“Midsomer Norton, though? Isn’t that a bit of a long-haul, off the beaten track?”
Imagine a Londoner living in Hammersmith saying that about Finsbury Park, or a Brooklyn-dweller talking about a flit into central New York: it just wouldn’t happen. Okay, so the only direct comparison between the journey from Bath to Midsomer Norton is distance (approximately 10 miles/16k-ish) and the destination about as far removed, on multiple levels, from either Finsbury Park or central NY… but the journey itself is far, far easier, and much, much prettier. And anyway, what’s the problem with embarking on a 25-minute putter along Somerset’s abundantly leafy highways and byways south-east of Bath, especially when there’s a pot of foodie gold waiting for you at journey’s end?
Now it has to be said that, at first glance, Holly Court Arcade – a 1980s-era (I’m guessing) split-level ‘retail arcade’ and access thoroughfare twixt car park and high street, home to a tanning salon, a hearing clinic, and a promising pizza outlet, out back – doesn’t look or feel like it might be hoarding any kind of precious metal. Venture upstairs, though, and you’ll find Soyful’s Kitchen to the front of the building, where big windows overlook a pedestrian promenade lined with the kind of shops and businesses you’d expect to overlook in a pedestrian small town. The dining room is a smart, bright, spacious affair, uncluttered and gleaming, and elegant in a modern, minimalist way. Menus too could be described in a similar fashion… but before we begin to make our choices:
If you’re one of the many folk who believe that life in Bath begins and ends within the BA1/BA2 postcodes, you’ll be familiar with Soyful’s Kitchen Head Chef/proprietor Soyful Alom from his longstanding stint as Head/Executive Chef at The Mint Room Bath (read my most recent review here). Yes, thatMint Room – one of the most raved-about restaurants in Bath! And, in a similar fashion to how The Mint Room team transformed their Bath restaurant into the oasis of contemporary luxury that it is today, Soyful has magpied his way into a similarly ‘unlikely’ location and turned it into a very special nest, bringing (of course!) his fabulous flair for modern Indian dining with him.
Should you wish to take a traditional approach to your SK experience, all the classics (dansaks, kormas, baltis, jalfrezis, tandoori, etc) are all present and correct on the neat little menu – and come on, you know they won’t disappoint. But don’t disappoint yourself! There’s Mangalorean Sea Bass on the menu too, alongside Lucknow E Batak and lamb rump Chattinad, and starters of Sarsoi Salmon and Beetroot Tikki to consider before even any of that.
We began with grilled scallops, gently spiced to complement rather than overshadow the intrinsic mellow sweetness of the scallops, accompanied by a soft, friendly cauliflower puree. A second starter of Fish Amritsar (pictured) starring lesser-spotted Pangas fish fillets marinated in a spicy/herby combo and battered to crispy perfection was equally well-balanced, the neat little pile of cucumber salad accompanying it proving itself to be far more than a mere aesthetic sidekick too.
Following on, the Chicken Shimla Mirch – a sturdy, comforting dish bringing a massive moist, spiced chicken breast and a deceptively simple pile of fragrant, spicy red and green pepper curry laden with onions, tomatoes and all the good curry stuff together in perfect harmony – proved to be far more fascinating and complex than the menu description suggested, while my rich, luxurious Seafood Moilee, swimming with all manner of seafood including mussels, prawns and soft white fish fillets bathed in a divine, aromatic, mildly chilli- and ginger-infused coconut sauce, proved to be the taste of Goa personified.
Soyful’s Kitchen is one of those ‘expect the unexpected’ destination diners – if, that is, you don’t expect a chef with Soyful’s pedigree to live up to expectations, and anywhere less than half an hour’s drive from the city that you live in to be a ‘destination’ – all in all, a delightfully uplifting experience, well worth a little drive out of Bath and VERY interesting indeed.
Friday The number 7 features highly on the Bournemouth fun facts list; the historic resort town in the borough of Dorset boasts 7 miles of sandy beaches, attracts 7m visitors a year and gets an average of 7.7 hours of sunshine during the summer months…
…or not, as the case may have been when we visited mid-July (the 7th month, no less!), and it rained pretty much non-stop for the whole weekend. But hey! I don’t care what the weather man says when the weather man says it’s raining – and nothing stops The Prandial Playground on its first jaunt living up to its ‘Bath… and beyond’ remit.
We went to Bournemouth in search of, of course, good food amidst the general good times brouhaha that we expected from one of the UK’s most popular, still-thriving seaside towns – and plenty of people, it seems, go in search of good times here.
Having checked in at the original hotel we’d booked for our 2-night stay we had to check out again almost immediately, battling back through the hordes of stags and hens – the stags piling up empty pint glasses (“Happy Hour all day: 3 pints for a Tenner!”) on the huge ashtrays at the hotel’s entrance; the hens already dropping half-empty bottles of rosé-with-straws on the swirly, 1973 carpet at reception – to hand our room key back. Now I’m most certainly not in the business of putting any business out of business so I’m not going to name names, but suffice to say a full refund was swiftly issued from the hotel in question and we checked in to the gorgeous Grove Hotel around the corner on Grove Road instead – and a very lovely (and highly recommended) experience it was too!
All calm (again) on the UK south coast front, our first night dinner destination was the stylishly vibrant, pan-African restaurant Zim Braai on Poole Hill – Poole Hill’s Triangle area itself being, as we discovered, a stylishly vibrant little Bournemouth enclave in its own right, far removed (in vibe, if not distance) from the overwrought thrum of the seafront.
We stopped off for a first round of pre-dinner cocktails at chic but cosy little cocktail bar 99 Perk (think, vintage sophistication, properly grown-up cocktails and a fab disco soundtrack) just down t’road from the restaurant, and dropped in on seafood and wine specialists SOBO:FISH too: clean-line chic but properly cheerful, with an open kitchen at the heart of the matter and a menu made for deep-dive small plate seafood feasting – we will be back for more (and, as it happens, we went back for more of those cocktails at 99 Perk after dinner too).
