Lyme Regis: Mill Tea and Dining Room wins place in Good Food Guide (From Thisisdorset)

Lyme Regis: Mill Tea and Dining Room wins place in Good Food Guide

11:55am Wednesday 8th September 2010 in

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A CHEF who has cooked for prime ministers and pop stars has won a place in the ‘foodies bible’ for his new Lyme Regis restaurant – after just a year in business.

The Mill Tea and Dining Room, which opened last September, will be featured in The Good Food Guide 2011 – one of only nine eateries in Dorset to make the listings.

Britain’s best-selling restaurant guide is renowned for spotting up-and-coming chefs and hidden gems.

It is compiled from readers’ reviews, which are followed up by anonymous inspections.

Inspectors pay for their meals and receive no preferential treatment whatsoever.

The Mill Tea and Dining Room certainly qualifies as a hidden gem, with its entrance concealed under the stairs in the corner of the medieval Town Mill courtyard.

Chef and owner Anthony McNamara admitted: “It was a slow start. “We opened at the end of the season last year at a site previously occupied by a run down curry house.

“We knew that a good reputation was the only way to fill such a restaurant in such a tucked-away position.

“Locals have been very supportive and we owe a lot to them.”

The Mill Tea and Dining Room is Mr McNamara's first independent venture, having previously worked as private chef for Prime Ministers Blair and Brown, Sir Paul Smith, Sir Elton John and the English, Japanese and Moroccan Royal families.

Serving only authentic British food, he makes everything from scratch, including luscious hazelnut meringues, hot scotched eggs and piquant piccalilli, plus immensely popular slow-cooked porkbelly and cider-braised shallots.

The restaurant has been Lyme’s number one on the most popular travel website for more than nine months and as a result has become an international eating destination.

Now Chef McNamara is aiming to go one better – by catching the eye of the Michelin Guide inspectors.