IT'S always nice to see town centre pubs being given a spruce up, as it seems to be a sign that the town itself is on the up.

The latest in Ulverston to get a bit of a makeover is The Mill, which has also taken on a new executive chef, to bring high-end food to the establishment. High time for a visit, then.

I called in last week with my husband and my best friend for a late lunch in order to see what changes had been wrought. The owners have clearly gone for the "less is more" approach here, with the makeover being - to my eyes at least - fairly minimal.

There's new brown leather furniture in the main bar to replace the old brown leather furniture; and fresh cream paintwork to replace the old cream paintwork in the rear dining area of the ground floor. We didn't venture up the spiral staircase to check out the changes upstairs, so for all I know things may be very different in the restaurant.

New furniture downstairs in the eating area and a cosy wood burner make the place seem welcoming.

An Ulverston timeline is painted on one of the walls (including the great earthquake of 2009), and not-particularly-memorable quotes from the town's most famous sons, Stan Laurel and Sir John Barrow, feature on other walls. I liked the timeline but to me the whole painting words on walls thing is a bit passé.

The menus comprise sheets of paper on clipboards, which now seems to be the almost obligatory way for pubs to present them.

With two different soups of the day, there were six starters to choose from in total. Gordon went for one of the soup options, carrot, orange and chilli (£4.75); I chose a twice baked cheese soufflé with truffle oil at £4.95; while Sarah went for "mules mariners" at a fairly hefty £7.45.

"Wonder if it will be anything like moules marinieres," I mused, sarcastically.

Fair enough, this was a typical menu spelling mistake almost certainly down to auto-correct on the pub's computer. But as it had been pointed out to the staff on a previous visit by Sarah herself, one would have thought that someone would have taken the trouble to correct it, not least the person in charge of the menu.

Silly and avoidable mistakes like that hardly give the top end dining feel to an establishment.

The food when it came was very good indeed. The mussels (or mules, as The Mill prefers to call them) were plump, juicy and excellent quality, in a superb cream sauce.

Gordon's soup was an interesting take on carrot, with subtle and deft spicing. My soufflé was fantastic for the price - a real restaurant quality starter, with very tangy cheeses, including a strong blue, and a rich leek sauce.

Mains were varied (there is also a sandwich and salad menu at lunchtime).

Sarah chose a Moroccan-style lamb tagine with cous-cous, mint yoghurt and onion bhajis for £13.95; Gordon the mushroom risotto with Jerusalem artichokes and truffle oil (£9.95), while I decided to put a pub classic to the test: an 8oz burger with chips, Asian slaw, tomato chutney, chips and salad for £10.95.

The tagine was the star of the show here, with excellent quality lamb, lovely accompaniments and all prettily served in an authentic-looking Moroccan pot. Gordon enjoyed his risotto, which was a large and very-well presented dish, with just the right degree of al dente risotto rice. It tasted as good as it looked.

My burger was also good but nothing really out of the ordinary. The burger itself was too dense for my taste, the meat very packed together. I liked the Asian slaw, which was a good twist, and the chips were very good. Standard good quality pub burger.

We then had a very long wait for service - possibly because of a mid-afternoon change of staff. So long in fact that, in the end, Sarah headed back to the bar to ask someone to come and clear the table.

She also ordered a pudding while she was there. Bread and butter, which delighted Gordon - the bread and butter pudding aficionado - but not me, as I don't like it.

Sarah and Gordon shared it and declared it very good.

With drinks, the bill came to just over £70, which for the standard of the food was reasonable. Service had been friendly but somewhat haphazard - and we weren't impressed at having to ask for the table to be cleared.

Overall, The Mill looks smart and the food is of a very high quality. Superb ingredients, great presentation and interesting tastes. Slight blips with the service and a daft mistake on the menu are easily sorted; everything else is very impressive.

By LOUISE ALLONBY

Food 4.5

Service 3

Atmosphere 4

Value 4

Pros

High quality food

Cosy wood burner

Serves lunches till 3pm

Cons

Nearest car park is pay and display

Downstairs could do with a splash of colour