Fish – Wyedean Deli Confidential Blog

11th January 202112th January 2021

Fine Dining Takeaway

Hospitality, for the moment at least, is no doubt taking the brunt from the lockdowns and restrictions across the UK. Question is, just how do we support our favourite local businesses and at the same time heed the safety measures we must all endure? If you take the need to help the NHS and therefore save lives seriously, it is very difficult to argue that there is no risk in visiting your favourite local pub or restaurant right now.

Was the money these businesses spent trying to make premises Covid safe a good investment? Things change, sometimes rapidly and with hindsight it may seem not. Corvid loves a crowd as they say and it can definitely party given an indoor crowd of strangers. We are perhaps seeing proof of that in the sobering numbers in the daily news.

Many of our great pubs and restaurants have stepped up and have been offering take away food throughout our health-imposed isolation. But fine dining takeaways? So, when The Whitebrook suggested that its past and present customers celebrate the New Year with just that – we were hooked!

What’s not to like? It provides revenue for the restaurant and a great night in for us. Being by far and away the best restaurant in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley area hasn’t immunised this (Michelin) star wielding restaurant – with rooms, from the pandemic’s hospitality implosion. But, like all eateries, livelihoods and jobs depend on them remaining profitable. So, we need to use them when and how we are able.

The “Dine at Home” programme launched by Chef Chris Harrod for New Year’s Eve homebound revellers was a real treat. And what a surprise – turns out that fine dining out of a takeaway bag – albeit a very smart one – was great fun and very, very doable.

The food tasted every bit as good as it would have in the restaurant. But, why wouldn’t it? All of the same people did the prep, made the sauces and sourced the produce locally. The only thing lacking was going to be the restaurant atmosphere and the experience of being well looked after by well trained, relaxed and chatty staff in a cosy environment.

Turns out that there is just as much fun to be had diving through the courses in your pyjamas and smoking jacket, by the light of the Christmas tree whilst listening to music playing loudly from the landing. We seemed to get our own little bubble of ambience going.

I have to say could not have been easier. Everything was packaged beautifully and for the most part in fully recyclable or compostable packaging. Something tells me that this was no accident. Chris Harrod and his team had obviously worked hard to make this process a success.

Chris was on hand to hand out the orders as I arrived to collect at our timed order slot. At the door it was great to see the table healthily laden with orders awaiting collection. The goodie bag came with full printed logical instructions. Clear and concise, this step-by-step guide was impeccably prepared but had missed one small detail, precisely how much “good will” the diners may have already indulged in prior to their 15 minutes of kitchen fame.

In essence, everything had been considered and explained. All that was required from the diner was a large pan of boiling water, an oven and the ability to read instructions. The latter thus, rendering the male half of the population incapable by default and a further 50% of the female population reduction due to a whiff of the sherry cork. What could possibly go wrong?

So a five course M starred menu, in your own home went like this for us: Our love of Italian travel so sadly cancelled and frustrated in 2020 was well fed by the outstanding Pumpkin focaccia decorated with seeds and nuts and deep green Ramson wild garlic oil. Really pungent and earthy focaccia that only, in our eyes, benefitted from a short reheating in a hot oven before serving. We ate this together with the Goats curd with a crunchy little nuts and seeds bonbon. Not everything went to plan though thanks in part to a couple of Martini’s and a Bushwhacker cocktail apiece. In a flagrant disregard for the step-by-step instructions and numbered ingredients, I’m afraid gin Martini’s got the better of me and I served the mushroom sauce instead of the Velouté – rooky error!

No matter, we had the velouté on its own with scavenged crusty croutons of focaccia – result! Smooth and beautiful acting as a more traditional soup course for us oh and an extra course The Whitebrook team hadn’t intended.

The baked parsnip tasted just fine even without the mushroom sauce and looked great with the foraged Pennywort garnish. The mushroom sauce by the way was simply awesome. The depth of flavour was astonishing – really deep and meaty.

