L’Artisan, 30 Clarence Street, Cheltenham GL50 3NX (01242 571 257). Starters £6.95-£11.95, mains £12.95-£26.95, desserts £6.95-£7.95, wines from £22.95
In the early 1980s, as at various times over the following decades, there came upon the land a mighty fashion for drainpipes. Being a classic adolescent, which is to say, sodden with the desperate need to fit in, I duly pinned and stitched my black school trousers. This was a terrible idea for a fat kid with massive thighs and relatively thin calves. I ended up looking like Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD, from the 1968 Beatles movie Yellow Submarine. I love a contemporary reference, me.
The message here is clear: beware the siren call of fashion. As with trousers, so with restaurants. I love the current vogue for distressed brick walls, filament light bulbs and Crittall window frames as much as the next tragic hipster. But it’s worth acknowledging that, just because we eventually get bored with one particular style and move on to something else, that doesn’t mean what we left behind was bad or wrong or, more importantly, less sophisticated. It was merely what came before.
And so to L’Artisan in Cheltenham, a French restaurant that, whether consciously or not, channels another age and beautifully so. That age is, I think, about the mid-1980s, when Howards’ Way defined the grandly upholstered aesthetic. The walls here are rag-rolled in daffodil shades of yellow and there are high-backed velour chairs in candy-cane stripes. Some of the plates are square and the menu is a sturdy leather-bound affair written in a fine italic script. The sounds of La Vie en Rose waft across the small, brightly lit room. The clientele the night we visit is mostly couples of a senior age whose conversation will circle around whether their young adult children are safely launched or a bit of a worry, actually. We all settle back into a warm, soapy bath of a restaurant experience; one we adored the first time around and adore still.
L’Artisan belongs to Yves and Elisabeth Ogrodzki, who left behind their restaurant in Provence 15 years ago in favour of a village in Leicestershire. I’d insert the literary equivalent of a raised eyebrow here over the decision to leave the sun-kissed, lavender-clad hillsides of Provence for the East Midlands, but I don’t wish anyone to think I’m insulting lovely rural Leicestershire. There they established what they described as a French country inn, which won many regional awards, before they decided to relocate here. Yves cooks. Elisabeth serves and works the room and makes sure everyone is happy, which they clearly are. When she asks whether you would like a small glass of calvados between starter and main to “clean the palate”, the phrase “It would be rude not to” takes on new meaning. Who could refuse such encouragement from Elisabeth?
There is freshly baked bread, in various seeded and unseeded varieties, presented in a rugged basket, which is hooked over Elisabeth’s arm and with it, a butter whipped with capers and fresh herbs. That bread will become an ideal vehicle with which to chase down the last remnants of the garlic butter lakes that come with a platter of nine escargot in the shell. Having been spotted on the menu they must be ordered and adored. They bring me spring-loaded tongs. They bring me tiny forks. They bring me more bread. The snails are the very definition of “comme il faut”. Cheltenham is the home to GCHQ and full of linguists. They will understand this grand, fancy detour into extremely advanced French.
Perched on a golden-brown pastilla filled with a mix of soft ewe’s milk cheese and butternut squash mousse, come two fat scallops standing sentry on a mighty king prawn. There is a little foamed and creamy sauce. There is a pile of bright vinegary roquette salad. It comes on one of those square frosted glass plates that knives scratch against. It’s an observation rather than a criticism. It fits the room. We sip our mid-course calvados, as soft and mellow as late autumn sunshine.
Yves may have help preparing all of this, though – glimpsed in the kitchen – he appears to be flying solo. Clearly his solution is the same sides to every main: a deep square of bronzed and garlicky dauphinoise, a filo pastry basket filled with ratatouille, mangetout, squares of butternut squash and so on. The next table of six has ordered the rib of beef to share. They are each given plates with these items placed just so, awaiting the main event. The same is true with ours. One of our mains brings a leg of confit rabbit, smothered in a ripe, grain mustard sauce, so old school it probably sat common entrance. Another has a filo cigar filled with duck confit and a sliced duck breast which, being a little overcooked, is the only down note of the whole meal.
Desserts focus around the thumping pun that is the L’Artisan HorseChoux. It is indeed a choux bun which, in a nod to Cheltenham’s racing heritage, is in the shape of a… well, you get the idea. It comes topped with a variety of creams, pistachio or lemon, hazelnut or raspberry and finished in turn with a milk or dark chocolate horseshoe. It’s not a bad gag, but it’s a much better dessert. It’s the kind of dessert that makes you smile involuntarily when it is placed before you. We also have a long rectangular plate of their sorbets, each a mixture of flavours: blackcurrant and strawberry, banana and mandarin and apricot and mango. They come dressed with tubes of meringue and halved grapes, with strawberries and mint leaves. It’s the culinary equivalent of a box-shoulder jacket in primary colours, the sleeves rolled up.
With starters at around £10 and mains at £20, the bill in the evening may not be small, though at lunchtime there is a three-course menu for £20.95. It often includes French onion soup. Elsewhere the menu also offers a “genuine” beef bourguignon. It would be easy to roll your eyes at that one, but in truth you just know Yves and Elisabeth’s version of the old stager really would be the one you would benchmark all others against. They know what they are doing and they do it extremely well. Yes, L’Artisan feels at times like a love letter from the past. But boy is that letter beautifully written.
News bites
There was serious consternation within the restaurant world earlier this year when Waitrose announced that the Good Food Guide, which it had owned since 2013, was to cease publication. Now the guide, which has been advising diners on where to eat well since its foundation by Raymond Postgate in 1951, has been saved. It has been purchased by the restaurant networking group Code Hospitality, established by entrepreneur Adam Hyman. A new guide will be published for 2022 and long-serving editor Elizabeth Carter will remain in post.
In Liverpool, chef Paul Askew of the Art School is uniting with a group of his one-time protégés to launch Barnacle on the mezzanine within the city’s Duke Street Market site. Askew, whose father was a captain on the Blue Star Line sailing out of Liverpool, describes the new venture, which opens next month, as a ‘Scouse brasserie… We are aiming to tell the story of the city’s food and cultural odyssey through its maritime history.’ Visit barnacleliverpool.co.uk.
The British have traditionally looked down on tinned seafood, whereas in Spain, Portugal and Italy it is highly prized. Mitch Tonks of the southwest-based Rockfish restaurant group is looking to change that with a range of new products including Mounts Bay Sardines (escabeche or with chilli), Brixham cuttlefish, Lyme Bay mussels and Brixham Bay mackerel in olive oil. Tins start at £5 or you can get a gift pack for £24, available for delivery across mainland Britain. At therockfish.co.uk.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
