‘The dish of the year': William Sitwell reviews Upstairs at Landrace, Bath
It was the most fabulously delicious, gracefully homemade, perfectly cooked and gloriously un- Instagrammable dish of the year. The sausage and porcini ragu turned through fettuccine would vex the monkeys of social media. Faced with its various shades of brown, from tan brogue to croissant, autumn puddle to tawny owl, the influencers would be wrestling with their filters until their phones started smoking.
Which, in an era where restaurants are urged to cook dishes that can market themselves in all their sparkling, colourful self-aware vanity, made it all the more tasty.
But then Upstairs is above the Landrace bakery in Bath, and this is the sort of bakery that bakes and sells actual bread, as opposed to the gut-destroying fakery peddled by most supermarkets. So their heart and soul is in the right place, as is their design aesthetic.
In fact, it's a bit like that pasta dish, once showered in Parmesan: the sepia tones of the wooden floor, wooden slatted divides and the sides of the kitchen pass, on the shelves of which sit collections of ancient bottles and candles on pewter dishes, the ceiling fans with dark brown paddles as blades, ivory white walls and paintings with shades of cubism and futurism. Even the staff are dressed in beige aprons.
It's my kind of mood board. And my kind of food. It's British with a hint of Med, a well-crafted offering of ingredients given gentle pushes towards greatness, rather than smothered in a cheffy muddle.
Cantabrian anchovies, that great appetiser de nos jours, sort-of spatchcocked and unusually still with their tails, were in a herby oil with flecks of lemon rind. Large cuts of ham came with a pile of celeriac remoulade, silky smooth save for the crunch of the raw vegetable and delivering just the right balance of seasoning from the capers in the sauce.
A dish of three scallops (each with their orange coral intact, which too many chefs discard) was cooked in butter just so, with a hint of green from chopped parsley and cleverly elevated with the umami hit of bottarga.
Then came that wonderful, earthy and rich sausage ragu, before two fabulously messy dishes of monkfish and pork. Emily's sturdy piece of fish was nicely caramelised, hiding under cubes of salsify and spinach; hearty and soulful, as was my pork chop. It was huge, with crisp skin, sliced along the plate alongside a jumble of broad beans and waxy ratte potatoes, cooked and then squished.
Next time my life is laboured by a tasting menu where various clean-looking but lonely bits of protein and veg stand to attention on a plate before a sauce is introduced in an attempt at unity, I'll show them these dishes. This is food, this is how we need to eat; cooked with passion and confidence and served with generosity.
What with the bread at the start, we had very possibly over-ordered. But then the words Paris-Brest jumped out from the menu. Sounding like some Gallic poultry but named after the cycling race (just the thing after you've cycled for some 800 miles), this was a version to make its inventor Louis Durand proud. It was correctly round, flaky and fluffy with cream, had added crunch with shards of caramelised biscuit and nuts on top and was dripping in rich chocolate sauce.
A friend of mine has just returned from Switzerland where she dined in a smart establishment on the banks of Lake Lucerne. Course one was entitled 'Low Temperature Carrot'. I'll see her gastronomic aberration and raise it with my brown ragu and a
dinner at Landrace, which, with great service and wine from the Loire, bottled in house, provides virtue, flavour and fun.
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