Now for the tricky bit – the fish course. The Whitebrook team must have been holding their breath on this one. They took a big risk allowing us to get the fish course to the table – cooked by us at home, really? Amazingly (by bouncing the stereotype and following the instructions) that too was perfect. A little bit of Kholrabi on the plate, the fish baked on its bed of pine and juniper warmed in its wee cardboard box with a champagne sauce poured over – devine!

Main course of Fallow venison on celeriac puree with smoked baby beetroots as the grand crescendo to a great dinner – and there you have it. A total delight. Genuinely, the whole process was really, really simple and fun – thanks Team Whitebrook.

With dinner, we drank our very last bottle of vineyard sourced full bodied Anfidiamante Red I.G.T. Imported by overland Landrover transport the year before from the family vineyard of Fattoria del Teso – in the other Montecarlo, in Tuscany. A small friendly family vineyard with a just a view bottles in the range. A great red, great white, the stunning Anfidiamante, Vinsanto, their own Grappa and olive oil. It tasted superb, as ever, and all the better for a year and a bit in the bottle – on top of the 18 months it had already had. Fabulous by the way. Drink it now or store it for as long as you like – maybe save a bottle for when we join the EU again.

We did however, choose a lovely dessert wine from the restaurant recommended wines list, a Jurançon. This sweet dessert wine (dried by the sun and shrivelled by the Pyrenean winds before harvesting) tempted us and who doesn’t love a dessert wine – a feeling of genuine celebration indeed. We were not disappointed.

Personally, I’m not really a dessert person. My Achilles heel is handmade ice cream and I can always be easily tempted by a Francis Coulson sticky toffee pudding but that’s about it. So, we opted for the addition of a cheese course for two people expertly chosen and supplied by the great Marches Deli and that was just the ticket to finish.

So why would you splash on a fine dining take away? If you are the type who likes to tick Michelin stars, or impress your mates with where you had dinner or even give the staff the benefit of your wide and impressive dining experience, I can see how the offer of eating at home may not be that attractive. But if you love great food and great taste; want to invest in the longevity of a local beacon of culinary excellence and you’re comfortable with your own ambience (dress style formal or relaxed – it’s up to you) and random tableware then the news is good. From the end of January (22^nd) Chris and his team will be doing this again. Every Friday and Saturday. A three course £30 a head dinner. Light your pipe, pull on your best smoking jacket, rest your elbow on the mantelpiece and shout Hussar!!

If you can stay safe in everyday life my friends – lockdown just got a bit more bearable.

Links and stuff:

https://www.thewhitebrook.co.uk/

https://www.marchesdeli.co.uk/

http://www.fattoriadelteso.it/index-en.php

11th June 20209th January 2021

Frydays – the Forest & Valley’s best Fish and Chip Shop.

Lockdown has presented us all with challenges hasn’t it. Some are of the gravest nature and filled with sadness and some are frivolous with everything else in-between. To be denied of something seems, more than anything else to create a craving. This is true as much in food and drink as life.

In a prime position on the quayside of Viareggio in Tuscan, Italy home to the manufacture and birth of the world’s most expensive superyachts there is a boutique shop with a Union flag in the window. There is, in this global mega centre for billionaires and the rich and famous, a place where you can buy Marmite, HP sauce and any other brand of British you care to mention. Even the rich it seems get the hankering for the simple thing in life once they are no longer at our fingertips.

And so, it is with lockdown easing that I had the irresistible urge to risk everything and venture out into our new scary world. Essential, means essential and in my case, it was the first fish and chips I’d had for a few months. Once that idea was in my head, nothing, could distract me from it.

The fading seaside towns of the UK are all blessed with these humble fast food shops. Once derided as food of the poor and working classes as well as desperately bad for you – Quinoa does nothing for my wellbeing I’m afraid – who hasn’t enjoyed the gastronomy of fish and chips with the scent of the sea in your nostrils and a force nine blowing straight through your outer clothing?

