FIRSTLY, ignore the star rating I have given this restaurant. Ambiente is better than three stars but for reasons which will become apparent I felt I could not, in all fairness, award it more.

The restaurant serves a variety of Spanish dishes plus, on its brunch menu, some others from around the world.

When we visited on Saturday night, we were shown to our table in the modern, light and comfortable restaurant in Malton’s Market Place.

The restaurant serves purely tapas – except for paella – with dishes ranging from £1.75 for locally baked olive and sun-dried tomato breads, up to £4.50 for black tiger prawns with a honey lemon dip. Most are between £3 and £3.50.

Our waitress asked us if we had eaten tapas before and advised us that ordering three dishes each should mean we would have enough to eat.

The menu covers a range of dishes and has plenty of vegetarian options beyond the ubiquitous patatas bravas.

We opted for the aubergine paté on crostini (£3.25), Spanish black pudding with cherry tomatoes and balsamic dressing (£3.50), pan-fried green peppers with sea salt (£2.95), salt cod balls with sherry vinegar reduction (£3.50), and a selection of fish, prawns and squid deep-fried with tartare sauce.

I was torn what to order for the sixth course – marinated lamb cutlets (£4.25) or Moorish chicken and potatoes with sweet pepper dip (£3.50) – but eventually absolved myself of the responsibility and asked a waiter for his recommendation. We ended up with caramelized chorizo and potato, which turned out to be an absolute winner.

But it was the black pudding and aubergine paté that came first. The black pudding was absolutely stunning and as nice as any I have eaten in Madrid. Light and not at all greasy, it was served as described on the menu, simply four thick slices of pudding stacked on each other with a few cherry tomatoes and sweet, sticky balsamic drizzled around the edge of the plate. I could have eaten it three times over.

The aubergine paté was not quite as successful. It wasn’t the taste – it had been flavoured with mint and was light and refreshing and a perfect summer dish. But while the crostini was warm, the paté was fridge-cold and quickly turned the bread soggy.

The pan-fried green peppers were lovely, though. Utterly simple, just a large plate of green pimento peppers (the small kind) served whole with sea salt, they were just the kind of thing you find in Spanish restaurants and a wonderful foil to the richness of the other dishes.

The selection of fish, prawns and squid deep-fried with tartare sauce received more mixed reviews. The calamari was perfectly cooked in a light crispy batter and could not be faulted, ditto the prawn.

The mixed fish was salmon and tuna. Now most people have probably never tasted battered salmon or battered tuna and I suggest they don’t bother. It’s not that it was nasty but it just didn’t work and tasted a bit odd.

The final fish dish – salt cod balls – also got the thumbs down. I was expecting them to be salty, and also sweet and garlicky, but they didn’t really hit the spot. I was also slightly over-faced by the size. They were not exactly big but just bigger than I expected – think a smallish tomato.

However, the chorizo and potato was an absolute wonder. Large chunks of chorizo, small potatoes, all served in a dish and loads of a sweet, sticky, dark sauce flavoured with fennel seeds. It was absolutely gorgeous and I could have drunk a pint of the sauce on its own.

So hopefully you can now see why I have awarded three stars, but say the restaurant is better than that. Half of our dishes were lovely, the others just okay. If a couple of our choices had been different, I would have been waxing lyrical about perfect Spanish food served a stone’s throw from York and the North York Moors.

Added to this, the wines were reasonably priced – for a restaurant – at around the £4.75 mark for a 250ml glass.

Desserts cost £4.50 each and were pretty good. The chocolate fondant was gorgeous, although my partner thought it too rich – as if that were possible. The caramelised peach wasn’t as good but that was the peach’s fault, not the chef’s.

Coconut and saffron panna cotta was light, creamy and smooth but tasted more of saffron than coconut, but I could live with that as I’m not a fan of coconut.

This is definitely a restaurant I will visit again, and with a final bill of £51.40, which included three glasses of wine and a couple of bottles of carbonated water, it was very reasonably priced.

Ambiente, 2-4 Market Place, Malton, YO17 7LX (01653 691992)

Richard visited on Saturday, August 16.