Saturday 27th October 2007
Evening Post
Words: Mark Taylor
So, that’s where all the beautiful people of Bristol hang out. At 7.30pm on Thursday evening. Goldbrick House is packed with the city’s movers, shakers, social butterflies, captains of industry … & two hungry hacks.
Most of the tables in the ground floor café/bar are taken up with people sipping coffees or wine & tucking into burgers & salads.
The Champagne & cocktail bar is even busier, with groups of after-work drinkers enjoying elegant cocktail glasses of Imperial Martinis (a head-spinning combination of sloe gin, saké, blackberries & Champagne) & glasses of Champagne from a list of 40 bottles, priced from £32 to £1,000.
On the next floor, one of the private rooms is being used for a wine-tasting event & another is hosting a networking bash for a successful local film company.
And in the restaurant, where we’ve booked a table, the place is also packed with cooing couples, groups of business types & a party of 25 bankers.
One year after it opened, Goldbrick House has certainly realised its potential & lived up to its promise as the closest Bristol has to a London-style private members club, albeit one without a membership fee.
The two interlinked Georgian townhouses that make up this Tardis-like operation ooze style & opulence, but the owners have created a place that feels both exclusive & inclusive at the same time.
Whereas the ground floor café/bar attracts passers-by & shoppers, the first floor Champagne & cocktails lounge has proved a hit with Bristol’s media & pre-club crowd.
The fine dining restaurant has drawn an entirely different clientele of foodies eager to try the Modern European cooking of head chef Piero Boi, who previously worked in some of London’s best kitchens.
The décor is sympathetic to the building’s Georgian grandeur, with plenty of original features (ornate ceiling roses, fireplaces, highly polished parquet floors & sweeping staircases) complementing the gilt-edged mirrors, gold chandeliers, William Morris-style wallpaper & aubergine coloured walls.
The Champagne & cocktail bar has fabulous sash windows, leather armchairs & quirky touches such as the stag’s antlers & a leopard skin rug – both painted on to walls above fireplaces.
The restaurant is contemporary with leather banquets, huge lanterns & a wall-plastered with plastic flowers. The tables are covered with linen cloths, the cutlery is heavy & the service is well-drilled & snappy.
By chance, we had arrived on the night the new menu had been launched &, after cocktails in the bar, we were ushered up the elegant staircase to our table.
From an extensive wine list we plumped for a bottle of Campaccio 2003 (£33), a muscular red from Tuscany made from sangiovese & cabernet grapes. The sommelier recommend it as he thought it would match our food, & although the wine had a lot of tannin, it softened over the course of the meal & turned out to be the perfect foil for our main courses.
The new menu has seven starters & 11 main courses, & there are plenty of autumn flavours among the dishes – pigeon breast with autumn coleslaw; & rabbit leg wrapped in prosciutto with truffled mash potato being among the highlights. My friends celeriac & Bramley apple soup (£5.50) was very seasonal, silky, slightly sweet & almost nutty. It was drizzled with some truffle oil, adding another layer of musky autumn flavour.
Smoked eel & crisp pork belly with beetroot & horseradish cream (£8) was a brilliantly conceived dish. The richness of the smoky, oily eel & the incredibly porky belly was countered by the earthy beetroot & fiery horseradish. It was a perfect marriage of flavours, if a tad pricey for such humble ingredients.
I went for the rump of lamb with braised lentils, sardalaise potatoes & roasted Jerusalem artichokes (£17).
The thick folds of pink lamb had been timed perfectly, & the puy lentils had been flavoured with thyme & were utterly delicious, & the Jerusalem artichokes had maximum flavour. The sardalaise potatoes were almost worth the price tag on their own. A cake-like wedge of crisp sliced potatoes layered with seasoning & thyme, & cooked in what tasted like duck fat, it was one of the best potato dishes I’ve tasted in a long time.
Less successful was the slow-cooked veal with caramelised chicory & parsnip purée (£17.50). While it’s good to see veal on the menu, the mountain of meat was very dry & needed a lot more sauce than the scant dribble around the side of the plate. The parsnip purée was very good though, as was the chicory.
The seasonal theme continued with the range of desserts.
There was a port & blackberry jelly & crème caramel with poached figs & I wish I’d gone for one of those as my steamed ginger pudding with custard (£6.50) was disappointing. Although light & very gingery, it was cold, which defeated the whole point of ordering comforting steamed pudding on a chilly evening.
The apple & rosemary cake (£6) was very good though, the rosemary being subtle & the cinnamon ice cream working very well with the apple.
This was the fourth time I’ve eaten at Goldbrick House since it opened, & apart from the slip-ups with the veal & the pudding, it was the best meal I’ve had there so far.