In wonderful news science changed yet again one week and we all found out that when cooked properly in bubbling hot fat that didn’t soak into the fish and potatoes, our beloved Friday night special was in fact good for you!

But where does this tradition come from? A staple of the working class, British Fish & Chips has become woven into the fabric of society, relatively inexpensive, hearty, good for you and now, traditionally classless. Even the staff in my favourite French seafood restaurant (see blog below) have fish and chips when they come to Britain. Be it myth or legend, since a Catholic Pope decreed “Fish on a Friday” and the meat free days started piling up in the Christian calendar, fish, a cold-blooded creature not regarded as “meat”, hit the culinary headlines. There are myriad tales of fish as a celebratory food even in Viking times and so maybe the Pontiff just rebranded an existing tradition. Catholicism hasn’t always had so much good news in its emanations but I’m calling this their masterpiece!

Our absolute favourite Fish and Chip shop anywhere in the Forest of Dean & Wye Valley is Frydays. This smashing little “friary” tucked away on High Beech Road in Bream is brilliant example of all that’s good about traditional British food. Great fish, properly cooked paired with fab chips given the same treatment. Pete and his staff provide great service from behind the stainless altar to a Friday tradition and recently have made great leaps forward in making their service sustainable. Bring your own bag because one use plastic bags are no longer available here. The staff have moved over wherever possible to sustainable packaging and done away with the styro trays.

In response to Covid and keeping everyone safe it is currently necessary to pre-order by phone (number below) and collect your order at a specific time. There is a short wait outside (dress for the weather) whilst your order is prepared so that it’s all fresh out of the fryer rather than waiting in the paper wrapper. There is plenty of room for social distancing but the staff need a Tannoy so you can hear your name being called.

I’m often asked about good fish and chips because, living locally or holidaying, it’s a treat, and I always have no hesitation in recommending Fryday’s. I’ve lost count of the times a resident says “have you tried….”. the answer is generally yes as I’ve been on a mission since we moved here all those donkeys years ago but if not, I will make an effort to try a new place. And there are some great alternatives in the area, but believe me Fryday’s is worth the extra effort to try even if you are not staying in or around Bream itself.

I am a traditionalist. My order rarely changes – fish, chips and peas week in week out. I love the food, the quality never wains and I love the tradition. I love the familiarity of having the thing I like best over and over again. It isn’t always necessary to try something different. Where tradition holds sway, I feel it much more appropriate to be traditional. There is a wide variety of other stuff on the menu to serve all tastes but to be honest, I couldn’t tell you much about them! Occasionally on a full moon day I might knock myself out and have a fishcake as well.

In a slight aside and with a tipped cap to my Northern roots – I have a guilty pleasure. I do like a pickled onion with my chippy tea. Now, you may have noticed that the fascists have weighed in a stopped anyone producing proper pickled onions any more. Having surveyed many brands I find them softened to a snowflakes palate. There can be nothing less pickled onion-like than a squidgy excuse for a pickle than these soft retch inducing options where the middle always shoots out when you bite into them. As luck would have it, here in Bream and just around the corner from the chippy is a small 7-11 shop. One manufacturer, a nice old lady called Mrs Baxter still produces proper pickled onions in Scotland, the lawless north, where the food fascists can’t get to her. In a single row of merchandising like wild Celtic soldiers in line, lives the antidote to mediocrity in the pickled onion world. Just close enough to be able to order (in normal times) your fish supper and nip and get a jar or 6 – best to panic buy if you can.

Back at the chippy, the portion size is more than ample and renders that pleasurable “stuffed” feeling as a result of finishing the lot. If you have a smaller appetite or haven’t wound-up all-day Friday about the impending feast you will reward your busy and stressful week with, the smaller OAP fish are a great alternative. Here I have to admit that we buy and OAP fish as well and split it for our two terriers who, although not Catholic now also love Chippy Tea Night!

Tell the staff we sent you.

