48. No. 9 Church Street.

  I visit and stay in Stratford-upon-Avon very regularly usually, but not always, to visit the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see what outrage against the Bard's plays has been perpetrated on this occasion as the Royal Shakespeare Company comes more and more mired in increasingly extravagant political correctness and total silliness. Ofcourse other playwrights are used to promote the RSC's obsession with exaggerated equality - the grimmest recent example being a plainly puerile assault on Molière in which some not very talented actors performed in a dire production of Citizen Khan meets Tartuffe.

  Sometimes I like to pass a couple of days in Stratford, even though it's less than 20 miles from my home at the southern edge of Birmingham, and that gives me an evening to fume at what the RSC is up to and another to calm down and try the food at one of the several restaurants to be found in this most famous of Warwickshire towns. For several years now I've been a happy diner from time to time at No. 9 Church Street, in Stratford's old town area, just across from King Edward's School where Shakespeare had a short-lived education and a short walk from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare's body is buried along with several members of his family.

  This is the tenth anniversary year of Wayne Thomson's comfortable restaurant which has a good turnover of dishes so that it's possible to always try something new and appealing on every visit. Wayne Thompson was born in Cornwall but brought up in Warwick and trained at Stratford-upon-Avon College before working at some prestigious restaurants such as those at The Savoy and Claridge's under authorities such as Alain Ducasse and Anthony Demeter. On returning to the Midlands he took up his first head chef post at Nailcote Hall Hotel at Berkswell and later was head chef at the New Hall Hotel near Sutton Coldfield.

  On my most recent visit to No. 9 Church Street I found that apart from the changing menu everything else was comfortably familiar. The food at this restaurant which has a Michelin Plate and is listed in The Good Food Guide is the product of good, solid cooking without the fireworks which modern Michelin starred restaurants might be expected to deliver to achieve that award. The plating up was a little short of the glamorous which we have come to expect in some restaurants and the main course dish in particular looked less than perfect with the bisque unevenly spread (it might have benefitted from the bisque being served in a small jug to be added at the table on serving) and a rather too large a lump of angel hair noodles overwhelming the piece of sea bream visually.

  I started off with a neat and tasty, but not dramatically delicious, warm game pie served with some mild chicory and appealing pickled rhubarb. Again there was a slight dowdiness about its visual display but all in all it was an enjoyable enough dish.

  The strong-flavoured sea bream was toned down by its accompanying south-east Asian ingredients, the most effective being the bites of ginger which cut through the strong fishy taste. There were also prawns and spring onion and undetectable chilli but for me there were a few too many noodles which can be quite tiresome to eat.

  I rounded off with a gorgeously alcoholic rum baba served with mint, little cubes of pineapple and a pina colada ice cream which had a slightly too aggressive flavour.

  No. 9 Church Street remains a pleasing place to dine when in Stratford but I wonder if it would benefit from a little thought being given to giving it a not-very-dramatic 10 year reboot. Well, just an idea but when you've got the trendy Michelin-starred Salt moving in next door to you, you don't really want to look like a fusty old uncle posing by his chic young nephew.