Cinnamon Tree

Now into their fourth month, the Cinnamon Tree is a welcome addition to the numerous dining options available on Exmouth Market. And they have clearly invested a fair amount of time and dough in getting the decor looking as subtly slick as it does.

When it comes to attitude, they excel, which is obviously wise for any new business but so often overlooked. I was there pretty late on a Monday night and at first they all lugged a table outside for us and set it up, then slightly later carted it all back in again when it got a bit chilly eating al fresco. The only slight criticism of the service is that it was a tad slow (other than shifting furniture that is, which was bang on), but this needs to be tempered with my impatience at being stuck out at close to midnight with three Italian ladies on a Monday night. Never happy, eh?

With regards to the food, it was much more than satisfactory without coming close to exceptional. The mix of meat and vegetable samosas that we kicked off with were fried beautifully and freshly stuffed. I thought that my friend's lamb was sizzled perfectly, but she found it a little too dry. My chicken achari was fresh, spicy and perfectly fine, but still short of troubling my vocabulary of superlatives. They were also pretty flexible and adept at dealing with my wife's complete abhorrence to coriander; a hatred so deep that she starts shaking uncontrollably if she clocks it anywhere near her dish.

The overall experience - one that ensured that we’d definitely return - was one of those where three stars would feel like criminally underselling the place, but four still seems a little too generous. So, it's a classic case of three and a half marked as a four, and we've all seen that before.