Mr P’s Curious Tavern, 71 Low Petergate, York YO1 7HY (01904 521 177). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £60-£110
Shortly after we took our place at one of the high counter-style tables at Mr P’s Curious Tavern, the waitress said: “Just think Yorkshire tapas.” I tried, honestly I did. I tried to think like someone who thought the phrase “Yorkshire tapas” was a good idea. I searched deep inside myself for the Spaniard by way of Heckmondwike. He wasn’t there.
I’m minded to blame myself, for I missed the signs. The word “oddities” is embossed on the cute bow window in York’s Low Petergate. Who goes to lunch in search of the odd? Then again, blaming the diner for their own lousy experience is akin to blaming the victim of a mugging for being in the wrong place. The Mr P of this curious tavern is Andrew Pern who, over the years, has built up a serious reputation as a serious chef. At the Star Inn in Harome he has won awards aplenty. He has long been regarded as an ambassador for Yorkshire food.
If he opens a restaurant, I am entitled to have reasonable expectations, however weird the words in the window; however arch the dark varnished decor, with its hanging fox’s tails and its piles of old books like columns seemingly holding up the ceiling; however tiresome the warning on the menu that “The food will flow from the kitchen as its cooking and preparation time dictate.” So much easier than bothering to send them out in a way that makes sense.
Admittedly, Mr Pern and I do have history, though nothing out of the ordinary for a restaurant critic and a chef. A couple of years ago I reviewed his other York restaurant, Star Inn the City, where the bread was served in a flat cap because it’s a Yorkshire restaurant and the menu was splattered with dialect gags, much as the bonnet of a farmer’s Land Rover is splattered with the stains of road kill. Not long after that review, he ditched the flat caps, which suggested there was hope.
So here I am again, at his new Yorkshire tapas place with hope in my heart, a credit card in my pocket and a quiet desperation for it to be brilliant on my mind. Anything else and it will look like I have a vendetta, which I haven’t. Whatever people think, I don’t set out to eat badly. I’m too greedy for that.
In truth, Mr P’s is akin to one of those terrible plays which is saved by the casting of some brilliant actors in small character roles. Every now and then something happens which makes the whole thing feel worthwhile. There is, for example, a form of savoury trifle filled with white crab from Whitby, the sweet soft hit of mango, a cooling dice of cucumber all layered under a thick buttermilk foam topped with the crunch of salted peanuts. It’s a smart piece of ingredient composition.
Similarly, there are pieces of long-braised octopus tentacle, draped with silky, gossamer-thin slices of lardo. There are toasted hazelnuts, a fine dice of tomatoes, a dill mayo and a deep, profoundly flavourful broth. It’s well executed. I must also mention the quite perfect boudin noir bon bons which turn up on another dish, the crisp exterior giving way to a soft, dark nuttiness. I could murder a plate of those.
But so much else is weird or unpleasant. Shellfish crackers are reminiscent of a product available on the high street. They come with a guacamole as made by someone whose only reference point for guacamole is the deli counter at Tesco. It is whipped to a claggy smoothness and is a blunt hit of salt and sour. Against the version at El Pastór a couple of weeks back it’s an embarrassment. The same goes for the hummus which comes with artichoke fritters. It’s dense and heavy going, as if someone put the tahini on ration.
Odder still are the items they accompany. I ask our waitress if they are made with Jerusalem or globe artichokes. She says it’s the former. It’s the latter. There’s a softness to the vegetables which suggests they have first been marinated then given their hard shell of breadcrumbs. The disappointment here is that young globe artichokes in the Roman style, deep fried until the leaves are brown and crisp, are a glorious thing. These are not glorious.
Calamari are again a victory of breadcrumbs and boiling fat. They are huge rounds of brown carapace. Naturally, like so much else here, they arrive in a cast iron pot on a wooden board. They are advertised as coming with “seaweed salad cream”. It tastes like the cheapest of chip shop sachet tartar sauces, with green flecks. Then again, it did come from the section marked “Snacks & oddities”, and it was certainly the latter. From the section headed “Allotment” – there’s a lot of that sort of stuff on the menu – we choose “soused young summer vegetables, summer truffle, roasted oats, fresh ricotta”. From this I have learned that dry oats are not a great ingredient in a salad. They stick: in my teeth, to the roof of my mouth, and eventually in the darkest most troubled recesses of my psyche. The thick slices of summer truffle are dry, woody and tasteless. The fresh ricotta is crumbly, salty and lifeless. The young vegetables have been sacrificed needlessly. I mourn them.
A section of sharing dishes brings “Piggy in the Middle”, with a starring role for those boudin noir bon bons. There are two passable sausage rolls with a tight, clenched filling. But the bulk of it is four thick slices of loin, scattered with batons of Granny Smith apple and crushed-up pork scratchings. The meat is dry, dense and lifeless. Even the jug of jus on the side, tasting more of veal than pork, can’t help. The platter costs £28.
At the end, a dull, uninspiring chocolate orange mousse with orange sorbet comes inside a hollowed-out orange, and we sigh sadly. Because, of course, the old hollowed-out fruit thing always makes everything better. Mr P’s is exhausting. It’s trying so damn hard to please and in trying so hard, it is mostly failing. And it’s expensive. The octopus dish, for example, is £12. That night I return to Skosh, where their even better octopus dish, tandoori spiced with a lime pickle purée, is £8.50. There is an interesting list of hams at Mr P’s, “from the butcher’s block”, naturally enough, and a quite remarkable list of gins. I think the latter is clearly the way to go.
Jay’s news bites
■ The words “Yorkshire Tapas” only make me think about actual tapas. For some of the best head to José Pizarro’s place on London’s Bermondsey Street. Go to José Tapas Bar for the best of Spanish hams, brilliant croquettas and for bigger dishes including hake with allioli, chicken with romesco sauce and of course, a serious sherry list to send it on its way. Josepizarro.com.
■ Pizza Express has changed its Caesar salad recipe. It now includes white anchovies, better known as boquerones. Perhaps as a result of this Pizza Express no longer appears to offer salted anchovies on pizzas, just the boquerones, as I discovered before playing a gig at their Dean Street branch. I’ve always rather admired Pizza Express; how could they do this to me?
■ Talk about dominating the cooking process: high end Italian kitchen appliance manufacturer Smeg, have launched a range of Italian foods to be sold at their new flagship store on Regent Street. The venture is a partnership with Italian food company Montecoppe, and includes parmesan, balsamic vinegar, fruit compotes and wines. Smeguk.com.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
