Kitchen + Bar, Bristol Old Vic: ‘A badly rehearsed pantomime’ – restaurant review

Since its new foyer opened in 2018, the UK’s oldest continuously running theatre has had several attempts at working out what to do with their restaurant.

Bristol Event Catering Company is now running the show at the Old Vic, promising a “deli-fresh foodie offering just right for summer”.

Initial perusal of the menu is promising. Small plates, but you’d be hard pressed to find a big plate in Bristol these days.

We order seared Stokes Farm 8oz onglet steak (£12), pan fried hake fillet, lemon vinaigrette (£8.50), beef dripping cornbread with whipped butter (£5.50), Westcombe cheddar croquettes with chimichurri (£5), and courgette and pea fritters with crispy kale (£7).

We took our seats. I didn’t want to take my jacket off for fear of my forearms being permanently glued to the table, which is never a good start.

Act one was Westcombe cheddar croquettes, in a miniature skillet. The tantalising tower of deep fried nuggets was easy on the eye but less so anywhere else.

It very quickly became apparent that the chimichurri was entirely necessary to lend any sort of character to the croquettes which by themselves were bland and interspersed with slightly too obvious chunks of potato. The last thing you want to see when you pull apart a croquette is a string of potato skin. If they had advertised them as potato croquettes with a shy mention of cheddar, they would have been right on.

There’s no doubt that this dish looks good, although it might anger the ‘we want plates’ community.

Next, cornbread. A portion size big enough to make the feeding the 5,000 story more believable. The accompanying whipped butter is delicious, creamy and perfectly salted. Sadly, if the cornbread had ever seen beef dripping it did a bloody good job of disguising it. By no means an unpleasant dish, but one that kept reminding me of its giant starchy presence from the corner of the table.

Three generous discs of courgette and pea fritters are next to grace the stage, hidden in a snowstorm of parmesan. The accompanying crispy kale is tasty and I’m relieved to see something green, but it needs salt. The chefs here seem to be under the impression that seasoning is to be rationed.

As for the fritters – I’d be pleasantly surprised if my little brother had brought them home from food tech but less so to be served them in a restaurant. Devoid of any meaningful flavour or purpose.

The fritters almost looked as though they’d been deliberately buried.

I’m struggling to make the connection between what we’ve eaten thus far and the ‘deli’ and ‘fresh’ elements we were promised. Has the chef been struck down and the understudy wheeled in? If so, I’d be pleased to make an introduction to my good friends mint, sage and indeed the entire fresh herb family.

The hake arrives next and briefly re-ignites my optimism. The skin is crisp and it’s thoughtfully presented. It’s slightly overcooked but forgivable, if it weren’t for the lemon vinaigrette. Citrus and fish, yin and yang, so often a dependable pairing, have not delivered here. The lemon is totally hogging the floor. The more I eat the more I can feel the inside of my mouth shrivelling up with the acid.

The hake was supposedly served with a parsley mayonnaise. Any hint of fresh herbs were completely wiped out by the lemon, which was taking no prisoners.

A good steak could still redeem them. I pray silently for a resolution, a surprising twist at the end of a hero’s journey that would just about tip this into mediocrity.

Over the course of just four dishes I seem to have developed a Pavlov-style response to the sound of the service bell, which can be heard loud and clear in the otherwise almost empty restaurant. But this is a response of stress rather than salivation.

Again, the slices of steak are carefully laid out on the plate and look appetising. It has been cooked rare, as recommended on the menu and requested at the bar. The harissa ketchup is violent enough to sear your tastebuds, which is no great loss considering there’s really not much to taste here. The steak is chewy, but then it is an onglet. There’s no excuse for the lack of seasoning though, which once again leaves me desperately reaching for the salt.

I love the giant spring onion for entertainment value if nothing else. It’s been seared, which leaves it just stringy enough to make it virtually impossible to cut. In fact it would probably be perfectly good for use as a belaying rope at a nearby climbing centre. Or perhaps for aerial stunts in the theatre next door.

I do love a bit of spring onion root with my steak.

Despite tasting it multiple times by itself, I’m still unable to identify the golden rubble the steak was garnished with. A mediocre steak with violent harissa, unidentifiable rubble and an oversized spring onion is certainly a memorable statement and not a combination you find often – for good reason.

It’s easy to see now why they only recommend three dishes between two people – you genuinely wouldn’t want any more. Nothing to do with the portion sizes of course, although they were generous for small plates. If you’re set to eat here in the interval, there is a good chance that you’ll either fall asleep in the final act or spend it picking steak out of your teeth.

Towards the end of the meal the lights go down to a dim shade of blue. I couldn’t have planned a more apt metaphor.

I’ve eaten at Bristol Old Vic and it has been truly triumphant. But as the curtain fell on this meal I couldn’t help thinking it was more a pantomime than anything else, and a badly rehearsed one at that.

Bristol Old Vic, King Street, Bristol, BS1 4ED
bristololdvic.org.uk

All photos: Meg Houghton-Gilmour

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