Clifton Life
Issue 43, 2006
Causing ripples up and down Park Street is Bristol’s newest restaurant/café/cocktail
bar, which has finally opened its doors after a two-year gestation
Anyone hoping to gain an insight into the hopes, dreams, passions and sheer hard graft that lie behind the launch of a new restaurant could do a lot worse than studying the blog on the Goldbrick House website.
It makes absorbing reading, and comes as a revelation if you’ve always assumed that the only problems facing the gastropreneur concern menu and interior design; this (we learn) is a walk in the park compared to gaining planning permission, overcoming noise objections and placating investors.
The Goldbrick style is clearly inspired by hip private members’ clubs and boutique hotels across the UK. Rather like London’s Soho House, Goldbrick has a number of small rooms and bars on different floors, all with a slightly different character. Its aim is to offer Bristol’s beautiful people an unpretentious yet stylish venue for meeting, eating and generally chilling out; to which end the interior of the classic Park Street building has been given a modish makeover, and head chef Piero Boi (late of Conran’s Sartoria) has been poached to serve up an unfussy menu of ‘classics with a twist’.
It’s interesting to note that while the essential, overall vision appears to have been carried through intact, some of the earlier resolutions seem to have fallen by the wayside. “Stu said if he sees goats’ cheese anywhere on the menu or risotto he’ll go ballistic!” reads a blog entry in early August. We can only assume that Stu has put aside his prejudice against these fine dishes, since on the day of our visit, they are present and correct on the veggie menu.
The restaurant impresses from start to finish. The staff are completely charming, the dining room inviting; the minimal white walls and retro hip lighting might be a little on the chilly side if it weren’t for the witty addition of fake flowers taped to the main wall. The opposite wall has been left as exposed brick; if we were in Shoreditch, presumably we’d be issued with chalk and instructed to add graffiti.
We’re less keen on the big vase of lilies; the fragrance is overwhelming, when we want our nostrils to be assaulted with delicious cooking aromas. But the menu’s enticing, as is the well-annotated wine list; aficionados will appreciate the breadth of choice, while novices will benefit from the easy-to-follow categorisation. There’s loads of choice if you want wine-by-the-glass; at the other end of the scale, you can splash out on a £495 bottle of Joseph Perrier Cuvée Royale.
We could have quite happily eaten anything off the menu. I eventually opt for grilled quail (£7); crisp of skin and moist of flesh, this teams happily with a feather-light blini and just-sweet-enough caramelised onions. His pan-fried scallops and their accompaniment of roasted beets (also £7) are fine in their own right, but He decides that the parts are greater than the whole. “They flatten each other out,” He says, a tad accusingly. “It needs something to lift it”.
Someone – can’t for the life of me remember who, but I’m in now in their debt – has recommended the beef Wellington (£19), and I obediently order this for my main course. The portion is almost too vast, but it’s faultlessly tender and flavoursome – a truly superb, exclaim-after-every-mouthful experience that should on no account be missed by the Bristol carnivore.
He’s chosen the roasted rabbit (£16) – a fine, gamey dish, served with baked onions, pancetta and hasselback potato. Both have their own accompaniment, but the ‘extras’ list teases you with further delights – spinach with chilli, chargrilled courgettes with mint – and then accuses you of gluttony for even contemplating them: ‘if your eyes are bigger than your stomach, please feel free,’ it snaps; do they not want our money?
It’s all been so delicious and interesting that we feel the need to try at least one pudding, and we plump – an appropriate choice of phrase – for the pannacotta with cinnamon fritters; this leads to more unseemly oohing and aahing; the fritters just melt on the tongue – surely nothing this light and puffy can possibly contain calories?
It’s not cheap, but it’s special, and we’re going to go
again. Oh, and if you’re wondering what Goldbrick means, check the blog.
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