But a distinctly further-flung beat was calling us from Zim Braai, one of two branches in Bournemouth which, in the words of multi-tasking Managing Director Andy Lennox, “incorporates the healthy eating ideals of a balanced diet with the rich flavours of African cuisine all wrapped up in an exotic, exuberant atmosphere with an award-winning service style”.
An operator who clearly puts a lot of genuine love into his operations isn’t going to lead us up any kind of garden path with such a description – and Zim Braai is a uniquely lovely experience indeed. Going from Afrikaans to English, Braai quite simply translates as ‘barbecue’ – and from the get-go, an earthy-sweet smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, tempting and teasing from the kitchen. On the menu, ostrich and buffalo steaks, Mauritian, Durban and Zimbabwean dishes and even a Monkey Gland sauce sit happily alongside chicken wings and burgers guaranteeing that there’s something for everyone here, all served up in an upbeat but intimate environment tastefully decorated with all manner of authentic theme-specific eclectica.
To start, we shared two not-so-small-at-all plates: huge, glistening slabs of halloumi and tomato drenched in (I’m guessing? Sorry, didn’t take notes!) the restaurant’s Zim Churri sauce, and huge, fat, very fresh prawns equally tantalisingly-attired in a depth-charge combination of garlic, and spice, and herbs; astounding dishes, both of them. Also astounding, on multiple levels: the heft of the Mixed Grill Sharer main, which brings all the menu’s meaty classics including ostrich steak, chicken skewers, slow-cooked ribs, chicken wings, boerewors (traditional South African sausage) and chopped steak together in one massive, meaty party, accompanied by as many pots of fries/salad you can eat throughout the whole almighty, perfectly cooked, exceedingly tasty carnivorous carnival.
Zim Braai is fun to the max, but it takes very good food very seriously, educating both palate and soul without preaching, and showing you a very good time without forcing you to have a very good time.
Saturday There are three branches of Nusara Thai in and around Bournemouth: one in Christchurch, one in Poole and one in Wimborne. We rocked up to the one in Poole. We were booked in at the one in Christchurch. I apologised profusely. The staff made me feel like not knowing where I was supposed to be was perfectly normal. I felt silly. I was made to feel like a queen… and thus began our Saturday night foray around another of entrepreneur and restauranteur Andy Lennox’s Fired Up Collective.
Since its inception in 2020, the FUC has become one of the fastest growing boutique restaurant groups in the UK, establishing four new sites in just two years. “Each of our brands stand out for fantastic service, great value and amazing food all wrapped up in an infectious atmosphere,” says Andy, on the FUC website. And I’m already developing a taste for the FUC USP: Andy’s restaurants are all about local love, and genuine independence, and proper food, and fair pricing, and looking after staff who genuinely love looking after their guests – like, old school values meet the brave new world and show the pretenders how hospitality should – and can – really be done, despite the harsh vagaries of the current climate.
Nusara Poole is a flagship FUC case in point: elegant without being forebodingly smart; glamorous without being snooty. It feels special. It is special. And the food is very, very special indeed.
For starters, for me, Larb Kua Salad Parcels: an utterly compelling combination that bought nuggets of soft, soft beef together with all the glorious sweet/salty/sour/bitter nudges that make Thai food so addictive, lashings of super-fresh herbs making every forkful sing. Across the table, Krob Squid was an equal triumph, the batter light and crisp, the squid beautifully tender, the oyster sauce offering a comfortably snug flavour-blanket to wrap it all up in.
For mains, my beloved Prawn Penang – my go-to Thai dish of choice that I never seem to be able to move away from – proved why I should never attempt to relocate my Thai menu choices: huge, lush prawns bathed in a thick, semi-dry, salty/sweet and slightly nutty sauce. A proper Penang is subtly complex; Nusara gets that complexity and amps it up to the max. Our second starter of sweetly meaty monkfish, steamed to perfection, gently anointed with chilli oil and served up with delicate jasmine rice, proved just how simple complexity can be when you get the balance right. Both dishes further endorsed my suspicions that, in the UK at least, we’re rarely given the opportunity to taste real Thai food; at Nusara, you can max out on that opportunity.
Sunday Check-out day… and the heavens remained open. No worries! We had Sunday lunch to look forward to at 3pm – and what drizzle doesn’t lift at the prospect of a proper pub roast?
The super-pretty Old Thatch sits on an erstwhile prosaic road junction in Stapehill, Wimborne. The pub itself has 17th century origins while the surrounding villages, highways and byways all have fascinating little histories of their own; what better way to spend a rainy Sunday morning in the locale than touring around them all, pointing out landmarks through the rain-drenched car windows and occasionally braving the weather to stand and swoon outside a picture-perfect cottage, or poke around a crumbling churchyard? And The Old Thatch sits happily at the axis of all of it… as we had, by now, come to expect from a venture powered by Andy/the Fired Up Collective’s modus operandi.
There’s a proper Country Store, Bakery and Cafe at the back of The Old Thatch celebrating locally-sourced produce, and freshly baked bread, and cakes, and gifts, and flowers, and loads of lovely stuff that you won’t find in supermarkets. There’s a spacious, partially-covered terrace on site, and a proper pizza company, and – get this! – a woodland play area (Bear Island) with space for table tennis, and boules, and regular events including yoga and live music sessions (no, not at the same time!), and the pub’s very own festival (Thatchfest) on August Bank Holiday weekend. And inside – oh, inside! Wooden beams and proper fireplaces. Party-on recesses; smoochy tables for two. Ancient windows and real wood; modern menus and real food.
We were seated at a table by a window overlooking the terrace, where we ate Posh Prawn Cocktail (and very posh it was too, what with the splash of Shanty Vodka’n’all) and Salt and Pepper Squid served with deeply umami black garlic aioli. One of us opted for the lamb roast, the other for beef sirloin, and both came piled high with all the proper Sunday roast hip-hops you could possibly wish for, including the biggest, crispest Yorkshire puds and super-silky gravy. We didn’t have room for puds but we didn’t want to leave; even if I lived around the corner, I’d still want to move in. But it was time to head back…
…home again! Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch – linked in one borough but each distinctly different in terms of overall vibe – all boast their distinctly different charms, Bournemouth itself maxing out on a mixture of party town/family friendly vibes to keep the visitor scene vibrant while the drives through/in and around parts of Poole and Christchurch reminded me of travels through the Hollywood Hills.
