Little French
2 North View, Westbury Pk, Bristol
It’s hot, damned hot. Hotter than Dubai, hotter than Death Valley, hotter than a Carolina Reaper vindaloo, devoured in the bowels of hell. So hot that even the air conditioning, newly installed, has given up the ghost, just stopped, that blessedly chilled air replaced by the sad drip of lukewarm water.
All around us in Little French people don’t so much sit as wilt like thirsty corn, faces slick with sweat. In the open kitchen, at the back of the long room, it’s hotter still, more hammam bath than culinary core, as chefs guzzle litres of water while battling with the pans. So hardly the ideal of circumstances to visit any restaurant, let alone a neighbourhood Bristol place opened a mere three weeks back.
Littl French is the sort of small, unpretentious bistro – with copper-topped tables and comfortable booths – that is now rarer in France than a jolly Parisian
But Little French is good. Very good indeed. So good that the sweat becomes less setback and more seasoning. It’s the sort of small, unpretentious bistro – with copper-topped tables and comfortable booths – that is now rarer in France than a jolly Parisian. Over here, though, they’re becoming more and more common. Oh, l’irony. French is the new Spanish. Or is it Nordic? Or is French just the new French? Who cares when the food is this good? Because Little French not only has the sort of menu, bursting with Gallic greatest hits, that you want to marry and grow old with, but with chef proprietor Freddy Bird at the helm, a kitchen with the talent to bring it alive.
Bar snacks first, and milk-fed lamb’s kidney, gently creamy rather than aggressively uric, with a cap of frazzled fat and a blushing pink inside. At its side a splodge of Dijon mustard. I thought Barrafina in Covent Garden did the best kidneys there were. They’ve just been beaten. There are pristine prawns, gently fried, firm rather than woolly, that still wear the scent of the sea. We suck every last scrap of sweet goo from the head. Then clams with garlic, simple and sensational.
But Little French is not only about doing as little as possible to exceptional ingredients, as laudable as that is. There are slightly more classical dishes, beautifully done, like sweetbreads with fresh peas and crisp bacon, in a silken sauce rich with chicken stock and Riesling. The wine gives the whole thing a poignant sweetness, remembrance of things long past. Rather more robust is a parsley soup, an intense, verdantly swampy green, heavy on the chlorophyll and chicken stock, with small, chewy brown nuggets of snail and girolle.
‘This is the French food we never ate as children,’ says Matthew between bites of rabbit leg in a soft mustard sauce, heavy on the vinegar and tarragon. I like heavy on the vinegar and tarragon. This is a kitchen unafraid of the bold. Like the anchoïade dip, bellowing of anchovies and garlic, through which we drag charred, just-chewy lamb chops. A burnt onion purée has more subtle allure. While a beef tomato salad, fresh in from the South of France, is at the very peak of its luscious sweetness, simply anointed with oil and salt.
Little French is not only about doing as little as possible to exceptional ingredients, as laudable as that is. There are slightly more classical dishes, beautifully done
Then the star attraction, a regal 1.2-kilo turbot so fresh I can taste its last lunch. Whole turbots, as you well know, are a ‘thing’ – Brat and Darby’s and the rest. But rather than roast it whole over the coals, they cook the fish en pappillote. Which means tender chunks of flesh and masses of buttery juices too. It’s so good that it barely needs the hollandaise tartare (‘A plushy path to the next world,’ says Matthew, slurping it with a spoon). Instead, we use it as a lusciously rich dip for crisp, hot, salty fries.
Pudding is a boozy, intensely rich chocolate mousse, heavy on the double cream, and a light, lithe prune and Armagnac tart, with lashings of Armagnac custard. By now, the room is like a furnace, and we really couldn’t care less. This place is really magnifique. Serious cooking at eminently sensible prices. Vive la France! En Angleterre.
About £35 per head