River Cottage Canteen – Bristol

The main object of our weekend away, apart from to spend some time together without children, was to eat at River Cottage Canteen.

We were chatting to someone in the restaurant at Hotel du Vin on Friday night, and they said that it had had very mixed reviews so far, mostly down to teething problems as it is still very new, and they weren’t sure if we would get a good meal there.

We were a little down hearted, but decided to be brave and soldier on.

The good thing about blogging is that it is nice to write about if you’ve had a lovely time, more entertaining for everyone else to read if you’ve had an awful time. It’s a win, win situation really.

We skipped lunch on Saturday, which was easy to do, as we were still full of our gargantuan breakfast, opting instead for walking in the sunshine round Clifton and having early afternoon tea and cakes in the Arch House deli, which was divine, and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

As we were consuming vast quantities of cake we realised we were just round the corner from Jason’s sister’s new flat, so we bounded round to sit amongst the boxes and be their first visitors until it was time to go and get ready for our culinary adventure.  It was lovely to see them. Hopefully, next time we go, we can take them out to dinner with us.

We would definitely take them to the River Cottage Canteen with us if we should be lucky enough ever to get a reservation again.  The food was delicious, our service was great, and we had an excellent evening altogether.

The building is a conversion of an old chapel, with lots of green and blue stained glass windows casting a beautiful light on everything.  We were up on a kind of Mezzanine floor, where we could see right into the kitchens below, and actually watch our dinner being cooked, which intrigued Jason greatly and stopped him with his usual worries about rats dipping their whiskers in his soup and crapping into the crudites etc.

The menu is small, about four or five choices for each course, and a children’s menu of about five dishes.  I presume it changes regularly, as the choices yesterday were all seasonal and locally sourced where possible.

Jason was a bit miserable about his main course, as he is a fan of very plain food and there are a lot of things he doesn’t like, some of which featured in every main course.  The staff were brilliant and allowed him to have sausage and chips off of the children’s menu which delighted him completely and cheered me up, as I’d envisaged eating my meal alone as he drummed his fingers on the table waiting for me to finish.

While we were waiting for our starters we got given freshly baked, warm bread with a pot of salty, yellow butter. Divine. You could have as much bread as you wanted, but we resisted after two helpings as it would be incredibly easy to fill up on bread to the exclusion of everything else, especially when it is that good.

For starters Jason had onion bhajis on a bed of crunchy, peppery salad and mint raita to dress it with.  The bhajis were a good size, and beautifully spiced. They were meltingly delicious in the middle and perfectly crisped on the outside.  The richness of the bhajis worked really well with the fresh, crispness of the salad.

I had potted crab with a kind of Melba toast and a sort of leek salad.  The portion was extremely generous (I’ve eaten potted shrimps at the Ivy and they serve them in a thimble), and the crab was beautifully seasoned with something like paprika which gave a great, earthy kick to the sweetness of the crab.  The only bit that didn’t work for me was the leek.  It was perfectly fine, but seemed extraneous to the dish.

I still ate it.

For mains, Jason had, as I have said, the sausage and chips. The sausages are all made on the premises. These were deliciously meaty and had a hint of chorizo kick in them along with some wonderful herbs that made them out of this world. The chips were fluffy and tender on the inside, and crisp and salty on the outside. It was a fair sized children’s portion, and certainly if you are having a pudding and a starter as well, you wouldn’t feel cheated choosing a children’s main.

I had chickpea and cauliflower curry which came served with home made flat breads.  There was no rice with it, and I wasn’t sure how big the portion would be, so I ordered a side of chips to go with it. As it was, I would have been perfectly happy without them. The serving was generous and the flat breads were more than adequate in terms of much needed starch.  The curry was hot, and flavourful and delicious.

Jason didn’t have pudding, but I couldn’t resist the rhubarb and ginger fumble.  It turned out to be a cross between syllabub and crumble, and a heavenly cross at that.  Creamy ginger flavoured (not too gingery) syllabub on a bed of ginger flavoured, crunchy, crumble topping, and made perfect by slices of poached rhubarb scattered across the top.  It was amazing.

Drinks wise, Jason had an organic cola which he didn’t like, but I thought was fine. I had a rhubarb and elderflower champagne cocktail at the beginning, which was lovely, but not as heavenly as the rhubarb and elderflower vodka cocktail I had after it, and which Jason and I ended up sharing, as we agreed it was one of the most refreshing and lovely drinks we had ever tasted.  I’d go back just for that.

All of the above plus a coffee for me at the end of the meal came to a startlingly brilliant value £53 for the two of us.  We were stuffed, sated and utterly delighted.

We are looking forward to going again.