Glassboat

Friday 11th September 2009

Food and drink: 9 / 10.
Service: 9 / 10.
Atmosphere: 9 / 10.
Value for money: 8 / 10.
 

Reviewing restaurants is a lonely old business at the best of times, but even more so when you have an opinion and are prepared to share it with thousands of people.

I didn’t become a restaurant critic to win friends and had I wanted to write a load of PR-driven old guff, I would have found gainful employment on other publications in the region.

The main problem about sticking your neck out and writing honest restaurant reviews in a city this size is that you often bump into the people you’ve reviewed.

Over the years, I must have reviewed the Glassboat half a dozen times, sometimes favourably, other times not so favourably, and after each review, I have invariably bumped into the restaurant’s owner or chef.

The last time I reviewed Glassboat, I probably wasn’t the most popular man in Bristol according to those who worked there.

I don’t recall exactly what I said but it was something about the quality of the food not matching the brilliant waterside location.

Since then, the chef has gone and there have been wholesale changes with the food, with a more rustic Italian influence running through the menu.

The new head chef is Dan Wilson, who started his career at the Glassboat before working in Sheffield and London (at Odette’s). Wilson has returned to Bristol with the admirable philosophy that the food should be seasonal and simple, and he has worked on the menus with Freddy Bird, the head chef at the excellent Lido in Clifton.

There is no denying that the Glassboat is one of Bristol’s finest settings for a restaurant with the shimmering water lapping beneath diners as swans and ducks swim past the windows. At night, when the huge church candles are flickering and the lights are turned down, it’s as romantic a dining room as you will find in the city.

In the past, I have always harped on about the fact that the food never quite matched the ambience and that the location often overshadowed the cooking, but after the dinner I had there last week, I’m eating humble pie.

Dan Wilson has come up trumps with a menu which is packed with vibrant, simple Italian dishes. Giroles and spinach ravioli, walnut sauce and pecorino; carpaccio of beef fillet with rocket, parmesan, caper berries; lemon and oregano chicken, slow-cooked beans, anchovy and olives; veal saltimbocca with risotto Milanese … there wasn’t a dish on the menu I didn’t fancy.

In the end, I went for the seared scallops with panzanella salad and gremolata (£9.95) which was the most expensive starter but worth every penny.
The three meaty scallops were precisely cooked and generously seasoned but they were almost outshone by the stunning salad of ripe tomatoes, roasted red peppers, anchovies, basil, capers, red onion and the sprinkling of fabulous gremolata (very finely chopped garlic, lemon zest and parsley). It was one of those dishes I didn’t want to finish and I don’t come across those very often.

A locally-reared lamb rump (£15.95) was impeccably timed, pink and velvety but again it was the accompaniment of Sicilian caponata that brought a wow factor to the dish. Caponata is one of those slow-cooked Mediterranean dishes that chefs in this country never  seem to get right, but here it was a sweet, herby medley of yellow courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, red peppers, capers and olives bound together with fruity olive oil and red wine vinegar.

As an extra accompaniment, I ordered the English tomato salad with shallots, capers and Sicilian olive oil (£3), made with heritage tomatoes supplied by greengrocer Charlie Hicks. I have yet to taste better tomatoes this year.

I finished with the chef’s dessert tasting plate (£13.95) comprising mini versions of all the desserts on the menu.

This included a bracingly zesty lemon tart with faultless pastry, a stunning prosecco jelly studded with blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, a bitter chocolate torte with crème fraiche and a silky smooth apricot ice cream.

This was one of the best meals I’ve ever had at the Glassboat. It was intelligent, ingredient-driven rustic food delivered by a chef who knows when to stop embellishing dishes and that is reason enough to celebrate the restaurant’s renaissance.

As I waited for my bill, I looked out at the droopy, half-mast Swedish flag on the ship’s bow. Perhaps it’s time to erect an Italian flag at full mast instead?

Dan Wilson has breathed new life into this venerable Bristol restaurant and I’ve finally fallen back in love with the place.

Mark Taylor