Midday heat is for resting or swimming, and perhaps a light lunch - salade niçoise with hard-boiled quail eggs, or chilled strawberry soup, or a well-made B.L.T. (no commonplace thing).

Dessert was another six dishes in one, a warm strawberry soup with balloons of dark chocolate that popped in your mouth.

We had strawberry soup with vanilla wafers crumbled up in it.

The warm chocolate cake in strawberry soup with banana compote is $8.

The menu demonstrates an innovative flourish in the kitchen, with dishes like red-tuna tartare with seaweed and guacamole, and strawberry 'soup' with Szechuan pepper ice cream.

The Harmony's main dining room had all sorts of choices: chilled strawberry soup, crab claws, veal medallions, cherry crumble, depending on the day.

The cold strawberry soup with a tiny scoop of melting fromage blanc sorbet was a light finale, but the exceptionally small slab of Stilton was a disappointment.

Also on the menu were seadas and a strawberry soup.

Cold fruit soups, like the peach-raspberry amalgam enlivened with raspberry sorbet and the champagne-spiked strawberry soup garnished with lemon sorbet, are delightful.