Skewered hearts
Sea bream kinilaw
Lechon with liver peppercorn sauce
We had a couple of nice cocktails with food. Dinner would be around £45-50 each before drinks, less if you don’t need a main course each (we shared). Everything was extremely delicious and I’d call this pretty good value. Definite recommendation – maybe just don’t expect Philippine food to taste this good if you ever go there on holiday!
Ube ice cream in choux
Open kitchen at The Gaff
Having not visited Bath properly for a few years it was nice to go back and mooch around for a day. I was struck yet again by what a wonderfully complete place it is for shopping, eating and drinking. The eating and drinking has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years: some really top notch wine bars, independent coffee joints, gorgeous bakeries and small-plate restaurants (that said, top tip: lunch at the Fine Cheese Co is still as good as it’s been for the last 15+ years). Obviously it’s awash with tourists, but that doesn’t seem to have damned the eating & drinking to overpriced lowest denominator rubbish.
Anyway, if you’ve not been to Bath, or not for a few years, then go!
Lovely lamb faggot
First up we snacked on battered pickles, and these were as good as I’ve ever had them – it’s tricky to keep crisp, crunchy batter on a big juicy slice of gherkin, but these were still the full-on scrunch even after they’d had time to cool. Corn ribs with chipotle mayo are very last year’s last year’s trend, but these were good and why shouldn’t a trend morph into a standard? I like corn ribs and don’t mind saying so.
Hake and gorgonzola
We didn’t have space for pud. They’ve got a good wine list, varied and well priced, we enjoyed a great Rias Baixas full of flavour but beautifully clean. You might pay £40-50 each before drinks for a meal here, I think it’s good value for the quality on offer. Nice place to know in Bath… although there are so many other places I want to try next time I’m down here!
Bang-bang cauliflower
Partridge
For starters there was chicken tikka nicely blackened from the tandoor, two chunks on a plate with a teaspoon of green relish. My starter was a nice bit of partridge fried in a tangy curry and served on a small round paratha. Others had a trio of tandoor chicken, lamb sheek and prawn, all warmly spiced and well grilled.
Mains were served classic curry style: a dish of meat-in-gravy with rice and dal for the table. The monkfish in a milder tomato curry was deemed good. My lamb in a Chettinad curry was fine, a warming and earthy curry gravy although the lamb wasn’t as tender as I’d have liked. The only oddity about this lunch menu was just how resolutely meaty it was. If you are offered a “three course menu for £25” that feels like it ought to be all-in, but (we realised after everything arrived) if we actually wanted to balance all the meat with some veggies, we really ought to have ordered some of the sides from the a la carte menu! Saving the dal and a tiny bit of diced salad with the chicken starter, the entire meal was meat n carb.
Luckily there was a very nicely executed apple tarte tatin for pudding! Definitely the best choice, even if it gave no nods to the Indian cuisine. The rasmalai that I tried was a light and tasty end, with a lovely saffron flavour in the milk (but I envied the tarte eaters!).
For £25 each, this was a very sound meal in a lovely setting. If I returned, I’d get some vegetable sides.
The Compleat Angler
French toast
Anyway, first thing about the Curious Kitchen: they make a very good coffee, our flat whites were up with some of the better cafes in London, full flavoured and strong but balanced enough to need no sugar. Then we had brunch. Maureen’s French toast was marvellous, built on their own brioche from their bakery around the corner and with nicely buttery-caramelised edges, plenty of cinnamon and served with a generous handful of good streaky bacon rashers. I went for the pork benedict, another wildly generous plate compared with some of the abstemious one egg benedicts I find in London. But more importantly the eggs were perfectly poached and the hollondaise was a classic slightly sharp lemony-yellow and generously poured. They had chosen their own foccacia as the base, and this was a lovely soft and springy bread with oodles of bubbles to capture yolk and sauce – inspired idea. Oh yes, and it was a pork benedict. So I also had a slide of rolled slow-roasted pork belly with my eggs. Definitely more lunch than brunch (for me, at least) and very good indeed.
We came back on Tuesday morning, so impressed that we were greedy to try some of the other items on the menu, but alas they don’t open on Tuesday (at least, not in February). Our brunch items were £12 and £14, great value.
Pork belly benedict!
Oysters
Of course a tasting menu involves less prep, less waste, easier service, so there’s plenty of good reasons to go that route. But nevertheless, even today it still implies a certain level of ambition and occasion – no-one pops out for a “quick tasting menu” before a show, or decides that they don’t feel like cooking, so will pop around to their local eatery for a cheeky weekday evening tasting menu.
So is £55 enough to deliver up a worthwhile menu? Well, the dining room at least is a grungy and somewhat difficult space, on the edge of the city centre with stripped-back furnishings and eclectic decor. But we’re comfy enough and made even more comfy by the service which was super-friendly and excellent throughout.
Stage
The main course was the star of the evening for me; beautifully soft green agnolotti filled with a lovely porcini cream, topped with an excellent beef ragu absolutely full of great flavours
Confit trout
All in all a good set of dishes, but for me they felt pitched at a level that belonged on a small plate menu where you might pick five dishes between two and end up at £35 a head, instead of £55 a head for a tasting menu. I like the style of cooking and I enjoyed the experience, so I hope they do very well. And maybe if my trout hadn’t been overcooked and the tart made into a better dish, I’d be summarising slightly differently…? I’ll have to come back and try again some time! I’m certainly willing to.
Beef ragu and agnolotti