It’s surprising, however, that good food is hard to find in the locale, which is one of the many reasons why Andy/the FUC’s input is so invaluable; unless you’re in the mood for a suburban Indian restaurant banquet (“Tuesday Nights Only”) or a prosaic pub deal, there’s little to attract the foodie’s attention. Meanwhile, it’s astounding – quite shocking, in fact – that, apart from Sobo:Fish and the (obvious) Rick Stein restaurant in Sandbanks, fresh fish specialists are particularly thin on the ground; we’re on the coast, kids! I expected to be inundated by crab sandwiches, fresh seafood platters and proper fish’n’chips from the get-go, but the pub down the road from our hotel flaunted fishcakes made with John West salmon and the Bournemouth’s biggest seafront cafe/bar claimed to be specialists in Peri Peri chicken.
So: would I go back to Bournemouth? Ah yes – not least of all because we couldn’t make room this time around for pud at The Old Thatch…
Huge thanks to the abundant generosity from Andy Lennox, Sophie Cox and the wonderful FUC staff for helping us make this lovely trip happen.
“There’s a kind of hush all over the world, tonight…”
Well yes, of course there is… because we’re at a table on the Royal Crescent Hotel and Spa’s brand new heated, covered terrace overlooking the gorgeous garden; if you can’t feel at peace here, you’re unlikely to feel at peace pretty much anywhere else. The unique, sweetly earthy fug that punctuates the end of one of the first days of summer is hanging in the air; beautiful birds are skittering in the trees, and pretty cats skitter around in the bushes. It’s calm, and charming, and extravagantly grand in an understated way.
One could say, I guess, that that last sentence summarises the RCH USP overall – and, this: “rich in fascinating history and cultural heritage, renowned across the globe for iconic architectural status and subtly exuding the kind of discreetly luxurious red carpet glamour rarely experienced outside of a handful of London’s grand old dames of the 5-star hotel scene” (I couldn’t have put it better myself, so I didn’t try to).
Recently, however, the RCH has upped its enviable reputation as modern oasis of luxury to another level by treating the former (slightly dour) Dower House restaurant and adjacent bar to an extensive style overhaul that cleverly remains true to the hotel’s storied heritage and elegantly refined aesthetic while putting a distinctive, subtly glam spring in this grand old dame’s step; ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on Montagu’s Mews, named after Elizabeth Montagu, the original (and fascinating) resident of number 16 Royal Crescent. Within a host of other interests and achievements, Ms Montagu was a celebrated hostess and salonière; there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that she would adore her old home’s new look, purpose and overall vibe.
But would the woman who, in 1775, invited her tenants to dine with her and noted, in a letter to one of her many friends, that she/her kitchen “provided a veritable feast of sirloins of beef, legs of mutton, loins of veal, chickens, ducks and green geese, with ham, pigeon pye, tarts and custard”, approve of RC hotel Head Chef Martin Blake’s menus? I can’t really see who wouldn’t. I can’t see who wouldn’t find something on the food-front array that doesn’t suit their appetite, or mood, or budget either; in the mood for a sandwich, or a sharing plate? Go Bar and Terrace Menu. Afternoon tea? Oh, but of course! Your dinner, your way? You’re going A la Carte, then. But if you’d prefer Martin and his team to present you with your dinner His way, please, please take the Tasting Menu route; that’s what we did, sitting on that gorgeous heated terrace, on that gorgeous summer evening.
By way of an overture, a trio of canapés involving various combinations of Bath Blue and Parmesan cheeses, and tiny, featherlight sable biscuits, and avocado mousse, and beetroot gel, and mild, sweet borage – each of which looked as though they’ve been made by angels, and every little mouthful fit to be food for the gods – were presented to us by elegantly efficient, friendly people who are masters of the art of elegantly efficient, friendly service. Then came bread, but not bread as you know it: soft, fluffy Shokupan served with soft, fluffy smoked cod roe mousse, topped with incandescent pearls of golden orange caviar. Both little courses are breathtakingly beautiful to behold; both little courses carry beautifully-balanced nudges and twitches of flavour that make your soul, heart and tastebuds sing. And then, the symphony itself opened…
Somewhere deep in my foodie consciousness, I know that I should love Steak Tartare; every foodie does… don’t they? No, not I. I’ve never really got to grips with the time-honoured (but, to my mind, weird) combination of raw, heavily seasoned meat laden with shouty capers and topped with raw egg. Okay, I know it’s a classic dish, and I know it’s sophisticated; I know all that stuff. But I also know that, in the wrong hands, Steak Tartare can taste like some weird kind of hangover cure that sits alongside Sally (Cabaret) Bowles’ beloved (but vile) Prairie Oysters, or Kingsley Amis’ Polish Bison in the canon of “things I will never eat/drink in order to join in the parade of the Emperor’s New Clothes – until now.
Martin Blake’s Beef Tartar is an entirely different take on one of France’s most (in)famous signature dishes. Here, we have neat cubes of Dry Aged Herefordshire Beef topped with a smooth, rich Bath Ale Hollandaise and lightened with citrussy/sweet IP8 vinegar, no raw egg or heavy-handed, vinegary pickles to be found, just super-smooth, super-fresh, super-umami joy, joy, joy. And while I had no idea what I wanted to eat after that, Martin did: behold the shimmering, iridescent Cornish cod, the creamy delicacy of the hero fish contrasted with fat, briny mussels and a luxurious, mellow shellfish dressing (almost a bisque, really) offering temperate unity between the two superstars of the sea. After that…
Really – after all that? Yes, because this is, remember, a Tasting Menu. If you really need to be prosaic about it, you could call the array a selection of small plates. But where small plate arrays usually go horribly, horribly wrong due to either your own misguided choice of dishes or – more likely – the prosaic, commercial selection of a dining ‘style’ that’s become, in the UK, a ‘small plate’ peddler’s bandwagon, a Tasting Menu brings the concept back to what taste is all about: balance, and harmony, and skill, and intelligent concepts, and surprise, and the deeply evocative thrill of flavours that tease all your senses at once – and all that and more is where Martin Blake’s forte lies.
