Wilsons, 24 Chandos Road, Bristol BS6 6PF (0117 973 4157). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £90
A spare day in Cardiff deserving of lunch, and I know exactly where to go: the Central station. Because from there I can get on a train to Bristol. Where else would I go for lunch when in the Welsh capital? Some might see this as unnecessarily provocative; I see it as necessarily so. When last I reviewed in Cardiff back in August – positively I should add – I bemoaned the lack of great eating opportunities in the city. I wasn’t just referring to la-di-da faine dining, with its silver-leaf gilded lark’s tongues and waiter frottage. I meant all of it, from high to low, from earthy to delicate, from exotic to native. For a major city with a sizeable population, the pickings are meagre.
Weirdly, this made Welsh newspaper headlines. It was even on the TV news. “And now across to our reporter in central Cardiff who’s been looking at the response to the food critic’s assessment…” Or something like that. Perhaps it was a slow news day. For what it’s worth, a bunch of people agreed with me.
But on social media there were others, notably food bloggers, who got very cross indeed. This is understandable. In a couple of blunt sentences I had suggested their patch, the thing to which they have dedicated so much time, wasn’t exactly restaurant heaven. A couple of days of virulent online abuse later, I decided to put them out of my misery. I simply wouldn’t review in Cardiff again. Why do so, if you risk being showered with spittle-flecked invective by a bunch of keyboard warriors? I’m sure the Welsh capital will get along fine without me.
Anyway, I’d always much rather be in Bristol. Who wouldn’t? It really has become one of the most interesting restaurant cities in England. Identifying why this should be so is tricky. Partly it’s down to hard cash, because eating out costs. The city has historically been a refuge for people who feel priced out of London, but rather wealthier when they land in, say, Clifton. But there are other cities with money – Manchester or Leeds – which haven’t quite matched Bristol’s glorious foodie eccentricities. There’s a lengthy history of diverse ethnicity which is important, but also a distinct radicalism. It’s no accident that Portishead, Massive Attack and Banksy all come from Bristol. Throw in a bit of West Country, earth mother, flowers in your hair, touchy-feely stuff, and hey presto: lunch.
I’m banging on about all this because I worry I might not have quite enough to say about this week’s restaurant. That’s not because it’s uninteresting. It’s very interesting indeed. The thing is it’s so gorgeously uncomplicated. Wilsons, which opened in Redlands last summer, is an exemplar of a Bristol restaurant: it’s small, independent, idiosyncratic and single-minded. The room is whitewashed and unadorned so that, on an early spring day, all is sunlight and dapple. There are bare wood tables, black-painted floor boards, a semi-open kitchen and, on the wall, a blackboard menu with just three choices at each course. That menu changes fully every six weeks, with tweaks here and there along the way, depending on what’s available. They are soon to start raising some of their own produce on a plot of land.
The chef, Jan Ostle, worked in London’s Clove Club and with Tom Kerridge before moving to Bristol a few years ago to take over the kitchen of a much-loved pub. Now he has set out alone with his wife Mary, whose family once owned a restaurant in the capital called Wilsons. The stained-glass sign hanging in the window comes from there. The food is big and bold, but also thoughtful. It is a bunch of good things treated very well. It’s all extremely beguiling; hating Wilsons would be like hating Una Stubbs or kittens.
We start with firm pieces of soused herring with hunks of sweet-sour pickled turnip. They are dotted with diced lemon, and the light seaside funk of whipped cod’s roe. At the bottom of the bowl is a vibrant green liquor made with apple. It is a cool, cheery slap of a broth which reminds me of those served in New York by Jean Georges Vongerichten, but at a fifth of the price. In another starter, a noble piece of beef appears to have been briefly seared then roughly chopped. It is laid with dollops of oyster cream, with punchy wasabi leaf for foliage. It is a smart riff on steak tartare. The third starter is a wild garlic soup with a wobbly slow-cooked egg in its depths. It seems a shame not to try it. The soup is the colour of Wimbledon tennis court before the championship has begun, and frothy with the sweet aromatics of a damp woodland hillside. The egg splits and the yolk soothes the thrilling pungency of the wild garlic.
As I pass the open kitchen to go to the loo I spot strands of butter-yellow tagliatelle hanging out to dry. There are myriad Italian specialists who would kill to produce pasta like this, all bite and silk. It is served in a rich parmesan cream under fistfuls of shaved truffle. If you’re going to bother eating truffles, this is how it should be done, clinging to perfect pasta. Another main of fallow deer brings deep rosy fillets, alongside a ripe, offally faggot. There’s a thick beetroot purée mimicking the meat’s haemorrhage red, alongside a hunk of hispi cabbage. Starters are around £7 and mains are in the mid-teens.
We share an apple tarte tatin to finish which, like the truffle pasta, is a classic, done perfectly. The flaky pastry is crisp and caramelised. The apple is soft. There is a hint of sour, and a reassuring buttery crunch. The Tatin sisters would approve. The scoop of bay leaf ice cream is so well balanced it comes across less as some big herby monster, than just vanilla with attitude.
And so ends a lunch that in its sweet, gentle, unassuming way is close to perfect; one that makes you wonder why so many other restaurants manage to overcomplicate things. It is an expression of good taste; of cracking technique, and a love of prime ingredients. It’s a restaurant that makes the business of feeding people well, so very simple. And all this just 48 minutes by train from Cardiff.
Jay’s one-man show, The Ten (Food) Commandments, is at the Redgrave Theatre, Bristol, on 30 March. For more information, visit jayrayner.co.uk/live-shows
