Arbutus - London

Since I started writing this blog, every January, I've written a list of restaurants I want to eat at in the coming year. To be honest, it’s more of a wish list than a serious declaration of intent; at the end of each year I rarely cross off as many as I’d like. Last week, in a shocking break from form, I managed to squeeze in lunch at Arbutus, a listed restaurant, and in one bold stroke return some order to my chaotic universe.

Arbutus is somewhere I've wanted to eat at for quite some time, mainly because I'm a massive fan of Chef, Anthony Demetre’s recipe book, ‘Today’s Special’ which is absolutely cracking, full of beautiful yet refreshingly rustic food. Definitely buy it if you don’t already own it.

As you’d expect in a Michelin starred Soho restaurant on Thursday lunchtime, Arbutus was packed to the rafters with well-heeled looking media types when I arrived. 

Taking a seat in the plain, but pleasant feeling dining room, I’d more or less decided what I was going to eat before looking at the menu, feeling decidedly less flush than my fellow diners, I’d opted for ‘The working lunch’ set menu. Not that the a la carte is particularly expensive, it’s not, but what with Christmas approaching and an ever growing horde of nieces and nephews to buy presents for, I’m all about affordable treats right now.

My starter of hand chopped Scottish beef tartare was beautiful to look at and astoundingly good to eat. The steak had a fantastic texture, spiked throughout with the sharpness of the chopped capers, gherkins and the heat of mustard and Tabasco. Forked through with a rich raw egg yolk and spread on a slice of charred sourdough. Absolute heaven. One of the best things I’ve eaten all year. Some people are a bit squeamish about eating raw steak and egg . If that’s you and you’re in a very good restaurant (definitely not a dish to get stuck into in your local Harvester) and steak tartare is on the menu, I urge you to order it. If you can get past the fact it’s raw, you will not be disappointed. Seriously. Don’t deprive yourself of the pleasure!

I have a bit of a restaurant prejudice about chicken. I never order it. It always seems so safe, so boring and so easily overcooked and subsequently dry (God forbid its undercooked). Despite this; my hand forced somewhat by not fancying the alternative option on the set menu, I’d gone for the fowl. This arrived at the table in the shape of Black leg chicken, roast carrots, chestnut mushrooms and a side dish of potato dauphinoise. As is so often the case with prejudices, at some point you’re going to get them challenged and probably end up feeling like a complete chump. Yeah that’s me. The chicken was unbelievably good. The crispiest salted skin, rich moist flesh and the majority of the bones removed in a cheffy piece of butchery. Combine this with a creamy dauphinoise, crisp vegetables, a sweet carrot and cumin puree and deeply savoury gravy, it all adds up to me eating my words. Ordering chicken in a restaurant can certainly pay off.

I decided to sidestep the set lunch menu dessert option, a warm English treacle tart with crème fraiche on the a la carte catching my eye. Can I just point out, I frigging love treacle tart. I’ve eaten it everywhere. I’ve made my own for the supper club a number of times to some acclaim. Believe me, I know what’s what when it comes to this particular dessert. The treacle tart I ate at Arbutus was by far the best I’ve ever eaten, anywhere. Warm, just set, softly oozing sweetness on a beautifully crisp pastry base. As that first spoonful entered my willing gob and spread itself luxuriously across my tongue I was pinned to the seat, transfixed, radiating love for this dessert. It’s something of an understatement to say I thought it was pretty f*cking good.

The bill, two set courses and an a la carte dessert and a couple of glasses of red, including tip £38. Which believe me when I tell you, is an absolute frigging bargain. The food, all of it, was just faultless, that steak tartare and the phenomenal treacle tart both vying for the best things I’ve stuck in my mouth this year. Add to this service which was at once friendly, pleasant, cheerful and entirely lacking any pretension and you have a near perfect lunch experience.
I absolutely loved it.

Arbutus
63 — 64 Frith Street
London
W1D 3JW

Telephone: 020 7734 4545
http://www.arbutusrestaurant.co.uk

Beef Rib Trim Stew with Stout, Treacle and Star Anise

The damp, cold, dark evenings of autumn bring about an almost overnight change in my food cravings. I suddenly demand the comfort of mashed potato (I am an unrepentant mash fiend) and I want it accompanied by any kind of dark, sticky, rich meat stew I can lay my greedy little paws on.

