It’s a bold decision choosing to make wild foods a core part of a restaurant’s offering, as you’re putting your trust in nature to provide you with ingredients throughout the year, and then there’s the small matter of working out how to use those ingredients. However, when done well, cookery using seasonal wild ingredients can be something truly special. Set in the seaside town of Lyme Regis surrounded by stunning produce, Robin Wylde's location definitely works in its favour but it’s owner Harriet Mansell’s thoughtful cookery that has ensured it’s now firmly on Dorset’s culinary map.

Sat unassumingly on Lyme Regis’ charming Silver Street, Robin Wylde is a restaurant that’s all about making the most of wild produce, and that carries through to the interiors as well. Arrangements of flowers and plants are spread out through the intimate dining room, while various framed flora hang from the walls. Elegantly crafted wooden tables are dotted around the bright space, while a bar decorated with an assortment of branches lies at the back of the restaurant.

Mansell’s carefully crafted tasting menu at Robin Wylde strictly follows the seasons and therefore changes regularly, depending what ingredients are growing nearby. A meal might begin with beetroots seasoned with blackcurrant and move onto a dish of tomato water with seabass, elderflower and oregano, while palate cleansers like kohlrabi sorbet provide the perfect refreshment between courses. A meal at Robin Wylde tends to finish with a typically seasonal dessert such as a chamomile panna cotta with rose ice cream and lavender sorbet.

The drinks menu also plays an important role at Robin Wylde, championing small producers wherever possible, while the restaurant also develops many drinks of its own using foraged ingredients. Both an alcoholic and non-alcoholic pairing are offered alongside the tasting menu, with the latter including everything from beetroot wine to kombuchas made in house.

It's all too easy for restaurants these days to say they serve seasonal food, but Harriet Mansell takes this to the extreme at Robin Wylde, using wild seasonal produce in every element of the restaurant's offering. This is why it continues to reign as one of the area’s most innovative restaurants.