Rating 7.25/10
Telephone 0114-230 4819
Address 220 Oakbrook Road, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Open Mon-Sat, dinner only, 7-9.30pm (10.30pm Fri & Sat)
If ever confirmation was required of the old verity that holds "Travel narrows the mind" (otherwise known as Judith Chalmers's Law, as many of you will already be aware), it came from an inaugural visit to Sheffield. Ever since sharing university digs with a delightful guy from that city during the first wave of major Sheffield bands in the early 80s, before even one Arctic Monkey was so much as conceived, I've had this strong notion of a slightly wasted but dead cool urban centre packed with shabby-smart young people eternally on the top decks of buses en route to gigs and cheap but brilliant nightclubs.
I'm not sure how rounded a portrait of a major city one can build purely from the wry insouciance of Joanne and Susanne out of The Human League, but I've never come across anyone from Sheffield (alas, David Blunkett remains a stranger) who wasn't warm, sharp, caustically witty and instinctively phobic about cant and pomposity. Jarvis Cocker's impromptu cameo on Michael Jackson's stage at the 1996 Brits seemed to sum it up perfectly.
After a quarter century of admiring Sheffield from afar, then, it's fair to say that my first actual encounter with the place produced a bit of a jolt. Then again, Rafters would do this wherever it was located, it being a hugely ambitious/ borderline pretentious restaurant perched anonymously above a corner shop in a tree-festooned suburb, and seemingly styled after a provincial art student's vision of a Boho New York loft apartment that could double up for use, in a crisis, as a genteel bordello.
If russet is your bag, Rafters (named, presumably, after the wooden beams on the ceilings) is your place. Carpet, tablecloths, tomato-studded curtains, tablemats, chair coverings, even the brickwork walls - it's an absolute riot of russet. "Blimey," said my cousin, Nick, as we were seated at one of three occupied tables by a faintly distracted manager, "I didn't expect this. It's quite a shock to the system."
So, too, was an obligatory set menu with a central London price tag, with the dishes listed being off-puttingly overladen with ingredients and marked by a slightly self-conscious eclecticism that you can imagine bringing a vague smile to Mr Cocker's gaunt features. Aimed at the common people Rafters is not, we concluded as "glazed goat's cheese with aubergine and basil tapenade, sweet and soured peppers with locally grown rocket" (you can't exaggerate the importance of knowing the provenance of your rocket) stared back from the page. "Oh dear, it's the overeager Masterchef contestant's idea of faine daining," Nick said morosely. "Oh dear, oh dear."
The first sign that catastrophe would be averted came from something that was new to me, a sensationally good hot bread roll dotted with black pudding, but it wasn't until the puds that the full extent of the chef's talent resurfaced. The starters weren't great. My "spring roll of East Coast white crab oriental salad and wasabi mayonnaise" - and East Coast is always the key here; beware a white crab from California - seemed a cute idea, and the crunchy salad came in a fine, zingy dressing, but the spring roll was bland and sorely needed a chilli injection. Meanwhile, Nick's salad of Chatsworth egg with chargrilled English asparagus, slow-roasted tomatoes, Parmesan and white truffle oil dressing drew a disdainful, "Not enough truffle oil to make a difference, and I've already forgotten what was in it. Nothing there to excite Roy Hattersley."
At this point, an Anglo-Franco-American party of about 20 trooped in for a celebration dinner, thankfully replacing the morose quietude of the room with raucous merriment, but thanklessly causing the service, with only that manager and a single waitress on duty, to become even more abstract. When eventually our main courses arrived, however, they were a sharp improvement on the starters. My Angus beef was a lovely fat fillet of excellent meat, pan-fried precisely to the requested medium-rareness and served with luscious wild mushrooms, tangy, homemade Béarnaise sauce and a delectable, shiraz-based gravy (or "reduction", as Rafters and Sean Bean prefer to call it). Nick liked his grilled fillet of sea bass, despite the mystifyingly ugly presentation (why serve it with the flaccid skin showing?). "Looks awful," he said, "but I can't fault the cooking. The fish works perfectly with the chorizo. Great flavour."
Best of all though - and by some distance - were those puddings: an incredibly good, intensely flavoured Seville orange tart with dark chocolate sorbet, and an amazingly delicate "coffee essence panacotta" with mascarpone milk and praline ice cream that showed off the chef's imagination and technical adroitness to the full.
Rafters, Nick and I agreed as the bill arrived, is a most curious place. Palpably a labour of love, this is a good neighbourhood restaurant that would become an exceptional one if it only smartened up the service and reined in the excess ambition by simplifying the menu. Its one real weakness is trying too hard, which, to this world-acknowledged expert on the city, seems wilfully antithetical to the spirit of Sheffield.
The bill
Set meal: £32.95
Crab spring roll
Sea bass
Orange tart
Set meal: £32.95
Egg & asparagus salad
Beef fillet Supp £2.50
Coffee pannacotta
Drinks £7.95
Coffee £6
Subtotal £82.35
Service @ 12.5% £10.30
Total £92.65
