Even on a low-season Monday night, there isn’t a spare seat in the house. Unfailingly upbeat and attentive service may be one reason; the enduring warmth of the restored mill – framed by stone walls, timber beams and Tamar River views – another. That 200-strong wine list doesn’t hurt either, with the island’s finest holding sway. Then, of course, there’s chef-owner Craig Will’s work in the kitchen, which follows its own logic but always ends up in delicious places. That might be somewhere Japanese in a gutsy bowl of garlicky udon tossed with tender octopus, tamari, fried chilli and fluttering katsuobushi. Or closer to home in the case of seared wallaby, given native sensibility by way of lemon myrtle, bush pepper and smoked macadamia cream. A dynamite dessert offsetting poached rhubarb and rhubarb ice-cream with burnt honey, maple cream and lemon-verbena granita nails the summer-to-autumn transition and confirms Stillwater still sets standards, a quarter century on.
