SOMETHING interesting is going on at 50 Cricklade Street. Something, perhaps, that Cirencester hasn’t seen before.

Gaye Green and Lee Buchanan, tired of their corporate lives, have thrown in the towel and done what many couples have dreamt of doing: opening their own restaurant.

They have opened “The Coterie”, a wandering ground-floor restaurant that only seats 26 at a time and is painted in white and blue to give an airy, almost maritime feel.

Starters include peppers stuffed with feta, ham croquettes (which I will personally vouch for), duck rillette and onion tarts. I got the sharing platter, a symposium of the best, and was extremely satisfied.

The menu, in the same white and blue as the restaurant, continues the simple trend, narrowing the eater’s choices to just eight main dishes; four meat, one fish, three vegetarian.

Part of this is keeping thing straightforward. There is one chicken dish, one lamb, one pork and one beef, and they change with the seasons. And partly it is practical, everything, but everything, (even the marshmallows believe it or not) is cooked from raw ingredients making it impossible to store food for a large menu.

But I wasn’t disappointed; it was refreshing to have the slack cut away. It was obvious that the meals on the menu were all there because they deserved to be there, not just to fill space.

The pork belly I ordered fell away in strips, like wood being pulled from the grain, and the gravy mingled amiably with the creamed spinach - an excellent combination. 

The vegetarian side of the menu was populated with ambitious dishes that looked a cut above the butternut squash risotto that is usually the only choice.

When I commented on this Lee, who does the cooking, said: “These days it’s the vegetarians who choose where people eat, you can’t run a restaurant now that doesn’t give them really good options.”

My girlfriend ordered “rack on black”, a vegetarian take on the meaty classic, mostly to find out what it was.

Next to vichy carrots was a ball, enclosed by spirals of potato that covered a medley of vegetables from beetroot to lentils - for once I didn’t get a look-in at her meal, not even an offer.

Main meals cost from £14 - £17, and are well worth the money.

There are three options on the desert menu - called simply “chocolate”, “banana” and “toffee” - but it was still a tough time deciding.

In the end, the sticky toffee pudding beckoned, and I was happy to put away the homemade treat. The sponge was light and the sauce like molten gold.

The wine menu is concise; a whistle-stop tour of the world’s wine growing regions, and although fine for me, may leave the connoisseur searching the back page for the rest of the list.

The couple confessed to me that they weren’t interested in making money, they won’t turn tables and they won’t rush people out of the door; they were just bored of being disappointed after eating out and wanted to create an experience that’s a little bit different.

Unusually, the Coterie is only open Thursday - Saturday, 6pm - 11pm, as they do not want to work all hours, although it has now started serving brunch on Saturday from 10am - 2pm, which I will be quick to sample.

Gaye, a customer service guru who runs the front of house, tells me that almost everything they have in their restaurant, from the business cards to the vegetables, comes from local shops. 

Even their website, www.thecoterie.co.uk, was made by a local firm.

The old English word Coterie means “a small group of people with shared interests or tastes”, and it seems to sum the place up well - a restaurant without the fuss, where you can simply come and enjoy excellent food.