So yes, there was an ‘after all that’: there was sweet, tender poussin teamed with a fat spear of Wye Valley asparagus with an almond pesto dotted hither and thither and a deeply flavoursome chicken jus rôti adding deeply umami undertones without detracting from the overall delicacy of the dish.
There was a pre-dessert (well hello RC Head Pastry Chef Michael ‘Mikey’ Topp), the fascinating title ‘Douglas Fir’ belying an even more fascinating combination bringing the unique, menthol-tinged scent (and taste! Who knew?) of a Christmas tree together with fresh Russet Apple, nutty burnt butter and a bracing blast of sorbet in an avocado-shaped dish of sweetly savoury deep forest-tinged magic. And after all that yet again there was dessert ‘proper’: rhubarb complemented by fruity Piqual olive oil (trust me: this works) and hints of warm vanilla, the whole shebang lifting the familiar flavours of Yorkshire’s finest forced stalks up, up and away from rhubarb as you’ve ever tasted it before.
And now, I have to quote myself again: “Martin Blake is a Master of the Art of technique, presentation and inspiration that cleverly avoids that over-cheffy habit of straying away from the realms of common sense. Like Montagu’s Mews itself, his menus gently challenge your perceptions of familiarity but make you feel right at home…”
An evening at Montagu’s Mews at the Royal Crescent Hotel and Spa gives you the kind of hush that roars loud in your sensory memory for a very long time to come.
The Griffin Inn – the smart little hostelry on the Monmouth Street/Princes Street axis with a history that dates back to 1730 – is thriving again… and I know for sure that I’m not the only Bathonian to say cheers to that! In recent years, history hasn’t been kind to this mellow oasis of city centre snuggery; since even before the start of lockdown, there was an “is it open or isn’t it?” kinda vibe going on that didn’t exactly foster a ‘regulars’ ambience or promote local appeal.
But in April of this year, the inn’s doors reopened under the stewardship of Bath resident Roger Payne (the man responsible for introducing super-glam Japanese jolly-up emporium Robun to the Bath merrymaking scene) in collaboration with Bath Ales… and at last, The Griffin is roaring again, with a refurbished taproom, parlour (gotta love any pub that uses the word ‘parlour’ in its descripto) and snug (ditto previous parenthesis) showcasing the building’s period features and turning it back into a gloriously affable, super-convivial, super-welcoming watering hole, complete with low beams, thick stone walls, plush leather armchairs in the bar area to the front and softly-lit dining tables to the rear.
On the drinks front, cool brews, classic and cask ales, local ciders, artisan spirits and lush, plush wines give tipplers much to consider, alongside cocktails for those in the mood for upping the party ante. The food menu, meanwhile, makes the prospect of not staying for a bite to eat a ridiculous concept indeed: neat, daily-changing menus and upmarket variations on the bar snack theme (sausage rolls? Tick!) bring a small but perfectly formed lineup of easygoing, well-priced options-for-all to the table, all of which fly the flag for seasonal, locally-sourced produce – and I have it on very good authority that both the burgers and the Sunday roasts are well worth pushing the boat out for.
At the time of writing (remember, we’ve established that Griffin menus change by the day, according to seasonal and market forces), I can highly recommend the Crab Risotto – a generous, deep-dive flavour foray that cleverly treads that fine line between delicacy and boisterousness, laden with sweet, creamy fresh crab – while an equally generous salad slicked with lashings of labneh is upgraded to stellar heights by the addition of lemon-infused grilled chicken; summer on a plate, best enjoyed at a table by the big picture window that looks out onto the fascinating nooks and crannies of Princes Street.
Smart but cosy, ancient but modern and effortlessly mellow to the max, this lovely little pub named after a legendary creature deserves legendary status in its own right today.
Have you been watching MasterChef 2023? I have – and I’m all too aware that I’m watching it all too often as I have, apparently, started to channel MC judge John Torode, even if I’m eating eggs on toast, at home: “the whites are just set, the yolks are creamy, but everything is over-seasoned; if you’re using salted butter on the toast, you really shouldn’t need any more salt…” etc, etc, from breakfast to suppertime (“I can’t eat this chicken; the skin is lovely and crispy, but it’s still a little bit pink when you get closer to the bone…”). Not for the first time, I’m aware of becoming Very Annoying To Live With – so I’m deliberately dialling it down.
But when we go for dinner at The Mint Room, the channeling begins again and all of the Big Foodies, from John Torode to Rick Stein by way of James Martin and Grace Dent (but, thankfully, not Gregg Wallace), are commenting on the food: Torode can’t fault the seasoning; Stein is stunned by the seafood; Martin is congratulating himself for gracing the restaurant with his presence; Dent is saying that everything is exactly what she wants to eat, right now… and overall, they’re all loving the experience as much as I am. And why wouldn’t they? This place is full of all manner of sparkling surprises – not least of all for those who might judge this fabulous recipe book of a restaurant by it’s cover alone.
Situated as it is at the heart of an urban axis defined by a Holiday Inn Express and a Sainsbury’s garage forecourt, The Mint Room doesn’t initially look very promising. All credit to the Bath branch head honchos, then (there’s another branch of The Mint Room in Bristol’s rather more ‘salubrious’ Clifton Village) for turning what’s ostensibly a breeze block box into a subtly glamorous, urbane experience, all twinkly lights, shimmering bling, sparkly flourishes and super, superb service. Offering yet another surprising twist, the restaurant’s charms are supplemented by a super-smart rooftop cocktail terrace specialising in Champagne/premium liqueur-based mix-up magic-in-a-glass and offering urban cityscape views that make you feel like you’re in uptown NY rather than downtown BA2.
