vineyard and wine to put in my bag. Our taxi arrives and we board slightly pissed for the one hour journey to St Ives safe in the knowledge we’d just had our first great meal in Cornwall that year.
9/10
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