554. No 44 The Brasserie At The Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon.

It was the second evening of my stay in Stratford-upon-Avon and I decided to dine at the 2 rosette AA Restaurant Guide-rated, No 44 The Brasserie at the Waterfront located in the Arden Hotel which is situated opposite the RSC’s Swan Theatre. The Arden is a smart hotel and the lovely white table cloth dining room is bright and spacious though some of the tables therein are situated rather close to each other. But it’s all very cheerful and lifting and the front of house staff are helpful and attentive but not overly so.

I chose to start with salade niçoise. The precise ingredients to use in it have long been an issue of controversy with French chefs competing to criticise versions of the dish served in England especially when it comes to using baby potatoes in the salad, an act which is anathema and a crime to many French cusieniers. The Guardian published an article by Felicity Cloake as long ago as August 2012 when she outlined the principal ingredients, eschewing potatoes and preferring broad bean pods to French beans, both recommendations which I feel are quite wrong. Ms Cloake listed boiled eggs, of course, broad bean pods or French beans, cucumber, spring onions, red pepper, black olives, basil, capers and anchovies in her recipe which the Guardian claimed was “the perfect salad niçoise” (see appendix).

Putting all that aside, the No 44 The Brasserie served a very enjoyable, even delicious version of the dish in which precisely cooked baby potatoes gave some body to it all, the little gem leaves were gorgeously crispy, the Brunoise of cucumber and red onions was precisely diced, the half boiled egg was accurately timed and the French beans precisely the correct bite to them - precisely, I say. So many preciselies in one sentence.

For my main, I moved on to pan-seared stone bass with sweetcorn chowder, sea herbs, and sweet, sweet mussels and preserved lemon gel. The fish, meaty and tasty, was cooked perfectly and the skin as crispy as any fish skin I have ever been served - so many restaurants fail to achieve such perfection. The sweet corn was a wonderful accompaniment in the almost glowing and delicious chowder and the mussels were the sweetest and most tender I have had served to me in many a harvest moon. The samphire was tender and the preserved lemon gel gave a nice contrast of citrus to accompany it all. This was a very good and satisfying dish as well as being a very pretty one.

For dessert I chose a vanilla panna cotta with a fine wobble though the flavour of the vanilla was, shall we say?, a little understated. The sliced compressed strawberries were also not as fully flavoured as I should have wished but the gorgeous strawberry consommé dispelled all gloom though the sorrel leaves were wholly decorative and contributed nothing to the flavour of the dish rather disappointingly - a lemon hit might have been just what it all needed.or even perhaps a quick burst of pepper.

Putting aside the sorrel leaves, I ask myself, where does No 44 obtain its excellent, high quality ingredients?

I concluded my meal thinking that No 44 The Brasserie well deserves the 2 rosettes which the AA Restaurant Guide has awarded it as well as its inclusion in the Michelin Guide. Three rosettes would not necessarily be over generous.

4 August 2026.

Rating:- 🌞.

As the evening advanced, my fellow diners gradually wandered out and I was left almost alone, comfortably sipping my coffee, resisting a temptation to order a liquor, and staring out of the window taking in the view of the Swan Theatre wherein Branagh was at that very moment probably delivering the lines of Lopakhin in a broad Ulster accent.