‘Expect David Cameron to be there.’ This was the main thing I had been told before I went to Four Boys in Rock, Cornwall. As I arrive, it makes sense. This is a Cameron-y sort of place and not just because every man in here looks a bit like David Cameron.
Why? Well, Cameron’s big idea as leader of the Conservative party was to modernise it. ‘We’ll get elected if we hug hoodies and manage to not pull a face when we see an avocado.’ Four Boys, with its awareness of fashion, is doing something similar. I notice something at the top of the menu when I sit down. ‘We recommend sharing our food.’
What? Small plates?! Sharing?! I’m trying to get away from east London! Yet all has been done judiciously. Nine out of ten items on the menu sound as though they haven’t come from further than ten miles away: there’s no place-fuddling ingredients, there’s no nduja, there’s no hot honey.
This place’s ethos is somewhat new. For the past few decades, Cornwall’s high-end restaurant scene has been controlled by a traditionalist mafia: Dons Stein, Ainsworth and Outlaw, outdoing each other to see who can do least to a fillet of cod.
Four Boys (named after the four sons who run the restaurant their mother owns) is a bit more energetic. It dares to risk the charge of pretension, of fiddling, but everything is in check, everything is peaceful and I am on my holiday and this is going to be a nice lunch. The sea is right there, and the waiting staff (both guy and girl!) are all models.
Starters are first, thankfully, and out comes beef tonnato with caper-berries and rosemary (£14). Roast beef is better cold and it works with a tonnato sauce that’s heavy on the rosemary. A sea bass crudo (£14) makes me feel energetic and healthy; chicken livers on toast with marsala (£13) don’t, but I don’t want them to. I love how they’ve done these livers. Often chefs chop them finely, maybe even pulse them into an almost-purée, and you get the sense they want to hide the organ from the diner. These ones were hardly chopped at all and they were the best starter. But a confit tuna (ey?), butterbean and tomato salad (£14) from the specials board made me think there was some tuna to get rid of.
What? Small plates?! Sharing?! I’m trying to get away from east London!
The mains fulfilled the diner’s seaside fantasy of imagining everything had come out of the sea that morning. Line-caught sea bass, line-caught brill, and, of course, line-caught grouse. Yes, a grouse with all the trimmings was on the specials board (£35), and we couldn’t resist that classic seaside dish. As always the trimmings were the best bit, particularly a liver parfait on toast. A friend and I hacked away at the grouse’s ribcage so much that we got down to its windpipe and lungs, which we considered eating briefly but our companions looked ill.
Lobster came as a risotto (£30), and was the dish of the meal: the amount of lobster in there suggested that Four Boys actually likes its customers. Sea bass (£26) came with mussels and spring onion, while the brill (£30) was baked with fennel and spring onion: both spring onion dishes were good. Tiramisu (£9) and a tough-to-say sherry and cherry trifle (£9) were also nice. Cameron didn’t show up, so my 2015 election manifesto went unsigned.
Cornwall appeals to those who get a bit antsy in England’s more bucolic countryside. Give me waves and cliffs and six pints of Rattler. But here at Four Boys, things were still, things were serene, and things were marginally but significantly different.
Four Boys, Ferry Point, Rock, Cornwall; tel: 01208 640721.
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