Acleaf at Boringdon Hall Review

Situated in the historic Borringdon Hall hotel, Acleaf (well, technically Àclèaf but who is typing that out?) is the flagship fine dining restaurant of this five star venue. Having first been awarded two rosettes in 2016, three followed in 2017, then four in 2022, then at last that precious star from our favourite tyre munching inspectors duly arrived in 2023. I was therefore very confident of receiving an exceptional meal as I rocked up for dinner with my wife, on a pleasant August Wednesday.

The hotel is located north of Plympton (a suburb of Plymouth); the main road runs through what looks like a 70's housing estate before a single track road takes you up to the hall. Visually as you might expect for a Grade I listed building, it's impressive to look at although the grounds aren't as grand as other similar venues we've visited. There is however plenty of parking on site via multiple sizeable car parks which is always appreciated.

We weren't entirely sure where to go on arrival (Google Maps has the restaurant as being in a field behind the hotel at the time of writing) but we made our way to the main entrance where a helpful gentleman pointed us towards another lady in the lounge area. The lounge is an impressive space for sure; we were a few minutes early for our reservation so they offered us the chance to have a drink there first.

The drinks list is comprehensive as you might expect with a few non-alcoholic cocktails on offer which was good to see. They decided not to give us the restaurant wine list, instead just the list for the lounge area which I found a tad odd (why not let us browse the restaurant wine list while we wait) but such is life. I had my normal Hendrick's and tonic to start which was OK, my wife ordered a non-alcoholic 'Rose Garden' cocktail but this did create a small amount of excitement to start the meal.

Although my wife had pointed to the non-alcoholic page on the drinks list when ordering with the barman, we realised whilst waiting that the non-alcoholic cocktails are named identically to the alcoholic ones (a touch unusual, for this very reason). She made her way to the bar to confirm they were indeed making the wrong one, but this was swiftly changed with no fuss. When she did receive her non-alcoholic cocktail, it was very nice.

The lounge area was initially quiet but became quite noisy as a large tourist group were in that evening who were as well as dining (in another part of the hotel) also receiving what looked like a guided tour first of the history of the building. Again, it's slightly unusual to have a large group of people trapsing past a couple of feet away from you repeatedly pre-dinner at a restaurant of this standard.

After a bit of a wait, we were taken upstairs to the restaurant area and seated at our table. It's an interesting space, we were sat at one of three tables overlooking the lounge area below. Whilst an impressive room from this angle too, there's no real divide of any kind so when the aforementioned large group were getting quite loud prior to their meal, it was very audible.

Curiously, directly opposite where we sat (across the double height lounge space on the opposite wall) was a room that did have a glass wall and a steady stream of staff and guests passing through it all night, who you could watch sort of like a strange oversized TV screen. It's definitely an unusual layout for a dining room and indeed there was another table just around the corner from where we were sat (which remained empty all night) away from this vantage point overlooking the lounge area with just a nice window instead, which probably would have been better.

On offer for dinner is a set four course menu; technically it's a table d'hote I suppose but it's very much presented like a tasting menu (with choices) and we were served tasting-menu-sized portions for each dish rather than carte sized portions for sure. There are four choices per course although some of these choices incur an additional charge if selected on top of the menu price. There is a matching wine flight available (which I opted for) with a wine pre-selected for every dish on the menu. There's no non-alcoholic pairing available however; my wife did try another cocktail during her meal which she described as the worst Mojito she's ever had (alcoholic or not), I had a taste and it was just like a glass of pure lime juice.

Dinner began with a bit of drama when our waiter came in and just started pouring some English sparkling wine for my wife and she was forced to stop him mid-pour. This was bizarre on a number of levels; firstly it's not a dietary requirement to not be drinking alcohol for an evening, they knew my wife was drinking a non-alcoholic cocktail for her first drink, so to not just check first if she'd like some wine before pouring I found amazing really, and a first for me at any award winning restaurant.

I was then sat there in disbelief thinking are they trying to charge me for this as well, apparently our waiter did say the wine is "on us", another waiter at another table made it much clearer later in the evening by describing it as "complimentary" but given I had no idea what was going on, I declined the "free" wine also. And look, I completely understand the vast majority of diners will happily accept this (and likely be staying at the hotel) but you simply can't make that assumption and just start pouring wine without asking the guest first, I found the whole thing completely unfathomable.

