At the risk of being pretentious - the reader may judge - fine dining is an art. Of course if it succeeds as a visual art then that’s really rather pleasing in itself. It makes the diner pleased, even excited that, he/she is about to eat the enticing gem that has been placed before him/her.
But what really matters is the sense of taste and perhaps touch - the perception of texture - that’s the real art. If there’s no art in it then the resultant food may still be enjoyable, even very enjoyable, but it’s not fine dining. Fine dining is not a smartly plated dish of food sold at a remarkably high price. Some chefs and restaurant owners think it is. Their businesses usually fail within two years of first opening.
Purnell’s has remained in continuous business for over 13 years. In that restaurant is art and certainly not just the visual. Four months of lockdown has not drained away any of that art from the chef and his team. If anything, my first post-lockdown lunch there was as good as any I’ve had (and I’ve had a few there now I think about it) and - I hesitate because I often say it after I have eaten at Purnell’s - but this might have been the best lunch I’ve had since my first ever visit there in 2009. Classic mixed with innovative. There are restaurants which serve fine classic cuisine and those which serve innovative cuisine, or what the chef feels to be innovative, and there are some which even have wit reflected in their dishes but there are few that combine all these elements in such perfect symmetry as Purnell manages to do time after time after time. And in that is art. High art. ‘Modern British’ is too trite.
To the food, just pausing to mention that the table spacing is reassuring and generous and the nearest diners are almost distant objects. I had my own little corner and felt thoroughly at home and a glass of Hendricks and tonic with a new garnish using sweet little chunks of cucumber melon rather than cucumber itself had me happily embedded in the relaxed but careful and respectful atmosphere of Purnell’s. The staff, welcoming familiar faces in the main, enhanced the feeling of reassurance that dining here was about as safe as an old bloke out on the town could hope for.
Life continued as it had ended 5 months before with the very great pleasure of Purnell’s joyous edible charcoal and his always startling and shamefully pleasurable faux black canary potatoes, a subtle flavour of lemon blended into them, with the most remarkably deliciously flavoured chorizo mayonnaise which always has me furtively scraping my finger in the little bowl to ensure none of it is wasted. There was only one sad omission - Purnell’s chip constructed from chickpeas rather than potato and one of the great inventions of the 21st century which proves that this new millenium has not been a total waste of time so far after all.
Afterwards there came the best restaurant bread in the city, still warm from the oven, Purnell’s very particular pain de campagne, lighter than a feather, tasty and with a splendid crusty edge. I wish he’d market this delicious bread for home consumption as I would never buy any other sort ever again. Somehow it seemed that balance had been restored to the universe.
The starters. Not new but really another one of Purnell’s classics to assuage the angry vegetarian breast. While his Beetroot mousse remains, the beetroot craze of a couple of years ago will have been all worthwhile. His mousse, shamelessly creamy and tingling with horseradish and wasabi, lies as pretty as a picture (I turned it into one - see below) all the colours of beetroot nestled around it.
And mackerel follows made more edible than it has ever been before - for my gastric juices - its brisk flavour rendered perfectly subtle by honeydew melon, cucumber and dear old Granny Smith apple gel. Honeydew melon - I shall never again want mackerel without it, the combined flavour is celestial. Art - innovation. Worth making a ‘special journey for’.
Plaice (Breaded and pan-fried with (excessively - sorry Boris) buttered crushed new potatoes and sweet petit pois has been one of my mainstays during the days of house arrest and I can’t get enough of it though I remember a horrific experience a few years ago at, of all places, Everett-Matthias’ two-starred Le Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham where three exquisite little pieces of plaice were murdered by drowning in a sea of unpleasantly bitter beurre noisette served with what seemed like upwards of a thousand grim broad beans which was more like a wet August than a memorable summer (well it was memorable summer for all the wrong reasons). I could not have been more delighted therefore to find that the Fish du jour (Glynn at his most waggish) was indeed a supremely perfectly pan-fried piece of plaice (no limp water bath-cooked fate for this little pleasure) with a miraculously enjoyable accompaniment of a mijote of supremely correctly textured and flavoured St Austell mussels and Scottish girolles with a real final triumph in the form of samphire which didn’t advertise itself, sure in the knowledge that it was the little element that said that a genius was at work. Worth making ‘a special journey for’.
