Station Restaurant

The Station Restaurant turned out to be a beautifully decked-out eating place with really nice food and tremendous character. it has an elegant Belle Epoque brasserie feel with a distinctly colonial note injected by rather gorgeous Lloyd loom chairs, marble top tables, original wood panelling, a chequerboard floor and towering pot plants. Lest you think this is some precious trip down a pseudo Victorian memory lane, let me reassure you that a highly civilised contemporary mood kicks in with the music, which is all jazz.

Here you can eat a sirloin steak plus trimmings for £9.95 though most diners will doubtless focus on the snackier offerings; panini, club sandwich, croque monsieur. Satiny smooth cream of turnip soup with a flavour almost reminiscent of peanut butter disappeared in a flash. It tasted as though it was made with proper stock.

Thoughts of healthy eating went out the window when the prospect of home-made chips was dangled. They were fantastic too; you could tell they were the proper twice-fried item.

Mine came with thick white flaky haddock encased in beer batter, almost taffeta like in its crispness. A good tartare sauce thick with capers made it perfect. A beef burger suffered by comparison, but it was still a decent, home-made offering served with memorable tomato pickle. Then we attacked the cakes and puddings, deliciously home-spun staples like carrot cake, sticky toffee and brownie.

Who wants to be shoehorned into a stiff-backed formal lunch between 12.30pm and 1.45pm when you can have civilised food and good service in somewhere like this?