Putting the shine back on Silversmiths

 

Pork belly with apple

LAST time I was at Silversmiths restaurant on Arundel Street with a camera I was lurking on the corner trying to snap TV superchef Gordon Ramsay for The Star.

I found him in the street making a phone call during a break from filming his Kitchen Nightmares restaurant rescue show and got my front page picture – it was a bit blurry – but he caught me. “Did you write that piece in the paper?” he quizzed. I had to admit I had indeed wrote that he was a “foul-mouthed chef.”

He paused and walked silently back into the building. Interview over! When the series  was screened in 2009 there were 310 F-words in one episode alone and Silversmiths has become known all over the world.

Ten years later I’m back, this time legitimately, to see whether it will be third time lucky for this Sheffield restaurant since then owner Justin Rowntree, who had called in Ramsay to save his struggling enterprise, sold a transformed business on in 2017.

The last two reincarnations of the place have failed and doubtless there were a few more F-words when it suddenly closed in August, leaving diners in the lurch. So Silversmiths has a reputation to rebuild.

And Justin is back but in a different role. He’s been called in by new owners Rick Bailey and Matt Ray as consultant to publicise and advise on the relaunch. In a sense he’s doing a bit of a Ramsay “but without the swearing,” he laughed, inviting me to do a review as a guest diner.

Silversmiths’ interior

They’ve pinned their hopes on tousle-haired head chef Ashley Bagshaw, just 24, who has already made a name for himself at the two AA rosette Chequers pub at Froggat Edge, to put the shine back on. I’ve already enjoyed his cooking at the much acclaimed Airoma pop-up venue with best mate Luke Hanson.

He’s opened with two menus: Simply British, with old favourites like fish and chips, a nod to Ramsay who instituted a pie night (here fish pie and a home-smoked brisket), burger, lamb rump and a steak; and a shorter, more expensive and adventurous a la carte featuring a mustard panna cotta starter, main course grouse with hazelnuts and a trio of desserts separate to the British menu.

Blue cheese cigar

The restaurant, which seats around 60, seems wider than I recall (there is a separate dining room upstairs). That’s all to do with clever lighting, I’m told, and a row of mirrors helps. The familiar banquette which runs the length of the wall has been retained and so has the stage, a relic of its days as the One Eleven Club and Justin’s Runaway Girl (Ramsay changed the name).

Ashley cooks brightly. A blue cheese ‘cigar’, encased in a crisp pastry sheath (£7) which had absorbed the cheesy flavours, along  with melon balls and pine nuts, was an elegant starter. I had hoped for the panna cotta, which proved unavailable, so went for a very precisely steamed piece of cod enlivened by a hot but not blistering harissa sauce (£8)

My main course was pork belly, perhaps because I’d read that day it had been declared one of the world’s top ten nutritious foods, in at number eight between Swiss chard and beet greens.

Sticky toffee pudding

Belly pork can be a dream of tenderness and succulence and this didn’t let me down, although my initial disappointment at the absence of a crisp piece of crackling was tempered by seeing Ashley had shattered the skin into crumbs and scattered them on top. The porkiness was continued through a quenelle of black pudding mash (£16). There was a nice piece of roast apple on top.

Chicken is so ubiquitous today that it often makes for a very dull meal. Here a supreme (£16) was full of cluck with plenty of flavour, alongside a rosti made up of a medley of root vegetables rather than just potato, and creamed leeks.

The long bar dominates the room and tables now occupy the stage which makes this a warm, friendly feeling place. Good music on the sound system, too.

We were greeted by general manager Paul Handley but most of the time we were served ably and enthusiastically by waiter and trainee sommelier Nathan.

We finished up with a chocolate suet pudding and a pretty nifty sticky toffee pudding.

The new Silversmiths is a bright, friendly place with a more than decent menu which should please those whose tastes are conservative along with others who want something a little bit different. Let’s wish it well.

Martin Dawes was a guest of the restaurant in writing this review.

*Silversmiths is at 111 Arundel Street, Sheffield S1 2NT. Web: http://www.silversmithsrestaurant.co.uk

Head chef Ashley Bagshaw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Now for something completely different

Ashley (left) and Luke in cheffy mode at Airoma

LUKE Hanson flashes me a wide grin. “We’re just two big kids messing about. We enjoy having a laugh.”

By ‘we’ he means himself and best mate Ashley Bagshaw, soon to re-open Silversmiths as head chef, who run pop-up restaurant Airoma, named after a dish that has not yet been set before the public palate, in the Loft Bar at Kelham Island, Sheffield.

It’s their third outing and Luke, from the British Oak, Mosborough has e-mailed offering me a free ticket for favour of review, and a discount for whoever tags along. I bring a mate, ex-pub landlord, Masterchef contestant (floored by a fish) and food blogger Craig Harris, so the lads were getting two bloggers for the price of almost one.

When we get over the shock of being charged £8 for a pint and a half of Kelham Island’s Easy Rider (the brewery is bang next door so those beer miles which upped the price must have been via Newcastle) we settle at one of three tables. There are 30 guests.

Tickets are £45 so I joke that we could have done Joro for lunch at that price. What we are about to get turns out to be thoroughly entertaining.