I made this stew the other night for dinner. To be honest, I’d forgotten how incredibly easy it is to chuck something like this together. Yeah there’s a bit of chopping, a bit of prep, but I actually quite enjoy the methodical nature of getting your ingredients ready. I find it almost calming. I also reckon part of the enjoyment is definitely having the right tools for the job, a decent peeler and a nice sharp knife. If instead of a smooth slicing action, you’re frustratingly hacking away at something with a blunt as assholes blade, then where’s the frigging Zen in that? Once your chopping is done, the actual hands-on cooking part takes no time at all. It’s just a case of slinging it in the oven and forgetting about it for a couple of hours.

You may not be able to easily lay your hands on beef rib trim. The butchers, Donald Russell sent me some ages ago and it’s been lurking at the back of my freezer. If not don’t worry, substitute for beef shin or stewing steak. You can use any braising or casserole type cut of beef, cubed really. They all work the same, more or less. You may just have to cook it a bit longer, which in the case of a stew is no real effort at all.

The addition of star anise to beef is something I once saw Heston Blumenthal banging on about on TV.  It may seem ridiculously cheffy and frivolous, but it definitely works. It’s bloody lovely. Don’t be a chump and go leaving it out 

For full rib sticking effect, I suggest serving this with mash (my recipe is here and it’s banging, even if I do say so myself) and some kind of sautéed greens. Oh, and if you’re a real greedy bastard, some crusty bread slathered with butter to mop up with.  

Beef Rib Trim Stew

Serves 2 (Generously)

You’ll Need: -

500g beef rib trim (Or beef shin) cut into 3cm cubes

Maldon Sea Salt

Pepper

Olive Oil

Tomato purée

2 large carrots, peeled, halved lengthways, sliced into 6cm pieces

2 sticks celery, chopped

1 Large onion, chopped

Half a leek, chopped

2 Bay Leaves

1 Tbsp Treacle

Bottle of dark beer or stout (I used Wild Beer Co, Wildebeest)

500ml – 1 litre Beef Stock

1 Star Anise

Handful Chestnut Mushrooms, halved

Handful of Parsley, finely chopped

White Pepper to serve (optional - well, not frigging really, but...)

Preheat your oven to 160C

Get a large saucepan or casserole with a lid, put it on the hob over a fairly high heat and add a tablespoon or two of olive oil.

Season your cubed beef generously and get it nice and browned in the pan. You may have to do it in a couple of batches, if you crowd it, instead of getting a nice golden sear, the meat kind of steams and you don’t want that, no.

Remove the meat from the pan with a slotted spoon and put to one side. Add the carrots, onion, leek a grind of pepper and a good pinch of salt. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly until it’s starting to cook down and brown. You may need to add a little more oil.

Sling in the mushrooms and bay leaves. Cook for another couple of minutes. 

Add the tomato purée, stir it in so everything’s coated and cook for a couple more minutes. 

Add the beef back in, along with the star anise and the treacle, stir and then pour in your bottle of stout. 

Then add beef stock to cover. If you have it, use proper beef stock, if you don’t, make some up with an Oxo cube. Lets not be snobby about it. Use what you can lay your hands on; it’ll still taste great.

Bring to the boil; whack the lid on and place in the preheated oven for 1 ½ - 2 hours until the meat is tender and breaks apart when poked with a fork and the whole thing is looking pretty damn dark, sticky and gelatinous.

Heap into bowls, scatter with finely chopped parsley, mashed potato, sautéed greens and a good dusting of white pepper. 

Allium Brasserie - Bath

When I first moved to Bristol, its proximity to the rather beautiful city of Bath astounded me. I had no idea it was so close. I mean, I can almost throw a stone out of my living room window and hit it. OK, slight exaggeration but it’s just a 20-minute train journey away. As a result, I've spent a fair bit of my spare time wandering the splendid Georgian streets, gawping at the architecture and generally being a general nuisance to the residents as they walk into the back of me. Those tourists, entirely oblivious to their surroundings, fouling up the pavement flow and blocking doorways, the ones I used to glare hatefully at when I worked in London all those years? Yeah, in Bath I become one of them. That’s why I won’t be begrudging any gentle, educational pummellings that may come my way from the frustrated locals. I almost certainly deserve it.

Anyway, apart from beautiful buildings and dumbass tourists, Bath also has some rather cracking restaurants. There’s one in particular I like, right in the centre, Allium.