I almost forgot the parsley sauce. Parsley sauce and I are not the best of friends but that which accompanied this meal will be a friend for life if I bump into it again, just the right degree of parsleyness. I got to pour my own and think I made a rather chefy job of the pouring even if I say so myself (see photograph below).
Main course. Pork. Fillet not belly - a victory for Chef already. No mention of the pork having been part of those dear little curly-haired individuals which Aktar Islam regaled me with two evenings before at Opheem so no need to be haunted by their appealing little faces which are more attractive than most peoples’ babies. I’ve long felt that the fat-counterbalancing acidic element of a pork dish can only really be apple. Chefs muck around trying out sharper-flavoured berries and the like, and of course pineapple has its place, but there’s no truly successful substitute for apple. Until now. The finely barbecued fillet was served with an apt celeriac purée and instead of apple a blatjang chutney, apple among its ingredients, which was a masterfully well thought out alternative to bring something new to this pork dish. And the cherry on the cake? Just like the modest samphire in the plaice dish, a smart little turnip was lying there waiting to impart its own completely appropriate taste, and texture, to the dish. Art again, you see. It’s the little details, the clever insights, that others don’t think of.
As reported in Blog 79, Jarek Samborski took over as Manager from Sonal Clare in January 2020 with only a few weeks to run before the national shut-down. Now back in action, he seems to have hit the road running and has his team deftly organised and welcoming and seeming to cope well with the ‘new normal’ (ghastly term). And his wine advice is thrilling. He suggested a lovely buttery Uruguayan Pinot Gris which served the 2 fish dishes well and asked me to try out a very tasty Portuguese red which smacked the front of my tongue with a resounding flavour and lived well with the pork fillet course. And the suggestion for the ‘dessert wine’ was flabbergasting in its exciting deliciousness, “It’s controversial,” he said “but might I suggest a plum sake we’ve introduced”. Yes you may. Mmmm. So sweet, but not excessively so; Jarek said that there would be a hint of bitterness which actually I didn’t really get but to be fair I didn’t really want to. So that’s my new dessert wine and birthday and Christmas presents for those deserving of it. Thank you very much Mr Samborski.
The plum sake accompanied a truly delightful dessert - Purnell’s Eton Mess (which to be honest, it really isn’t - it’s neat and pretty and alluring not bits of meringue broken up and mixed with cream and fruit and stuff) - just look at the photo and you’ll see what I mean. It came along in its own social bubble (actually it looks a bit like a social bubble) with a dish of gorgeous brown butter crumble with blueberries and raspberry ice cream which complemented the dish’s soft, perfectly mildly chewy meringue. Is 10/10/10 (burnt English egg surprise) much greater than this very special summer dessert? I asked myself.
This was one of the best summer menus I’ve ever had and it steered away from the summer menu clichés of peas and peashoots and strawberries and the always overrated broad bean with everything (not that I’m averse to peas and peashoots though I recall a couple of meals in the past where chefs thought that raw peas were a good idea with a charming lack of awareness of just how indigestible raw peas are for old blokes). Highly recommended and memorable and as always at Purnell’s a happy and comfortable experience as well as an opportunity to eat remarkable food at a price of unarguable good value.
I ensured that I didn’t miss out on my coffee with the two accompanying petits fours, the chocolate on a stick and the ultimate, and what I believe was the original, scintillating mouthful that is Purnell’s blackcurrant jelly which should always be the last thing to be enmouthed at a Purnell’s meal.
Oh! I forgot. The new final course:-
Watch out, The Old Bloke is back in town. Buying works of (culinary) art by our city’s greatest artists. Art to make a special journey for.
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