The Mint Room’s menus, meanwhile, represent a wholly authentic celebration of the massive culinary and cultural diversity of the largest subcontinent in the world; if you don’t know where to start that journey, the Tour of India Tasting Menu (an absolute bargain at £45pp, or £70 with accompanying Wine Flight) skilfully navigates diners throughout the whole voyage. On our most recent visit, though, we opted to go à la carte, albeit taking a little bit of advice from Adrian on board (Adrian! A hospitality superstar if ever there was one).
And so it came to pass that we took to our plush booth table (I am never happier than when I’m seated at a table in a plush booth) where, following elegant nibbles of crispy little down-in-one Pani Poori puffballs and three variations of papadums ranked according to spice level (!) and accompanied by a trio of complementary pickles, we started our feast with Bahar-e-machli: two massive, juicy salmon fillets marinated with roasted peppers, onions, tomatoes and all manner of gently enlivening spices, served with a silky honey-mustard yoghurt. The mellow richness of the salmon proved to be a lovely contrast to a second starter of a rather more boldly-spiced, mustard seed-laden Kasundi Murgh Tikka, richly creamified (please say that’s a real word) by hung yoghurt. We’d definitely started on a high…
…and we were in no fear of coming back down to earth any time soon. Behold the complex yet comforting Seafood Moilee: a silky dream of a fish dish bringing prawns, salmon, scallops and sea bass together in perfect, coconut-creamy harmony, subtly tantalising, sumptuous, extravagant and sophisticated. But his Keralan Halibut made a big splash too, putting generous slippers of crispy-skinned, pearlescent halibut in the spotlight and giving them a coconut sauce of their own to bathe in, with fresh mango, just-the-right-amount of red chilli and citrussy curry leaves highlighting the spice-balance and attention to detail in every mouthful. We weren’t just having a good time; we were, quite simply, in good food nirvana. And with all that… rice: of course! Simply steamed, so as not to detract or distract from the tastebud-party. Breads: buttery Peshwari naan; flaky Tandoori Lachha Paratha. But dessert? After all that, absolutely NO way! Gregg Wallace: the dessert sharing platter for two is all yours, mate.
Competent, confident and audaciously inspirational, The Mint Room kitchen team are masters of the art of modern Indian cookery at its very, very best. Take that, John Torode! The Mint Room is very definitely through to the next round of the competition for Bath’s Best Restaurant, time and again.
I’ve lived in Bath long enough to remember the bad old days when The Marlborough Tavern was a rather tatty, unloved boozer, most definitely not in-keeping with its lovely location just a hop, skip and a jump away from the Royal Crescent, directly opposite the green lushery of the Royal Victoria Park golf/footgolf meadows. I’ve also written about food, restaurants and chefs since way before The Marlborough Tavern was scrubbed up and reopened by new owners in 2006 – the same owners who went on to form The Bath Pub Co half a dozen years later and now have four wonderful pubs in their wonderful family.
As for pubs who flaunt ostensibly super-worthy ‘mission statements’ on their menus and websites: I remember when all that started too. Today, even the most prosaic of same old, same old pub and restaurant menus claim to be all about local sourcing, and sustainability, and traditional values, even if they’re chain affairs with centralised production kitchens… and a team of snappy website copywriters who are clever enough with words to make those menus look, at first glance, as though even the restaurant’s salad leaves are home-grown in their back garden when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
But I can hereby hand-on-heart confirm that the statement on the The Marlborough Tavern’s website Food and Drink section is an honest, succinct, down-to-earth statement of aims that are fully lived up to: “great tasting home cooked food with an emphasis on seasonal and local produce,” it reads; “we like to think that we deliver high quality restaurant dishes, but without the stuffiness that can sometimes accompany them. Above all else, it’s about great British food.” I couldn’t have put it better myself – in fact, I could end my review here, and you’d know all you need to know about why The Marlborough Tavern is so – well, so lovely. If you want official endorsement of that statement, note that the MT didn’t earn 2 AA Rosettes for attempting to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. And if you want my full and frank opinion too, read on…
Occupying a comfortable location wedged between proper pub and upmarket contemporary bistro, The MT offers an appealing blend of friendly familiarity and a fresh, smart outlook in both decor and menus. Whatever your mood, size of party or occasion, the Tav can accommodate your every whim without the folk next door impinging on your personal space, with big, chunky farmhouse tables giving great group and plenty of smoochy tables for two for the old romantics amongst us. The private walled garden outback offers an indoor/outdoor experience, and friendly, well-informed staff make any kind of pitstop either in- or out-of-doors an utter pleasure; little wonder, then, that this is one of the most popular dining watering holes in Bath, highly regarded for the kind of fabulous food and welcoming vibe that keeps locals and visitors to Bath revisiting on a regular basis.
I’ve mentioned those smoochy tables for two, right? We took to one of those – my favourite MT table, in fact, in a cosy little nook opposite the bar – for our most recent foray around The MT’s menu, which offers an easy-going blend of imaginative takes on global inspirations (a bit of Asian-fusion here, a smattering of Mediterranean sunshine over there) alongside classics that enjoy classic status for very good reason; the fish and chips are fabulous here, as are the burgers, and the steaks. In keeping with themes that I touched on earlier, it’s clear from dish descriptions alone that authentic genuinely seasonal, genuinely locally-sourced ingredients that boast a perfect pedigree are pushed to the fore; turn the menu over, and you can browse a detailed list of local suppliers and info on The MT’s sustainability policies and practices too.
And so, having digested all the readable matter on our little table, we ordered our starters: deeply flavoursome, funky/sweet ‘nduja and honey marinated chicken skewers with spicy zhoug paste for extra-added exotica and a crisp fennel salad to lighten the depth-charge flavour load (see pic), and an elegant tumble of crispy salt and pepper squid served with a neat puddle of lemon aioli (we have to have salt and pepper squid every time we visit the MT, for very good reason).