The head chef, Chris Staines, formerly held a Michelin star at Foliage in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in London (where Heston’s Dinner is now). He has fairly recently made a move to Bath, achieving some rather impressive reviews from national newspaper reviewers, including Jay Rayner of The Observer and John Walsh in the Independent. As such, it’s hard to believe the restaurant is located in a Best Western hotel, but it is and it’s cracking.

OK, to be fair the dining room is maybe lacking a certain something; hotel dining rooms nearly always seem to have a corporate feel about them, but the views of Bath and the surrounding hills are cracking and it’s pleasant enough despite being a bit ‘hotel’ but then, I guess that’s exactly what it is.

The food however, is what it’s all about, much as I would love to spout alles uber da platz on interior design.

Eating from the set lunch menu, the descriptions have been quite obviously underplayed, each dish that emerged, surpassing any expectation I had and actually surprising me with how the listed elements had been put together on a plate. Also, I have to mention the seriously beautiful plating and presentation.

So, refined gentleman that I am, to begin, I stuffed a whole load of excellent rye sourdough bread, baked on site and heavily smeared with butter while delicately quaffing some plonk.

Lunch partner, Elly had chosen lightly smoked mackerel rillettes, potato blinis, pickled cucumber, apple and watercress salad as a starter. She reckons it as being one of the nicest things she’s eaten in ages. The contrast in textures and flavours of the creamy mackerel rillettes, crisp potato blinis (which turned out to be crisp-like very thin slices of potato), sharp pickled cucumber and cold apple was absolutely gorgeous.

My pressed terrine of chicken ‘Coronation’, lightly curried mayonnaise, pickled carrots and mango was equally bloody delicious. I have a real soft spot for coronation chicken and this play on a classic was lovely.

It’s hard to believe that a dish like poached fillet of haddock, roast parsnip puree, lightly curried mussel and autumn vegetable ragu features on the set menu. It was so astoundingly good and the portion was whopping. Often you can see where the kitchen has trimmed costs, either in ingredients or size, but I’d have been happy with this off the a la carte. A beautifully cooked piece of fish, crowned with a pile of parsnip crisps with the rich vegetable ragu. Banging.

Meanwhile, Elly had also gone for fish, pan fried pollock, crushed new potatoes, red pepper coulis and black olive tapenade. As with my main, the fish was superbly cooked. Pollock itself isn't the strongest flavoured of fish so worked really well combined with the punchiness of the red pepper coulis and black olive tapenade.

As you are no doubt well aware, I’m an unapologetically greedy bastard and ordered dessert without question. Elly who had an afternoon tea and cake appointment elsewhere, declined, foolishly as it turns out.  

Lightly poached plums with vanilla creamed rice, sugared almonds, mint syrup and plum sorbet was frigging sublime. The rice, served cold, had a hefty vanilla kick and worked incredibly well with the fruit, plum sorbet and the mint. The sugared almonds throwing a bit of crunch into the mix. Honestly, I thought this was a phenomenal dessert.

So, how much for three courses of faultless cooking, which is so beautiful to look at it almost feels like a crime to eat it? 
£21
Yeah, that’s right, the set menu is an absolute steal. 

The a la carte, however is obviously much pricier, and I'm now seriously intrigued, so I may give that a go next time. 

I had a stonking lunch at Allium, in fact it was one of the nicest lunches I've had in ages, this despite due to a wedding reception being held in the restaurant, it meant having one of the worst tables in the place. It just didn't put a dent in it at all, the food and the service were top drawer and I couldn't have been happier.

If you’re in Bath, eat here.

Allium
Best Western Abbey Hotel
North Parade
BA1 1LF
Telephone: 01225 805245
http://www.abbeyhotelbath.co.uk/allium-brasserie

Smoked Duck Breast Salad

On the rare occasion I've made no dinner plans of any sort, there’s a pretty good chance I can take a cheeky throw of the culinary dice and gamble I can knock something half decent together from what’s lurking in the fridge. 
It’s full of all sorts of disparate ingredients including a whole shelf full of various, often esoteric, half used condiments and odd bits of veg and herbs in various states of usefulness.

Often the resulting dish may be functional at best, but every now and again I surprise myself and manage to throw something together that’s a bit more impressive. This smoked duck breast salad I cooked the other night was one such occasion.

If you don’t have one, I urge you to get your hands on a good, heavy grill pan. I've got a Le Creuset one and I frigging love it. Yep, it was expensive but I've had it for years and consider it an investment. Almost everything tastes better chargrilled with smoky, black lines etched across it, I use it all the time. True, its use is guaranteed to set the smoke alarm off, but what the hell. In the case of this recipe, I used it to char little gem lettuce and spring onions.

