There’s an admirable purity to the food at Emberwood, a new hotel brasserie in the middle of Bath. It is, according to the website, all about ‘simple cooking over natural flame’. No surprises there. It would be more remarkable if its kitchen wasn’t fuelled by charcoal. But there’s a confidence here, and an absolute belief in the quality of the ingredients. It is also a rather splendid place to while away a long, merry lunch.
The room is quietly majestic, with high, stucco-clad ceilings, marble-topped tables, handsome lamps and a mass of greenery, in pots and cascading down shiny brass fittings. There are Atlantic-blue leather banquettes, fluted pillars and a roaming martini trolley manned by the most charming of barmen. Cash has most definitely been splashed.
We eat fat charred scallops, beautifully cooked and drenched in garlic butter, the dairy excess tempered by a sharp gremolata whack. A pair of Porthilly oysters, brinily cool, come topped with a blob of homemade chilli sauce. Oak-smoked beef croquettes lack smoke, and the shards of meat are rather lost in an excess of béchamel sauce. But the crust is crisp and golden, and they ooze winsomely.
Scallops are ‘beautifully cooked and drenched in garlic butter’
Cornish crab on toast suffers somewhat from a surfeit of mayonnaise. It looks like a Russian salad. When crustaceans are this fine, you want that sweetly saline flavour to sing, rather than choke in a creamy excess. Ex-dairy Southwest sirloin is a lot better: chewy, grown-up beef with heart and soul and swagger. It’s one of the best pieces of cow I’ve eaten for ages, and all that age means a magnificently bosky bovine heft. Equally fine is the vast piece of monkfish, served on the bone, zingingly fresh, exquisitely cooked and gloriously meaty. We pick every last scrap off the bone. The accompanying greens are a little tough, needing longer over the flames. But it’s a minor misstep. There’s salted caramel cake from the pudding trolley, and a delicate cloud of choux pastry, filled with yuzu cream.
Service is sweet and warm and smart, and Maud, my slightly errant Jack Russell, is treated like a long-lost friend. They even move us from the bar to a corner table, to make her more comfortable. Great restaurants are all about these tiny details, and (save for a few tiny quibbles) Emberwood is a class act from beginning to end. Book in for lunch. Linger all day.
About £55 per head. Emberwood, 5 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HH; emberwoodbath.com