For mains, for me, decadently juicy confit chicken leg perfectly partnered with velvety creamed leeks, a crispy black pudding fritter (oh joy! Words cannot express how much I love a black pudding fritter) and frangible little shards of Serrano ham – an utterly divine combination indeed. For him, a plump slab of super-fresh pan-fried hake cooked to that perfect point of sweet, moist flakiness, complimented by a classic white wine sauce and herby mash, a bundle of earthy steamed kale adding robust texture and drizzles of parsley oil bringing a distinctively aromatic uplift to the party.
Like our starters, both of our main courses were cleanly confident in execution, and the pairings exceedingly well-considered; when we’d finished, we were left with that lovely, satisfied feeling that we’d eaten really, really good grown-up food, and we’d eaten really well – so well, in fact, that we eschewed the notion of pudding in favour of keeping the grown-up theme going with a cheese plate finishing course instead of a sweet treat: sharp, nutty, well-aged Cheddar, creamy Somerset Brie and salty-rich Stilton served with grown-up cheese board crackers, and grapes, and a very lovely chutney.
I really love The MT; I love its overall vibe, and the honesty of its offering, and how reliably good everything about it is. Yes, I remember the bad old days – and The Marlborough Tavern easily makes up for all of them.
If you’re a fan of grand designs, The Architect – formerly (and for way too long) a rather unloved branch of the rather unloved British casual dining chain Garfunkel’s, that dominated the ground floor of the former Empire Hotel in Orange Grove – has got it all going on.
If the approach – a massive, 6-storey L-shaped construction built in 1901 overlooking both Pulteney Weir and Bath Abbey, with a striking octagonal corner tower and a top layer that, strange but true, was designed to offer some kind of weird structural shorthand for Britain’s social class structure, with a humble cottage for the lower class ‘working man’ on the left, a couple of plain houses in the middle for the middle classes and a castle tower on the corner to represent the upper class (phew!) – promises grandeur, the artfully refurbished interior fully lives up to expectations.
Contemporary pub chain Brunning & Price opened the doors to The Architect in June 2022 – and beyond those doors, you’ll find all high ceilings, polished wood and palm trees that the building feels like it was built for. There’s a casually elegant chill-out zone at the start of the journey through to the shiny, sparkling bar and a spacious restaurant beyond that, where plush booths built into sensual, inviting curves and beautifully-laid tables for small and large parties alike are supplemented by a stylish little alfresco terrace. All in all, it’s an understatedly chic, welcoming environment that’s bought a little bit of a West London vibe into the heart of historic Bath…
… and the food rocks to a similar West End beat, fresh (yes, fresh! The ghosts of Garfunkel’s must be wondering what the heck I’m going on about here) from a kitchen headed up by Johnny Joseph, who I fondly remember from his days at the helm of The Huntsman pub and I’m really happy to see so happily ensconced here.
We too were very happily temporarily ensconced in the super-pretty conservatory area of The Architect’s dining room for the evening, where we began with starters of an utterly gorgeous spicy sweetcorn soup swirled with a red pepper and sweetcorn salsa (sounds simple, but honestly, there was taste-complexity to the max going on here) and a globe of creamy burrata served on top of a super-seasonal medley of broad beans, peas and wild garlic. For mains, for me, tender, pan-fried chicken with smooth Gorgonzola gnocchi in a velvety white wine sauce, smoked pancetta adding an edge of umami to what could have been, in the wrong hands, an over over-indulgent combination. Across the table, plump fillets of grilled sea bream with cockle cream sauce and a lemon potato cake that, like the pancetta in my dish, beautifully balanced the creaminess of the sauce and brought zing to the whole thing.
Ah, but I can almost hear you saying, at this point… aren’t we on pub chain territory here? Aren’t all menus the same, across the whole chain? Isn’t a chain more of a tourist hotspot than a local folk kick-back zone? Oh, you need to get with the Architect’s Bath blueprint! Not only does the menu push fresh, local, seasonal produce to the fore, but it the whole venture gives fresh, seasoned locals priority too – not least of all, local businesses.
On the evening we visited, we made sure we got there in time to join in with the Electric Bear Co meet’n’greet (and there are plenty of their brews behind the bar as well, alongside our very own Bath Ales options and all manner of interesting guests). Bath’s very own, uniquely wonderful exciting wine retailer Novel Wines have their own, dedicated chalk board wine list firmly installed on the wall and, just t’other day, they hosted a Best of British Wine Dinner at The Architect – the first, I’m hoping, of many more to come. Bath and Bristol’s Crescent Club recently hosted a Crescent Club Social in the bar, there’s a Cotswold Gin Tasting coming up on Thursday 8 June (it’s free! But you do have to book), and the regular Pub Walks – which include a complimentary breakfast bap and a cuppa to fuel you up for a gentle, guided 5k stroll around local beauty spots (next one: May 28) – are proving very popular indeed, with dogs and their two-legged friends alike.
Does any of the above sound like uncheerful chain behaviour to you? No! That’s because there’s none of that kinda vibe going on here.
As the American architect John Portman once said, “buildings should serve people, not the other way around”. For the first time in a very long time, The Empire Hotel is serving its proper purpose to the people of Bath.
Plush crushed velvet; juicy pulled pork bonbons; friendly faces. Cool contemporiana; cosy nooks and crannies; coffee salted caramel. An alfresco terrace offering splendid cityscape views; sticky jus; a sparkly bar specialising in sparkly cocktails: gosh, there’s so much going on PLATE – the deliciously quirky, super-stylish, flamboyant yet still somehow distinctly down-to-earth restaurant on the lower ground floor of the Kaleidoscope Collection‘s equally unique Bird Hotel on Pulteney Road – that it’s difficult to know where to start describing the experience.