Dinner began with some bread and nibbles presented by one of the chefs; the bread was decent (the truffled honey butter was delicious), accompanied by a bit of charcuterie and some 'Black Bomber' balls, topped with caviar and gold leaf. These were unfortunately not pleasant at all; very stodgy and packing minimal flavour. We were also presented with a little surprise one page quiz to fill in, but more on that later.

First of the main dishes for me was the Hamachi, served with oyster and yuzu. This was nice, the citrus jelly coating on the fish was a highlight, and although nothing spectacular, it was all fresh tasting and perfectly edible. My wife has less luck with her beetroot and goats cheese dish; although the plating was pretty, the goats cheese was a touch grainy and lacking in flavour and the poured sauce in the centre of the dish wasn't right in terms of flavour or thickness, it was basically just mildly flavoured water. Not good at all.

Next up for me was the Iberico ham served with fig and almond, presented as a slice of a round layered terrine. I didn't really enjoy this, I found the whole plate under-seasoned and just really underwhelming in terms of flavour. My wife this time had much better luck with her with a very enjoyable dish of crab with mango and curry; the presentation was good and the flavours were great.

For the main event, we both opted for the Highland Wagu beef dish (at an extra £25 per person, and the whole table needs to opt for it which isn't ideal). This was served in two parts; firstly we were served a delicious beef beignet in a bowl of beefy goodness which was very enjoyable. When this was served by the chef, they also left the main piece of beef on our table "to rest" although I'm not entirely convinced that was the same piece of beef we ended up being served for the second part of the dish. She did also tell us twice to not try and eat it (I got it the first time I promise) which I found a bit over the top.

Once the beef was taken away and a slice each returned, the second part of the dish was also top rate. The beef was excellent but the pea puree shaped like a very life-like leaf on the plate was probably the highlight. Yes we'd had to pay a hefty supplement, but this was an excellent dish by any standard.

Having not exactly been thrilled by the food thus far we passed on the optional cheese course, so it was now time for the pre-dessert. This is where the aforementioned quiz at the start of the meal came in as they'd apparently used our answers to pick a pre-dessert flavour, although even though I'd purposely picked completely different answers to my wife, we both ended up with exactly the same version of the dish (go figure). The pre-dessert wasn't great to be honest, it consisted of various salted-chocolate type components and was edible, but not right for me as a pre-dessert offering.

Last up was the proper dessert course; I opted for the duck egg creme brulee served with strawberry and vanilla. This was fine, but the plating was quite clumsy and the flavours not memorable. It looked like a two rosette dessert and it tasted like a two rosette dessert; it just wasn't the standard I'd been expecting at all. My wife's coconut slice with a delicate internal layer of yuzu was prettier to look at, but again a bit of a let down in terms of overall flavour. Both desserts were light-years behind (in every aspect) to the desserts we'd had at another 1* Devon restaurant just a few days earlier.

To finish the meal we opted for coffee at the table which was fine; given the status of the venue I had been expecting a fairly spectacular petit four offering (as that's usually the case in venues like this) but alas, as was the reality with so much of the meal, we instead ended with an unmemorable whimper as we were delivered a couple of neat but dull acorn shaped chocolates to accompany our drinks. The bill was also presented to us (complete with 10% service charge) without request at the same time, although our waiter did make a point of telling us there was no rush to leave.

And that was pretty much that. Overall, I was very disappointed with the standard of the meal here, many of the dishes were way behind the level I'd been expecting. I don't believe the head chef was in the kitchen on the evening of our visit (why bother if there's only three tables booked I guess) but that's not an excuse. I think a lot of it stems from the format; the argument will be people staying at the hotel for multiple nights will want to try different dishes across their stay, but personally I'd still just move to a single much stronger tasting menu than have so many weak dishes on the menu.

The rest of the experience was fine; the wine flight was enjoyable with the wines being poured at the table as I much prefer and decent measures too, but you have to remember due to the format there are only four wines, so they absolutely ought to be decent measures. Service too was OK aside from the initial free-wine-gate saga.

I think as a diner, it's easy to get swept up of the grandeur and experience of this place and not worry too much about what's actually on the plate. But although there are a lot of positive elements to the venue, I was expecting the food and overall experience to be far more polished than it actually was, and therefore there's little chance of me returning any time soon.