Fryday’s High Beech Rd, Bream, Lydney GL15 6JG 01594 562281

The small print. There are several “best fish and chip shop” awards around the country. Whitby alone has three separate (expensive) winners of three separate awards. You suspect therefore that there might be some sort of financial arrangement behind these gongs. We would like to assure readers that our only financial connection with Fryday’s is where we hand them money for fish and chips on a regular basis!

17th October 201723rd November 2017

Is this the best seafood restaurant in the world?

La Halle fish restaurant, Dunkirk, France, David Broadbent copyright holder, www.davidbroadbent.com,

Is this the best seafood restaurant in the world – Yes!

Apologies in advance to all of the great restaurants we’ve eaten in around the DeanWye and the world, but when it comes to seafood – “the winner is….” – La Halle on the dockside in Dunkirk on the Place du Minck. We’ve written about this place before and it has been my personal goal to test this fish and shellfish joint to the maximum. The first year I was so excited with my find, I thought it may be a fluke. You know the novelty of a new place and the ambiance of it all etc. Anyway, third time lucky and there is no need for the jury to go out. It wins. And if it never ever changes – it still wins!

Looking at it know with the hindsight of having fully scoped Bologna’s food scene on our latest Italian research trip and what’s happening in food service there, La Halle fits perfectly into the real food trend. A restaurant in the back of a fishmongers – perfect synergy of supplier meets restaurant. Actually since my last visit the restaurant has well and truly expanded into the shop with another half dozen permanent covers creeping into the fish counter rather than just at the weekends.

Sea fish and seafood has, without too many exceptions, the most delicate of flavours and it’s hard sometimes to find recipes and sauces that are sympathetic to the fish which is why there are just those few staple sauces. So at La Halle they serve whatever variety of fruits de mer (a dish traditionally served after midnight mass in France), you have chosen with a small pot of hollandaise and a small cup of vinaigrette. If you want to use them – it’s up to you.

The concept is simple. They sell great produce over the counter for you (and local restaurants) to cook at home. Or….they’ll cook it for you and serve it up on a bowl of ice. Actually they’ll also now grill the lobster for you and also offer a natty range of cold smoked fish platters – this one is for you our Norwegian and Finnish pals.

Personally, unadulterated is the way I like it. I get to taste the fish and shellfish without the adornment of anything other than a squeeze of lemon.

I love oysters (Huîtres) and I’m not a big fan of doing anything to them other than eating them. However, I have to say that from now on I will try a few with the La Halle simple onion vinaigrette!

So, my fruits de mer think time around: Breton lobster, crab claws, langoustines, whelks and half a dozen of Utah Beach’s finest oysters. I dressed the whole plate with fresh lemon and ate the lot with the occasional dip of hollandaise when I was feeling racy.

What can I report in this sea food flavour spectacular blog? Well, the lobster was firm sweet and delicate, the prawns the same (especially the super sweet hard won leg meet), the crab claws… just sublime and shows what an underrated meat this is, the whelks – meaty and robust and very “whelky”, and the oysters were the very freshest essence of the ocean. The flavours of the actual produce alone were delicate and absolutely fantastic! Accomplished cooking skills on display – Oh yes! Fine dining, tweezers arranged garnish, decorated with foraged edible flowers and lovingly crafted sauces? No. They just aren’t necessary here.

The produce itself was the support act, the introduction, the symphony and the crescendo! If the seafood here isn’t fresh enough for you – it’s time you bought a fishing boat and an alarm clock and cooked aboard a la Rick Stein!

I’m sure too, that if you knew anything about wine – which I don’t, the wine list scribbled on a blackboard would be similarly impressive. I’m a bit of wine oaf if I’m really honest and more in the Count Arthur Strong school (..what a lovely drop of splosh) than in the “I’m getting aroma of acacia wood camp fire roasted wildebeest” school. So wine pairing is not my personal strength. But I do know what I like and I like Sancerre, so I had two glasses of that with my lunch.

