Restaurant review: Tart

Wednesday 16th December 2009

This is a Crackerjack review of Tart. Do you agree? Rate and review this venue.

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

Regular readers to these pages will be familiar with the names of some of Bristol’s best-known chefs.

People like Stephen Markwick, Barny Haughton, Chris Wicks and Mitch Tonks have helped to put Bristol on the culinary map over the past decade.

There are others, too, including the Sanchez-Iglesias brothers (who remain Bristol’s only Michelin starred chefs thanks to their Casamia restaurant in Westbury-on-Trym) and Simon and Andrew Green of the brilliant Greens’ Dining Room in Redland.

And then there’s chefs like Andrew Griffin, who may not be as well known as some of their contemporaries but who are producing some of the best food anywhere in this city.

Griffin worked for several years under Stephen Markwick at Markwicks in Corn Street and Culinaria in Redland and his time with Bristol’s premier chef was clearly not wasted.

Just over a year ago, Griffin moved to Tart, a café and food shop on Gloucester Road run by Jennie Bashforth.

A chic, elegant, yet relaxed neighbourhood eatery, Tart is the sort of place where you can pop in for breakfast, elevenses, lunch or afternoon tea.
With its mix of stripped wood and black and white tiled floors, duck egg blue tongue and groove and tasteful prints on the wall, it’s a delightful fusion of Viennese café, French brasserie and English tea room.

In the window there is the most spectacular display of cakes – all made on the premises by Griffin and his team, including  Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings – and at the glass-fronted counter inside is an array of vibrant salads.

The specials board changes every day and there is rarely more than two dishes on there. There are also two tarts of the day.

Much of the food is available to take away so you can pretend to your friends and family that you slaved over the Aga all day making soups, chutneys, sauces and cakes.

You can even buy homemade pastry to take home and roll out to your heart’s content.

We started with a plate of charcuterie (£7.95) which took the form of generous slices of chicken liver paté, potted duck and paté de Campagne, served with plenty of toast and two different types of homemade chutneys.

It would be impossible to pick out a star of the show for they all played a blinder. The chicken liver paté was a Bryan Ferry of a paté – smooth, complex and incredibly rich. The potted duck was of a coarser texture, slightly gamey and vaguely herby.

The paté de Campagne was a faultless version of the classic French country pork terrine and up there with the award-winning one made by Vincent Castellano of Castellano’s in Fishponds. And, believe me, that is high praise indeed. In short, this was a trio of great French charcuterie.

We followed this with a shared slice of leek, thyme and Gruyère cheese tart (£7.25) served with a portion of Puy lentil, feta cheese and red pepper salad.
The tart was an individual one rather than a slice and served hot. The pastry was as good as pastry gets – crisp to the point of being brittle and buttery enough to carry a health warning. The filling was rich, tangy, sweet and dangerously moreish.

The salad was, by turns, nutty, sweet, salty and lemony from the dressing.
For fear of too much fighting over a shared one, we ordered two fish pies (£7.95) and it was a good job we did as we would surely have come to blows once the fluffy potato mash lid had been penetrated.

I’ve never seen so much fish packed into a fish pie – huge chunks of salmon and smoked haddock, an abundance of prawns, unadvertised slices of hard-boiled egg, leeks and dill, all bound together in a rich sauce.

An accompaniment of gently steamed purple sprouting broccoli with plenty of bite was perfectly cooked.

For fear of showering other customers with shirt buttons, we took our cakes away with us once we had squeezed through the door.

The Bakewell tart (£2.50) was, again, from the top drawer – a deep wedge of flaked almond-topped frangipane sponge with a layer of tart blackcurrant jam encased in the most incredible sweet, crunchy shortcrust pastry. It was a Bakewell that would make Mr Kipling hang up his oven gloves.

Great service, sensible prices and some of the best food to be found in Bristol – Tart may only be one year old but it is well and truly on the city’s culinary map thanks to Andrew Griffin. Remember the name.

Mark Taylor
 
Prices (lunch): Starters from £4.50; main courses from £5.25; desserts from £3.95 (takeaway prices cheaper)
 
Wheelchair access: Yes, but not toilets
 

This is a Crackerjack review of Tart. Do you agree? Rate and review this venue.