Barley Bree Restaurant with Rooms

The 2012 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2012) edition.

If you are looking for sophisticated cooking in the depths of rural Perthshire, try Barley Bree in the main street of Muthill. This restaurant with rooms has a cosy lounge area with, in season, a roaring log fire, while the bare wooden floors, chunky tables and harvesting tools decorating the walls give the spacious dining-room a casual air. The food prepared by chef Fabrice Bouteloup, however, is precise. Purple-fleshed vitelotte potatoes surround rabbit in a terrine, served with finely chopped piccalilli arranged on thin slices of pickled cucumber. Pavé of celeriac and potato is topped with a soft poached duck egg and garnished with tiny asparagus spears. Meltingly braised pork belly is paired with breadcrumbed pig cheek fried to crispness and set off by star anis jus. Or, rosettes of half shallots in a flaky tatin accompany lightly pan fried pheasant breast. After this, Tête de moine, Dunsyre Blue and Bonnet are some of the cheeses served with oatcakes, while lemon posset topped with blueberries and intensely pear-flavoured ice-cream is a light and refreshing alternative.

• High point: The delicacy and imaginativeness of the food
• Low point: Getting home afterwards