You can’t reserve a table by Facebook, only by phone, so I did – I think. So with equal amounts of optimism and trepidation I showed up just before one. In my best class 6F French, I introduced myself and the fact that I had a reservation – result: bemusement! That heady mix of Midlands and Mancunian wasn’t doing the French mother tongue much good it seemed. I tried again and upping the ante and went all in on the Gallic. Still not getting too far. OK says I, to Madame “that is as good as it gets, un moment while I get the translator out!

But, somewhere in all those hours on the hard chair in the drafty classroom back when school was school (and not some holiday camp, bla, bla……) listening to those scratchy records with the headphones on, something must have stuck and the light bulb came one for the young guy in chef’s blacks behind Madame who now beckoned me forth. You speak English?! She said to him with amazement. “He secretly speaks English” I responded which instantly had the English speaking French diners in fits and taking the mickey out of my lovely host, new best mate and now translator on all things to do with my visit, my travels, how long I was in Dunkirk and why I have such a big camera.

Do they speak great English? No, you’re in France get over it, dust off your school time French and have a laugh – the staff here are great fun.

Is it possible to hold the accolades of World’s Best Seafood Restaurant and World’s Best Fishmongers simultaneously? We don’t know, but if it is – you should already have a tenner at the bookies on this place while the odds are good and before the word gets out.

Facebook @lahallepoissonnerie

Call +33 3 28 63 50 01

Coming next….. we have a nice little piece about a perfect little Gloucestershire gastropub that’s a big hit with locals….

18th July 201718th July 2017

Call of the Kipper

David Broadbent Photography, Northumberland, Beadnell, Seahouse, Swallow Fish, Craster Arms, Salt Water Cafe, food, drink, local, Kipper,

As you may know if you are a regular reader, we have occasionally to take WyeDean Deli Confidential on request tours (see our Tuscany title link). I know, tough life! Anyway, most recently we have been Beadnell on Northumberland’s heritage Coastline. Beadnell is a very pretty little seaside village with a small harbour which is (just) still in use by a few small scale crabbing boats. It has an historic lime kiln, a few pleasure craft beached by the harbour entrance and is flanked by a glorious long sweeping sandy beach on one side and some of Britain’s best rock pooling on the other. So pretty is the village and steeped in the Northumbrian idyll that a new housing development just back from the beach car park is already completely sold before it’s even got out of the ground.

It’s on these trips “dear readers” to paraphrase Keith Floyd the TV cook in whose style everyone else has since followed, that our food&drink-dar, so long honed and tempered to perfection, really comes into its own seeking out the great and the good places to refresh ourselves. A lot has changed in Northumberland food since my last visit. Some of the great and familiar is, thankfully, still going strong. There are too some new venues on the up as well and the general quality has improved immensely in an area positively shoaling with some of the best produce there is.

Beadnell, our chosen base for both trips is a microcosm of the changes in the wider area and a tribute to how well the local tourism economy is doing in these staycation times. Its two village pubs are both open and doing well, no mean feat in the general environment. There has recently been a new café opening, leaning heavily on the freshest of sea food available, and also a street food via shack has hit the beach.

First though to revisit old favourites along the coast at Seahouses to calm the nerves that too much has changed and it’s time for lunch and a quick drink in the Old Ship. Opinions are always personal and for me, this is the best bar in the world. Any inadequate written description from me wouldn’t really do it justice. The floor is still plank but the real fire has been replaced with a more convenient and presumably safer, electronic under study. But the bar is still the same, the seating arrangement and the snug, the ceiling stills drips with fishing memorabilia and the faces in the old black and white prints of fishermen of old still look remarkably similar to the old locals propping up the bar. The town’s brilliant and ever busy fish and chip shops stakes are all still going strong with Neptune ahead of Pinnacles and Lewis’ all with take out and sit-in facilities.

David Broadbent Photography, food and drink, — Neptune Fish n Chips, Seahouses.