I used smoked duck breast from Trealy Farm and I've got to say it’s an absolutely superb product, but if you can’t lay your hands on any, you can get something similar in most large supermarkets. 

Remember when I mentioned esoteric condiments? I present to you hawthorn jelly. If you haven’t got any, it makes no difference, use redcurrant, cranberry, blackcurrant or even blackberry jam, whatever comes to hand really. Any of these would go with duck.  

Smoked Duck Breast Salad
Serves 2

1 x smoked duck breast, sliced 
2 x little gem, halved lengthways
6 x spring onions, washed and top ends trimmed, leave the root end on.
Handful of new potatoes
Tbs Capers
2 tsp Hawthorn jelly
Olive Oil
Maldon Sea Salt & ground black pepper
2 Eggs, soft boiled and shelled.

There’s not a hell of a lot of cooking involved here to be honest, the duck breast comes already cooked, so just needs slicing. It’s more a case of assemblage.

Add the new potatoes to a pan of cold, salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 12 minutes or until cooked. Drain and put to one side.

Get your grill pan nice and hot then brush the halved little gem and the spring onions with some olive oil and char for around 3 minutes a side till you’ve got some impressive looking lines scorched on.

Put your hawthorn jelly or whatever condiment you’ve found lurking at the back of the fridge, into a small frying pan with the capers and a good splash of the caper juice. Heat it over a moderate heat, stirring for a few minutes until it’s melted down into liquid.

Soft boil two eggs, shell and halve.

Assemble however you think appropriate. I reckon the potatoes at the bottom, with slices of duck breast artfully draped over, with the charred little gem and spring onions protruding here and there, plonk the halved soft boiled egg in the middle and drizzle the hawthorn-caper dressing alles uber da platz. Don’t forget to season with the Essex salt and black pepper.
And that’s that. Easy.

Upstairs at The Ten Bells - London

I’ve wanted to eat at Upstairs at The Ten Bells for bloody ages but to be honest; I’d begun to think I’d missed the boat on it. ‘Young Turk’, Issac Mchale has since gone on to open much lauded sister restaurant, The Clove Club just down the road in Shoreditch and much of the current food mob focus appears to be fixed firmly there. But recently, whilst perusing a friend’s rather excellent blog, he had written a post about how he’d just revisited The Ten Bells for lunch and how stonking it still was. I didn't need any further encouragement.

In a former life, before my move to Bristol, I worked in London for the best part of twenty years and I’ve always been fascinated by the history of the city. The Ten Bells pub itself is a bit of a fave due to the Jack the Ripper connection (At least two of his unfortunate victims are supposed to have been regulars at the pub, the immediate area at that time being notorious for prostitution). The downstairs bar area is relatively untouched from this period with original Victorian tiling and a mural decorating the walls (Yes. I can be that boring). Nowadays, despite being a popular pub with both the after work suited crowd and the hipsters; it’s still surprisingly atmospheric. 

I’ve drunk in there a fair bit over the years, and often wondered what’s up the gloomy, looking wooden stairs at the back corner of the bar. Now I know.

Taking the last step with my regular panache and turning smartly on my heel, through the doorway into the restaurant I was immediately struck by just how beautiful the dining room is. The space, flooded with afternoon sunlight playing over the worn, gnarled and knackered floorboards, stripped back walls and woodwork, has real character. Here and there, just to bring everything bang up to date, all this cool shabbyness is punctuated with glaringly modern neon, a piece on the opposite wall to me spelling out ‘Keep me safe’. Definitely a sentiment I can appreciate.

I was meeting a mate and finding her already seated, we started as we meant to go on and cracked straight into a couple of G&Ts, to get the old digestion process kick-started. Purely medicinal, you understand. Sipping commenced; I considered the menu, which at lunchtime is of the short, set variety.

The ‘Snacks’ section stands apart from the set menu with regards to moolah and contains some very interesting items, the buttermilk chicken & pine salt being a bit of a signature dish. We’re both unashamedly greedy bastards, so we immediately agreed to order one of everything.

Razor clam and grapefruit sauce vierge, chopped, mixed and arranged in the shell was a perfect way to get started. Delicious, fresh and sharp. As these were only three quid, we had one each.

