El Gato Negro Tapas
1 Oldham Road, Ripponden, West Yorkshire
Tel: 01422 823 070
Price: Meal for two with wine and service: £40-£70
The usual grumble by the foodie middle-classes, braised in the sometimes preachy writings of the late Elizabeth David, is that gastronomic culture in Britain is disfigured because we lack a sense of what the French call terroir, or attachment to the land. I was thinking about this as my train clattered through the valleys beyond Halifax in West Yorkshire in pursuit of my lunch. It seems to me that a kind of culinary terroir-ism has finally infected this country. There is an assumption that, if I'm going to eat in rural Britain, my meal will be fashioned from local ingredients used to rehearse gussied-up versions of old-fashioned dishes. In Lancashire there has to be a hotpot. In Yorkshire there damn well better be some parkin to finish.
I see the appeal of regional gastronomic pride, but I also believe it has weaknesses. In France the imperative is so strong you can visit one region for a holiday and find yourself faced with exactly the same, less than impressively executed menu in every restaurant. I like confit de canard as much as the next man, but only on day one. Not on days two, three and four as well. The other downside is the logical extension of that: a culinary insularity. If some brave entrepreneur attempted to open a high-end Chinese gaff in, say, the Dordogne, the villagers would be at their doors with pitchforks and burning stakes before they could fire up the wok burners.
Not so in Ripponden near Sowerby Bridge where, unburdened by an overweening attachment to local culinary traditions, Yorkshire's finest have welcomed El Gato Negro Tapas with open arms. Chef Simon Shaw has long experience with the Harvey Nichols restaurant group, as does restaurant manager Chris Williams, and the professionalism shows. Here they have found an old pub, with a mixture of Yorkshire stone walls and tiled floors and introduced a remarkably convincing tapas menu. But then they do make an effort. Every month or so, Shaw goes to Spain with an empty suitcase and a roll of clingfilm to bring back ingredients. Order a plate of the hand-cut, lusciously marbled jamon Iberico at a very reasonable £9.50, the most expensive dish on the menu, and you'll think the travel worthwhile.
Poussin is chopped up and long marinated in a sauce rich with smoked paprika before being roasted off to a sweet stickiness. The tortilla is made to order and, though a little under-seasoned, has a perfect, light texture. There are bowls of ripe, stewed Syrian lentils, spiky with cumin for just £2.50, or delightful little croquettes of spinach and mushroom, creamy inside and crisp outside, for 50p more. Some dishes show Shaw's cheffy experience, particularly three fat scallops expertly seared off and served with a light chickpea puree and some dinky chorizo sausages (a good deal at £8), or crisp slices of fried bread layered with plump anchovies, both salted and marinated. Likewise, monkfish served on the bone with crisped pancetta and a zippy stew of tomatoes, olives and white beans, displays a sympathetic understanding of a tricky fish.
The only failure was some pork belly which, while flavoursome, was a little tough. Curiously, at dessert the Spanish theme vanishes. No churros. No creme Catalan. However, they do serve a cracking sticky toffee pudding with a malty, hoppy ice-cream of Timothy Taylor's Landlord Pale Ale. Which, of course, is brewed in West Yorkshire. Ah well, a little regional pride did have to get in there somewhere.
