Dinner in a Victorian garden

After our amazing smallholder course, I wanted us to treat ourselves to a yummy meal and went about to research what Bristol and surroundings have to offer. Initially, I had booked a table at the River Cottage Canteen, which I am sure would have been great. I have much respect for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, well, in fact, I want to be HFW - aside from being a middle-aged man, having married a French woman and having several kids with her, doing television stuff and using alliterations all the time - ok, so I DON'T want to be HFW, but I would LOVE to have his farm, his staff to help him run it and an ethical and seasonal approach to rearing what he's eating. Anyway, it was really hard to find a nice hotel in Bristol within walking distance (so we could both drink) and I gave up.

I did stumble across this blog though and was totally intrigued. See, I'm a menu perv. I read menus like other people 'read' Playboy magazines. I drool over them, try out the various foods in my head, imagine having immense pleasure from whatever is on the menu and get very very VERY excited. As soon as I read The Ethicurean's menu, I was a goner.


The Ethicurean Dining Room

I was also intrigued by the location. The restaurant is inside the Barley Wood Walled Garden, a 'restored Victorian kitchen garden'. It was like stepping back in time. The weather was gorgeous and balmy, the birds were singing and the scent of glorious cooking wafted through the air. The sun kissed the hilltops as it set and I felt blissfully happy.

The view from the window - the walled garden.

What about the food - well, it certainly delivered on that too. Drinks first though: I ordered a smoked bourbon drink, which was intriguing due to the actual smoke that filled the decanter. It was overall a little too sweet for me. The British Boy had the very masculine looking pink tea pot filled with sloe gin and Fevertree tonic. I have to say, I was a bit jealous as I think I would have enjoyed the G&T more.

Smoked Bourbon in the front, Sloe Gin & Fevertree Tonic in the tea pot

I didn't take a picture of Max' humongous Welsh rarebit starter, but could not resist snapping the prettiest starter I had seen in a while:

Cuttlefish, scallops, pressed apple and cauliflower puree.

Our mains were delectable. I went for a Tomato & fennel seed soup with fish and a blob of some creamy ewe's milk cheese and truffle toast, but I could not detect any truffle-iness on that toast at all. I mean, at all. I left half of it, because it was basically just a toasted soldier drenched in olive oil.

Fennel & tomato soup with ewes milk cheese, fish and truffle oil toast.

The British Boy's pork with fondant potato was delicious and meaty and yummy. I only had a little bite, but he said it was wonderful. 

Meat for the man.

 I did not snap a picture of the dessert we shared - a very rich and absolutely decadent chocolate tart concoction. We also shared two cheeses. The blue one was so strong, it practically rendered my taste buds non-functioning for the rest of the evening.

Cheeeeeeese.

The meal was great, the setting was magical and the walk home in the dark felt right, except for the slight disagreement (erm, fight culminating in me crying) about whether it is contrived or not want to plan to wake up at 3am in the morning for a week to just sit in the garden with a blanket to feel one's connection to the universe.

I'll leave with the picture I took on my run the morning after - I really love the woods and the area around Bristol is beautiful!