Digging into the shared bowl of grilled leeks, Westcombe fonduta & flax seeds, I mused silently to myself on the pretentiousness of the term fonduta. I’ve never heard of this apparently slick, Flash-Harry relative of plain old fondue, but here it was, dripping sexily off the end of my charred baby leek and I was eating it all and not only that, I was mopping up the remnants with bits of bread. Ridiculous. By the way, I ate the rooty sprouty bits of the leeks as well, not entirely sure if you should or not, but I’ll stick anything in my gob given half a chance.

Finally, the famous buttermilk chicken and pine salt. A dish I’ve ooohed and aaaahed over a hundred times on Instagram. Yeah. It is as good as I hoped. Beautifully moist and subtly pine tinged. Well worth £6.50 of anyone’s cash.  I’m an older, wiser diner nowadays, so I resisted the urge to try and tuck into the bed of pine branches the chicken was artfully arranged on. You may laugh, but about five years ago, I spent some time in a restaurant gamely chewing tough seed like items from a glass bowl of before realising it was the inedible base decoration underneath the actual dish. I’m ashamed to say I’d eaten a handful of them. So, if I’m in your restaurant, never give me a plate with decorative props on it, there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll eat ‘em.

A starter of wild mushroom veloute, Jerusalem artichoke and quail’s egg was a bit less impressive. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice and a decent enough transition to the main event but it lacked the ‘sit up and take notice’ quality that the snacks had. The quails egg was perhaps just a bit overcooked so rather than starbursting it’s yolk into the surrounding soup as I viciously hacked into it, it just kind of sunk without trace, taking it’s egg yolk cargo to the bottom in two halves. 

Cornish Hake, Broccoli, Bagna Cauda and Barley Porridge however, was superb. Take a look at that photo. What a beautiful plate of food. The fish was spot on, and the subtle flavours on the plate all pulled together. Lovely.

My lunch partner meanwhile was demolishing roast venison haunch, parsley root puree and red kale and wasted no time in telling me how incredible it was and subsequently how much better it was than my choice. I tried a bit, and she may just have had a point. Yeah, thanks for that, Audrey

A plate of figs, honey & thyme ice cream, crème fraiche and pastry flakes was also delicious. The only minor niggle being that the ice cream was already melting as the plates hit the table, but still, I was well happy anyway and scraped the plate.

I liked Upstairs at The Ten Bells a hell of a lot. I’m really glad I finally made it.  It’s a beautiful room and the cooking itself is spot on but also really interesting, and I mean that in the nicest way. If you eat out often, you see the same dishes again and again, but they are really pushing it in this kitchen and doing something different (Hello fonduta! Just kidding). 

I should add the service was particularly excellent, the waiters being really knowledgeable, both about the menu and its preparation and also the wine list.
The set lunch menu is a steal at £21 for three courses, but my bill, which included half of all the snacks, a gin & tonic, two glasses of wine and a tip came to a rather weightier £50.
Worth every penny.

Upstairs at The Ten Bells
84 Commercial Street
London
E1 6LY

Telephone: 020 7366 1721

www.tenbells.com

Bone Daddies - London

It’s hard to cast your mind back and remember exactly where you first heard of something, now seemingly quite familiar, but my very first encounter with ramen, many years ago, was in Thurrock Costco and it was the cheapest, bargain basement variety you could find, a plastic foil lidded pot containing noodles and some dust dry powder, just add boiling water. I thought it was the American knock off version of a pot noodle, which in fact, I suppose it was and that’s how things remained, fixed in my brain for quite a long time.

And then, a couple of years ago the Momofuku restaurant cookbook helped ramen once again shoulder its way into my consciousness. This was the real deal as served in the trendy New York restaurant and inspired by American Chef, David Chang’s time in Japan (ramen is a Japanese noodle dish, served in a broth, usually meat based). I was fascinated, it looked absolutely frigging delicious.

As is often the way, it wasn’t long before a few ramen joints started popping up in London with the intriguingly named Bone Daddies a clear favourite with just about everyone I know in London. 

So, I know I’m a bit late to the party, Bone Daddies having been reviewed and loved to death already, alles uber da platz, but I don’t give a f*ck, I live in Bristol now, I don’t get back to London as often as I’d like. I ate there last week, I thought it was awesome, I’m going to write about it. Yeah.

