Hardly what you expect to find in Nottinghamshire, but then the sea really is pretty close to us all, and seafood is a predominant feature of the menu, as you might expect. Bruce Elliott-Bateman, and Philip Wright at the stoves make an excellent and proven team. The décor is challenging as you switch from oak beams and open fires to another dining room decked out in Mediterranean style and colours.

Up to 22 blackboards promote the delights of such delicacies as crab bisque, oysters, avruga with swordfish to follow, or escolar from Indonesia, or from nearer home with sole from Torbay, or a Cromer crab, the sweetest of them all. Deliveries are frequent, usually from Brixham. For determined carnivores the king-size mixed grill comes as something of a relief, and in season there is game from the surrounding estates.

The wine list is extensive and well-geared to the menu. Perhaps the final touch for the gentlemen is the plastic cistern in the wash room, complete with live goldfish. Who said that eccentricity was on the decline?