The Grange Hotel & Upper Deck Restaurant

57 Southbourne Overcliffe Drive, Bournemouth, BH6 3NL
Tel: 01202 433 093

This additional to the long standing Grange Hotel was built last summer. it was only in March 2008 that we finally got round to trying it out after talking about it for a long time.

Being a restaurant that highlights its seafood pedigree it was always a certainty that we would get round to visiting. It was a Friday night at 7.30pm that a group of 5 of us ventured there. Although it was a dark March evening you could tell that it would be a fantastic venue on a summer's evening. Obviously having lunch there with give you the great views to the sea, the Isle of Wight Needles and Old Harry's Rock.

There was only one other table there that night, which I thought was rather odd.

After an apperitif in the somewhat small bar, given the size of the restaurant, we sat at our table. The menu itself did not have a large range, which is not a bad thing. We've all seen the Gordon Ramsey TV programmes haven't we, about keeping it simple but being good at what is offered?

There was lobster and crab written on the specials board but they omitted the fruit de mer. Luckily the waiter, who was very good humoured and attentive, explained that they also had a seafood platter for £50 that would serve two people. this had a large brown crab, along with half a lobster, plus mussels, clams, large prawns, small prawns, razor clams, scallops and other bits. One thing that was missing was oysters, but given that we had a crab and lobster meant in my point of view that it was excellent value for money. I was looking forward to an oyster or two.

Previous to going I had been surfing and searching for seafood platters in the Bournemouth area, and the results from places like, Shell Bay (Studland), Storm (Poole), Loch Fyne (Poole) and my conclusion was that the Upper Desk actually had the best content vs price ratio. How sad is that, sitting in bed with my Apple laptop doing that! However, I am always open to persuasion.

We had a complimentary small taster of a fish soup. Not as intense as I would have hoped but it was very welcome. The bread was nice as well.

For starters I had the carpaccio of beef, that came seared on the outside with rocket and parmesan, plus capers. The is as tender as always but I could taste the quality of the olive oil that was used. It was that that leapt out from the dish. Not sure if that was the wine talking actually but it was very enjoyable. Angela had the scallops that was only three in total but they were plump and delicious, all covered in a lovely garlic sauce.

I shared the fruit de mer with Vic Young. There really was no stopping us once we started. It's great to have a seafood platter, even better to share one with someone who loves the same. I was pretty surprised that it came with quite a few razor clams, so it did make up for the no-show of the oysters. Hmmm, oysters are pretty common anyway, you can get them in Tesco, but I have never seen razor clams there.

Do you think arranging a fruit de mer is cooking? Answers on a postcard!

Angela had the duck, which she enjoyed. Others had the chicken, which they felt was slightly dry. Couldn't comment more than that as I still had the crab body to scoop out. Not for the faint hearted!

Some of us treated ourselves to a ginger and lime creme brulee. Couldn't taste it at first but it soon came through. Subtle but nice. The chocolates with the coffees disappeared pretty quickly, wether you were drinking coffee or not.

I thought it was a good experience, which is why I found it odd that there was only one other table on a Friday night. Heck, maybe Saturday night is their busiest night.

I thought it was also a bit of a contrast from this classy restaurant to the freak show that was happening below. Just kidding!!!

This deserves more clients. Go there.

Website: Upper Desk Restaurant