Rocking up to the restaurant in Soho at about 9pm, I was initially disheartened to see through the windows that it was banged out inside and that there was a queue outside. Operating a no booking policy can be an utter ballache for the terminally organised and a gift from God for lazy bastards. Luckily a supermarket just down the road provided cheap alcoholic refreshment, which made the short wait for a space unsurprisingly bearable. In the end, it was no more than 15 minutes.

Finally inside, Bone Daddies was dimly lit, loud and extremely busy. Squeezing unsteadily up onto a stall (we’d been for a few drinks previously, obvs.) my mate Liz and I agreed to share a couple of snack size plates before cracking into a bowl of ramen each.

Chasu pork and corn croquettes were as you’d expect crispy exterior, squishy meaty interior, what’s not to like?. Chasu pork in case you were wondering (I was) is pork belly that has been marinated in soy and spices, and then braised. 

Soft shell crab with green chilli ginger sauce was something else entirely. This blew me away, seriously amazing. Deep fried with the most intense, fresh tasting chilli and ginger sauce. I bloody loved it.

At this point, with time to kill whilst waiting for the rest of dinner, our attention turned to the table setting, some of it surprisingly mysterious. A pot of chilli sauce (very poky), soy, something in a grinder (turns out it was sesame seeds), bibs (we availed ourselves of these, despite looking decidedly unhip) and a mysterious jar of rubber bands (turns out these are hair bands so the luxuriously coiffured don’t get their lustrous locks dunked in their food). Fair play.

Our game of ‘guess what the hell’s that for’ was at this point interrupted by two steaming bowls of ramen. 

Liz had ordered the Tonkotsu variety, containing spring onion, slices of the aforementioned choshu pork, a halved soft-boiled egg and various other bits and bobs, all merrily suspended in a 20 hour, pork bone broth. I’m no ramen expert but bloody hell, I tried a bit and it was ridiculously fine.

Meanwhile, I was slurping away at a bowl of Tantanmen, which Wiki tells me isn’t actually ramen as such but a related, Chinese influenced noodle dish (based on Sichuan dan dan noodles) – how appropriate – and often served in Japanese ramen establishments. Consisting of a chicken bone broth containing sesame, chilli, pork mince, a soft-boiled egg and bok choy. Yeah it was amazing. Stupidly-drunkenly I added too much extra chilli from the little pot on the table. Spicy enough as it was, it blew my frigging head off, but it was so delicious, so intensely rich that despite the fact my nose was streaming from the heat, I couldn’t leave it alone for even a second and ate the whole lot.

Taking a second to look down and appraise my ramen spattered bib, I saluted my own good sense in favouring practicality over fashion sense. 

We were both too full to eat anything else so slunk away into the neon night glare of Soho, stuffed and well pleased with dinner.

I have no previous ramen experience to compare Bone Daddies against, I can’t tell you how authentic or inauthentic it is, all I can go on is how good it tasted and in that regard, it was bloody fantastic. Seriously good. Honestly, I want to go back and order everything on the menu, just to experience what’s on offer. It’s wasn’t even that expensive, if I remember right (things were a little hazy by the end) my half of the bill was £25

Thanks for everyone who recommended Bone Daddies to me. They were right and now I'm recommending it to you.

Bone Daddies
31 Peter Street
London
W1F 0AR

Telephone: 020 7287 8581
http://bonedaddiesramen.com

Le Champignon Sauvage - Cheltenham

I've got a wish list of restaurants relentlessly processing through my brain, an organ that, lets face it, can ill afford any of its limited resources to be used up in such a frivolous fashion. Nevertheless it’s there *slaps forehead to emphasise* and it’s constantly changing and evolving as my tastes change, restaurants close and new restaurants open. But for the past couple of years, two Michelin starred, Le Champignon Sauvage in nearby (ish) Cheltenham has featured prominently in my noggin and finally, last week, I ate there. 

The Chef and owner, David Everitt-Matthias is often described as a ‘Chef’s Chef’ which basically means he’s a serious grafter, always to be found cooking in the restaurant’s kitchen, in fact, famously he’s never missed a service in twenty five years, if he’s not there Le Champignon Sauvage is not open. An amazing record in an industry, which is notorious for long hours, hard work and uncompromising attention to detail, especially at the two Michelin Star level. 

Last week, I had a rare day off work and although I haven’t quite been knocking my cods off non-stop for twenty-five years, I've been working pretty hard lately and reckoned I deserved a bit of a treat, so a solo lunch at Le Champignon Sauvage it was.