David Broadbent Photography, food and drink, Seahouses, — Quite simply, the best bar in the world, The Olde Ship, Seahouses.

Back in Beadnell and we have sampled The Craster Arms on several occasions. The bar manager Connor Taylor oversees activity and can certainly run a bar and staff properly. We really have a thing about service. In Connor Taylor there is no such thing as a private conversation in works time that has to be concluded before noticing a customer. There is no element of his management responsibilities, be they staff, stock or admin, which come before establishing what the customer wants. And, he possesses the skill – seemingly impossible for a journeyman barkeeper – the ability to remember your last order and preferences. You cannot get through the door without him spotting you coming in and mentally placing you in the bar service queue. If it’s busy you get the reassuring acknowledgement that you aren’t invisible and you won’t get missed out. And when you are served there is bonhomie, help, advice and genuine personal recommendation based on sound product knowledge and actual tasting, on tap should you need it. This guy can run a bar!

Why is it that – unlike Connor, the rest of Europe and in particular the States – often in this country we produce bar staff that just can’t run a bar or couldn’t really care less about their inadequate skill set?

The Wye Valley & Forest of Dean Tourism Association is hoping to address this very point in our local area by helping members to interact with schools and would be apprentices to drive home the idea that careers in catering and the associated service industries are “proper” jobs to take pride in, to aspire to be good, if not the best, at. More on that in later blogs.

In The Craster Arms service is brisk and the food is great varied pub staples. The cod in the house fish and chips is gargantuan and each fish must have taken a couple of burly fishermen or Fisherlasses to wrestle it on board, but well-cooked and presented. Our personal favourites were the fish pie main and the simple seared fresh scallops and the Cullen Skink (smokily aromatic smoked haddock, cream and potato soup) starters. For other mains we sampled Beadnell sea trout caught 500 yards from the pub kitchen and seafood linguine with prawns and mussels – all fab!.

Across the road from the Craster Arms is the recently opened (and our now favourite) Salt Water Café. Open from early morning onward, take your pick of breakfast, lunch or dinner or just drop in for the best espresso for miles. For dinner, Salt Water Café offers a great hot fish platter for two but we had Monkfish, samphire and cream sauce – beautiful.

All extremely interesting and very, very tasty. But there was one job, as yet, left undone. One reason good enough to justify a visit alone. A place no cook neglects when passing by this Heritage Coastline – Swallow Fish in Seahouses. The walls of the modest shop in the back streets are be-decked with the photographic who’s who of cookery. The fish counter is stuffed full with oceanic greatness from along the coast. Many years ago on one visit I remember, the then smaller counter, with its seafood display all crammed to one end to accommodate the massive Turbot they had fresh off the boat that morning. We were here to buy Kippers.

We arrived in the late afternoon light as the small smoker on the left of the shop was about to be lit. For years this windowless black hell hole has produced some of the finest smoke imbued goodness there is. The smoking racks were full and the paired Herring hung from the black oily bars ready to produce the Kipper. High in Omega 3 this is a sustainable fish once out of fashion but now firmly back on the menu and the Marine Conservation Society’s eat list. And so with nothing but a few strategically placed piles of sawdust and a flaming copy of The Sun, one of the lads started a centuries old chain reaction of smoke curing to produce a fish-lovers breakfast and high tea staple.

We purchased several pairs of kippers the day before we left for the DeanWye from the Swallow Fish postal service. Allowing us the amusing comedic notion of our next day’s breakfast chasing us down the A1. The plump and oily kippers arrived safe and sound the very next day, packed so tightly in vacpac no odour could escape. We opened and grilled a pair immediately accompanied only by some white pepper and a slice of bread and butter – wow!

The vacpacs keep for a surprisingly long time but we put them in the freezer where they freeze really well and we can very much vouch that there is no difference in taste or texture. All of the retail figures on the humble kipper are up – All Hail – the return of the Kipper.