Not that I’m on entirely new territory here; indeed, I’ve been singing praises on behalf of PLATE’s sophisticated yet playful presence on the Bath food scene for a while now – since it very first opened its doors back in the autumn of 2020, to be precise. Over the difficult months that followed, PLATE mastered the art of spinning in order to survive: there were click’n’collect menus to brighten up our darkest lockdown days, and terrace transformations to celebrate sunshine, and uniquely beautiful Dining Domes on that terrace that skilfully circumnavigated all the Covid-related in/out brouhaha in full-on British eccentric style that lifted spirits up, up and away, way above the grim Keep Calm and Carry On response to ‘we’re all in this together’.
Anyway, those difficult days are (hopefully) behind us now and, last month, PLATE relaunched itself and welcomed brand new Head Chef Kieren Ballam (you may have met him before, at The Chequers – I definitely did) to the kitchen. As one would expect from a new chef, Kieren – who describes his style as classic with a contemporary twist, pushing locally sourced, seasonal ingredients to the fore – has introduced a whole new raft of menus including a rather splendid Sunday Lunch offering to PLATE’s plates… but fortunately that décor and those style flourishes still remain. And cheers to that! If it weren’t for PLATE, where else could we dine at a restaurant with a centrepiece involving a beautifully-lit, foliage-filled upside-down rowing boat attached to the ceiling?
After pre-dinner drinks in PLATE’s super-glam bar, we took to a table in the dining room that offered a vantage point of the sun setting across Bath Abbey through the restaurant’s large plate (no pun intended) glass doors. To start, we shared two little dishes from the Little Plates and Bowls section of Kieren’s neat, 4/6/6 menu and, from the off, both the Pulled Pork Bonbons (supporting cast: apple puree, black garlic mayo, beetroot) and the Pan-seared Scallops (crispy chicken skin, pickled radish, compressed apple, chicken tea) proved my point regarding why a concise menu holds far more promise than a sprawling one: there’s attention to detail here, and careful consideration paid to pairings that go way beyond mere pretty plate-fillers (the crispy chicken skin in particular being a case in point here).
For mains, the Bird Burger almost dragged me away from the duck destination that I’d instantly set my sights on – after all, you just know that, at PLATE, neither the burger nor the fish and chips (yup, F&C were present and correct as an option too) are going to be prosaic incarnations of the classic genre… and Mike’s massive 28-day aged rib-eye steak (plus proper fat chips, roast tomato and lashings of garlic butter) was way beyond prosaic too. But hey, the Creedy Carver duck breast came with roast plum, and butternut squash purée, and ‘sticky jus’ – and who can say no to the prospect of sticky jus? I’m very glad that I didn’t, for this was a very ‘cheffy’ duck dinner indeed.
Cheffy twists and turns dominated the dessert menu too: Sticky Toffee Pudding came with a very grown up coffee salted caramel and an unashamedly urbane tonka bean ice cream, while the addition of elegantly aromatic tarragon to the Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Dome (sable breton; vanilla crème anglaise) was a stroke of foodie genius.
As you may have gathered, we had a lovely time at PLATE – and it’s my guess that few people wouldn’t find their own little happy place here either. For me, the plush crushed velvet, friendly faces and sparkly bar specialising in sparkly cocktails give me an instant happy blast; for you, it could be any one of the fantastical statement wallpapers, or the intriguing cocktail menu, or… heck, I dunno, the fact that the cheese selection on the menu is headed Cheese, Glorious Cheese – all those things and more float my (upside-down) boat too. And I know that next time I float by PLATE (and there will be a next time, and a time after that, etc) I’ll find something else that makes me happy.
As the strapline on the Kaleidoscope Collection website says, their hotel restaurants (see also Olio at Homewood) offers a view of ‘life through a different lens’ – and PLATE offers a fresh perspective on eating out in Bath, well worth focusing in on.
Milsom Place – the heart of Bath’s ‘Milsom Street Quarter’, don’cha know, and currently at the heart of a major B&NES remake/remodel/refurb discussion too – could be described as the Bath equivalent of, say, London’s Covent Garden, or Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter, or Edinburgh’s Stockbridge: an ancient-meets-modern urban sanctuary (in Bath’s case, based around a historic cobbled courtyard) and home to a variety of independent businesses and high street flagship stores and restaurants.
But despite the fact that the latest redevelopment of the Place once known as Shires Yard (remember that?) was unveiled almost 15 years ago, the Escher-style, split-level concrete and glass/listed building shake up still doesn’t feel as though it’s comfortably woven into the contemporary Bath city centre tapestry. Yes, it’s a tourist hotspot… but many locals seem unwilling to step too far off the familiar routes that lead from, say, Waitrose to Waterstones, or forgo their regular tables at the same restaurants they’ve been eating in for years in case the shock of the new is just too shocking, and new. More shocking yet, I was at a council meeting the other day where even one of our very own local councillors wasn’t even aware that Milsom Place was open post-sunset – a sorry state of affairs indeed. But I’m sorry too for any Bathonian who still isn’t familiar with Bandook Kitchen – a key member of the highly-acclaimed Mint Room family who have branches of both restaurants in both Bristol and Bath that thrives at the heart of one of the Heritage City’s most elegant ancient enclaves. I mean, come on! It’s not really off the beaten track, is it? Anyway…
It being a Thursday evening’n’all, there was a live jazz band happily installed in the reception/bar area of this super-stylish modern Indian merrymaking zone, adding further reasons to be cheerful to an already seductively inviting environment. Bandook owner Moe took inspirational cues and clues for his restaurant’s sophisticated but eclectic design flourishes (think, bold/subtle harmonious colour palettes; plush banquette seating or neat booths; striking statement lighting) from the Hindustani cafés where the British and Indian army used to gather to eat together; those guys clearly had a keen eye for detail that’s as appealing today as it was way back when. Moe’s looked back in order to look forward in terms of the menu too: from street food and small plates to full-on big dishes with a big history taking in dosas, chaats, pavs and all kinds of tantalising gotta-try-thats along the way, there’s something for everybody from the timid to the temerarious here, including super-chic cocktails on the drinks menu alongside some very fine wines indeed.