After arriving and being ushered to a sofa in the bar area I sipped a cheeky pre-meal gin and tonic whilst studying the menu, I decided to go for the three course set lunch.

An amuse of a blue cheese and walnut cookie with rye crisp bread, smoked horseradish cream and pickled pear was placed in front of me and I was faced with something of a dilemma, as well as a beautiful looking piece of grub.

If I'm eating in a restaurant and planning to write about it, I do my utmost not to draw attention to myself. I take photographs as surreptitiously as I can and generally keep it low key. I want it to be as fair a write up as possible. But here I was in a hushed bar area with the manager and two staff standing just nearby with a dish I wanted to take a photo of just sitting there. In addition, Le Champignon Sauvage very specifically states on their menu ‘no mobile phones in the dining room’, which is fair enough. How would they feel about me whipping out my massive (yeah) Nikon?

Honestly. I sat there and agonised about this for a good five minutes, my food untouched in front of me before deciding to deal with the situation head on, I asked if they minded if I took a photo. ‘Not at all’. Phew.

The blue cheese and walnut cookie was delicious by the way, the incredibly short savoury pastry, filled with a fresh blue cheese cream. The accompanying rye crisp bread with smoked horseradish cream and pickled pear was equally delicious and looked almost too beautiful to eat, right up to the point I shoved the lot in my gob.

Shown to my table, I was offered a selection of bread rolls but they had me hooked instantly with the bacon and shallot brioche, which was frankly incredible. Seriously, some of the best bread I’ve ever eaten, (easily as good as the Ledbury’s) beautifully textured and sweet with both the saltiness of the bacon and a subtle shallot flavour throughout. Later I tried some of the other rolls proffered, just in the interest of being a greedy bastard and it’s fair to say they were all bloody nice. 

A second amuse followed, Jerusalem artichoke panacotta with field mushroom puree and smoked bacon foam, and I made pretty short work of it. It was surprisingly refreshing with the smooth, savoury, earthy flavours of the panacotta and the salty smokiness of the bacon foam. Lovely.

My first course proper, duck confit, crispy egg yolk, fig purée and pak choi, was beautifully plated. I sat there for some moments, just admiring the composition before wading in. The combination of rich duck confit with the sweetness of the fig and the fresh green crunch of the pak choi was superb. The crispy egg yolk was interesting in a cheffy, technical kind of way and rather pleasant to dip bits of confit into.

Lamb fillet with poached apricot, aubergine, garlic yoghurt and Moroccan spiced sauce…where have you been all my life? I just can’t believe this dish is on the set lunch menu, it was phenomenal. Seriously one of the best plates of food I’ve eaten anywhere. I don’t even know where to begin; the lamb was so tender and there was so much of it! The sweet dots of poached apricot and the subtly spiced sauce, just amazing. I ate every last bit, meticulously scraping my plate back into a pristine state.

I was starting to feel a little stuffed at this point, but I was enjoying this lunch a hell of a lot.

A pre-dessert of rice pudding, greengage compote and milk foam was probably the most conventional tasting thing I ate. Don’t get me wrong; it was delicious but just not quite as impressive as any of the previous courses.

However, chocolate delice with milk ice cream, buerre noisette and butterscotch was off the frigging chart. I don’t think I need to describe it to you, the photo says it all. It was just lovely.

If you go, definitely order coffee and petits fours. It’ll be the best £3.50 you've ever spent. What arrived was a slab of treats, to say it was generous doesn't quite do it justice.  I couldn't believe it. Ridiculous and all of them threw me slightly. Some looked quite conventional, but each had a hint of some unusual flavour twist. Yes. Of course I ate all of them and pretty much waddled out of the restaurant as a result. 

So, do not wait two years like I did. Go and eat at Le Champignon Sauvage as soon as you can. I promise you will not regret it. My bill, including a gin and tonic, two glasses of wine, three courses (with additional bits and bobs), a £5 supplement for switching to an a la carte dessert, petits four and coffee but not including a tip came to £56 That’s right, FIFTY SIX QUID!! That’s for one of the best lunches I've ever had, at a two Michelin starred restaurant with a chef in the kitchen who’s right at the top of his game. I don’t want to lower the tone, but of course, being me, I shall. WTF?

Seriously. Go and enjoy.

Le Champignon Sauvage
24-28 Suffolk Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL50 2AQ

Telephone: 01242 573449

http://www.lechampignonsauvage.co.uk