When they took over a 38-seat restaurant in Milford on Sea on a 25-year lease, Sarah Laskey and Amy Frearson originally retained the name of what had previously been an Italian restaurant, Il Mulino. "Unfortunately, it didn't really reflect what we're about, as we're not an Italian restaurant," says Frearson, a former graduate of the specialised chefs course run by Bournemouth and Poole College in conjunction with the Academy of Culinary Arts. With the venue renamed One High Street, she adds: "We're a fine-dining restaurant, serving modern English food. The new name highlights our location."
Frearson works in the kitchen with her boyfriend, head chef Desmond Burke, while Laskey runs the front of house. Frearson and Burke met while working at the Savoy in London, then spent 18 months travelling to South-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, doing some work along the way. On their return to Britain, Burke worked in London at Mezzo, the Square and the Mandarin Oriental hotel, while Frearson returned to where she grew up to work at a pub-restaurant, Ship in Distress, in Mudeford, Dorset.
It was here that she met and teamed up with Laskey, who was the Ship's licensee-manageress. That was in 2000, and a couple of years later they bought Il Mulino together.
Choice extended
For lunch, the restaurant operates an à la carte menu, with a choice of five starters (priced from £4.25 to £5.50), five main courses (£8.95 to £13.95) and four desserts or a selection of cheeses (all at £5). The dinner menu, where the choice is extended to six dishes at each course, has a set price of £22.50 for three courses.
A firm favourite with customers is a starter of sweet baked tomatoes with organic goats' cheese and aged balsamic. "It's a very simple dish, but it's easy eating and everyone loves it," Frearson says. Deseeded tomatoes are baked with sugar, salt, white wine vinegar, thyme, garlic and olive oil for maximum flavour, and served on a bed of rocket salad, with goats' cheese and balsamic dressing.
Other starters are more involved. For instance, the dish of seared scallops, which carries a £3 supplement, is composed of three scallops with three accompaniments - tomato confit, diced avocado and crab, and mushroom duxelle. A shot glass of sweetcorn broth completes the dish.
Dishes are taken off and put back on the menu on an ad hoc basis, but one dish that's constant is the main course of beef fillet with polenta chips and caramelised red onion. Also currently popular is roast fillet of cod, spiced Puy lentils and fresh anchovies.
Although there are only two chefs in the kitchen, there is no compromise on desserts, with each dish usually made up of at least three different elements. For instance, an assiette of orange is composed of an orange tart, orange sorbet and orange madeleine, while a damson plum souffl‚ is served with white chocolate ice-cream, mulled wine plums, crème pâtisserie and a sablé biscuit.
For tables of six or more customers, One High Street offers a set menu with a choice of two dishes. Frearson says: "Being a small restaurant with only two of us cooking, this helps us tremendously."
One High Street, 1 High Street, Milford on Sea, Hampshire SO41 0QF
Tel: 01590 642611
By Janet Harmer
Chef's cheat
To prevent loss of base liquid when passing a jus or sauce through a chinois, wet the muslin first. This prevents it from soaking too much of the sauce as it is strained through.
What's on the menu
* Smoked haddock ravioli, steamed mussels, mixed pepper compote, smoked aubergine caviar.
* Rolled pork rillette, golden raisin caper dressing and pork beignets.
* Wild mushroom and rabbit terrine, New Forest girolles, sauce gribiche.
* Pacific rock oysters, leek and potato soup, keta caviar.
* Wild sea bass, crab tortellini.
* Lemon sole, oak-smoked salmon, crème fraîche, sauce de moutarde.
* Pan-fried calves' liver, buttered potatoes and white onion purée.
* Valrhona chocolate fondant with morello cherry ice-cream.
* Calvados and apple parfait with butterscotch.
* Pear and prune clafoutis.