We took to a table for two in one of the dining rooms that, when the sun comes out to play, leads out on to one of the prettiest alfresco courtyards in Bath but – what with the atmospheric low-lit vibe and the fascinating artwork lining the walls – holds enough appeal in its own right to make tables in this zone a destination dining experience in its own right. Our table also offered a view into the buzzing open kitchen, where the men in white suits were busy, busy, busy tossing things onto hot flames, and grinding stuff, and plating up plate after plate of picture-perfect creations on the pass. Kitchen theatre? Yes indeed – but genuine, authentic kitchen theatre that reaps genuine, authentic results, not just Insta-ready reels with little substance beyond the razzle-dazzle.
And from that kitchen came our opening trio of small plates that actually weren’t that small at all: chunky slivers of the softest, tenderest lamb imaginable, tumbled with peppers and dressed in a subtly fiery seasoning (Lamb Pepper Fry: new to the Bandook menu, set to trend any moment now), sticky, hot/sour/spicy Chilli Paneer in a seductive sweet pepper sauce, and squid coated in chickpea flour, fried until just-about-crispy but still meltingly soft and tossed around with onions and peppers. It’s only very, very occasionally that I experience a combination of dishes/flavours/styles that can only be described as ‘exciting’… and this was one of those occasions.
For the main event, Butter Chicken (fresh tomatoes and very tender chunky chicken in a velvety, mildly-spiced sauce teeming with savoury/sweet fenugreek) and Goan-inspired Balchao King Prawns: a sophisticated little number that bought an affably rich, tantalisingly uplifting combination of coconut, tamarind, mustard seeds, cardamom, smoky dried/tingly fresh chilli and plump, meaty prawns together in a proper bowl-party. We had deeply flavoursome Daal Makhani too, and a shared bread basket of fresh-off-the-tandoor naans, our over-ordering meaning that we barely touched our way-too-optimistic third side of fluffy basmati rice – but hey, we did pretty well, all told.
And all the while, the live jazz wafted around us without ever once dominating proceedings, and fellow merrymakers came and went, and the lovely people serving us never once dropped a beat despite the fact that business was nicely booming… and Bandook once again worked its own, unique magic.
I love Bandook Kitchen. I love the restaurant’s style, audacity and overall vibe. I love how it’s filled a big gap in the Bath eating out scene by blending upper-crust modern Indian dining with a casual, welcoming, affordable ethos that’s effortlessly uplifting, and unselfconsciously soul-soothing. The Milsom Place ‘Quarter’ may reinvent, remodel and regenerate itself time and time again, but please, Bandook: don’t go changin’.
I don’t really trust people who says they don’t like pies. Okay, fair enough, if they’re referring to potato- or meringue-topped versions, or latticed pies, or flaky, lid-only aberrations that, to me, are pies in name only, I get their point – there’s a fair debate to be had here. But real, proper, actual pies (as in, the shortest of shortcrust pastry wrapped around the juiciest of flavour-packed filling with, very importantly, no gap between filling and lid, and always served piping hot) top my “What’s Not To Love?” food charts, leaving even my beloved fish finger butties lagging far behind in their second place position.
Okay, I wouldn’t want to eat a pie every day – and I shouldn’t have to, either; a proper pie (which, by rights, has to be served with mash and rivers of gravy too) should fill you up and leave you craving nothing but lightly-steamed cabbage for at least three days afterwards. Your standard, off-the-shelf supermarket pie just ain’t gonna deliver on that score and, unless you’re prepared to put in several long hours honing the necessary skills required for pie success, few of us have the wherewithal to make the magic happen at home either.
Thank goodness, then, that Pieminister – the brainchild of Tristan Hogg and Jon Simon, who started their pie-venture in a little kitchen on Bristol’s Stokes Croft back in 2013 – are Masters of the Art of Proper Pies of the brazenly hip, new old-fashioned variety, and their newest piestop on the UK block (there are currently 16 in the small chain) is as brazenly hip/new old-fashioned as a pie restaurant gets: a giant suspended cast-iron bathtub hangs at the entrance; neon pies and related slogans light up the exposed brickwork walls; canteen-style tables suggest efficient, speedy satisfaction. There’s craft beer and cocktails on the drinks menu, flyers advertising Sunday Lunch, Bottomless Brunch and Student Discounts on the tables, and the menus are busy, busy, busy with all manner of combo-deals from a straightforward pie with gravy for £6.50 to the fully-loaded Mothership options (pies with all manner of trimmings, circa £13) by way of Express Lunch, nibbly things on sticks, Gravy Fondue (yes, really), a dedicated kids’ menu, an array of ice cream sundaes (hoorah!) and several mix’n’match small plates.
Small plates, in a pie shop where portions are known to go large? Oh, go on then! And so it came to pass that our order of super-crisp pork scratchings, nicely-spiced chickpea, spinach and sweet potato Chana-Rama Patties and the most delectably seasoned Halloumi Chips I’ve ever encountered arrived at our table in double-quick time, only to be duly gobbled up at twice the speed. But as tasty as they were (and they really were – and a bargain at 3 for £13), we didn’t really need them, because…
…our two Motherships landed: one Free Ranger (chicken, ham and leek in a dreamy, thickly creamy sauce, teeming with thyme) and one Moolin Rouge (velvety chunks of steak muddled with fat little nuggets of dry cured bacon in a deeply treatsome red wine jus), each one artfully plonked on top of a mountain of creamy mash dripping with minted mushy peas and scattered with cheddar and crispy onions that I was rather sceptical of but have now decided that my dine-in Pieminister pie can’t live without; cue total, concentrated silence at our table (a rare occurrence) until we were at least halfway through our feast.
Pieminister has landed in Bath in the perfect location at just the right time, when we all need a reliably good contempo-diner to dive into on a whim or for an occasion, on our own or with friends. All in all, it’s a happy place serving pies that make you happy; if anybody tells you otherwise, don’t trust them. When you go off in search of your own happy, just make sure you’ve got plenty of cabbage to dine on for at least the next three days…
The Prandial Playground, Bath and Beyond... 