It’s a sort of tasting menu in a series of small plates, some more serious than others, featuring world classics. We begin close to home with Bacon Butty, a teeny-weeny yeasty white loaf with a brown sauce butter and crunchy little bits of salty bacon, the sort of thing you might get as an amuse in a posh restaurant.

Crocket or croquette – it tasted great

We move on (when the beer runs out we stick to water) to what is to my mind the night’s star dish. Instead of a menu there’s a screen and flashed up is “Bubble & Tweet: roast chicken dinner crocket, crispy cabbage.”

For crocket read croquette, chefs never could spell. I love it. Encased within the breadcrumbed exterior is a complete mini meal: roast chicken, vegetables and stuffing, all precisely flavoured. It sits on the now fashionable crispy cabbage and, carefully balanced on the croquette, is a wafer-thin crispy shard of chicken skin, which everybody knows is the best thing about a Sunday roast.

Not sure how they did the skin (was it dehydrated first?) but it was impressive.

Next we go all oriental with hot and sour flavours from a langoustine gyoza (Japanese dumpling) coupled with a Thai marshmallow, except that something’s missing. I stop a passing waitress and report I am a gyoza-free zone. It turns out that several other diners are in the same boat.

It’s quickly remedied and yes, there was langoustine, but the dish was hot, hot, hot, the marshmallow only providing light relief. Craig detected Szechuan pepper, and then some more.

“It tasted well when we made it but the flavours kept on giving,” said Luke later.

My tastebuds soon got some comfort from what looked like a Fab ice lolly from the Sixties, complete with sprinkles. This was the girly rival to the boys’ Zoom, linked to the Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds series. I never knew Lady Penelope put gin in her lollies. Great fun.

Beef shin, corned beef, crisps

During a break I ask why they are doing this. Do they have their own place in mind? Not if Ashley’s going curtain-up on Silversmiths Mark 3 (or is it 4?).

Turns out they feel mildly constrained by working to order, worrying about meeting profit margins and getting the knock-back from owners on ideas they like.  There are times all chefs will feel like gastronomic Pythons and say ‘Now for something completely different.’

“With this, we can do whatever we want and, hopefully, build up a bit of a reputation,” Luke says.

The lads have spent time working together, chiefly at the Rising Sun, Fulwood, and Chequers at Froggatt Edge, and developing the pop-up took about two years. Hardest part was finding the venue and Airoma was the first ‘do’ at this new function room.

Did Lady Penelope have gin in hers?

Next up was the dish which came closest to the croquette for me, a roundel of oh-so-soft and melting beef contrasting with some home made corned beef.  “We used beef cheek for the corned beef and the shin was braised for nine hours in black treacle,” said Ashley, a chef who is all curls and tattoos.

The dish had what I thought was a second outing for the brown sauce seen in the opening dish, in the form of a jel, but it turned out to be greatly reduced Henderson’s Relish. That brown sauce was actually good old HP!

There were a couple of home made potato crisps as garnish, so good they can always go into business making them if restaurants pall.

There was more, notably a very well-judged piece of parkin and some fun bourbon biscuits with a parmesan shortbread.

So if I had paid the full whack, was it worth it? Certainly. Not everything worked completely but enough for me. I reckon you can always tell when a kitchen is having fun. Some dishes may never be seen again, others will be ideas still in the making.

Just like that airoma which, I gather, was to be a take on Aero. Hasn’t made it yet but it did spawn a pop-up.

*Luke and Ashley will next be messing about and having a laugh with Airoma at the Loft Bar on November 28. Book on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/airomaonce-upon-a-time-tickets-75578576557?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

*You can read what Craig thought of it  here

Luke (left) and Ashley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner with Santa

Crabby Scotch egg at the Rising Sun

The candle is flickering on the table at the Rising Sun, Nether Green. The weatherman has warned of snow. And over the speakers comes Hark The Angels. Bliss. Hang on a minute! Isn’t it the first day of spring? Abbeydale Brewery’s Moonshine bitter must be pretty strong to lose me nine months . . .

Don’t blame the beer, blame Spotify. Restaurant manager Faith Nicholson dived behind the bar to select another track but the sound system seemed to go along all evening with Wizzard in wishing it could be Christmas every day. It raised a smile.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Moonshine, the Abbeydale’s flagship beer, but I’ve never been to the Rising Sun, the brewery tap. It had a makeover last year and the moment you walk into the big, comfy bar with its gleaming row of a dozen hand pumps you think ‘nice place, nice people, nice beer.’ Or as Google puts it: ‘Convivial boozer run by a local microbrewery.’

Along with the makeover went a revamp of the food, which I gather hadn’t risen much above the level of snacks. But when some patrons looked at the newly minted menu they spluttered into their beer. “Rabbit croquettes?” shrieked one as if they were the mark of Satan. “It’s situated in the middle of Nether Green, not the middle of Baslow,” he complained on TripAdvisor. Pie and peas or bangers and mash yes but was it all becoming a bit too gastro?

While some were protesting ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ others were moaning that eaters were taking tables from drinkers. Diners were unhappy sitting next to dogs licking their rear ends. The Rising Sun is dog friendly but there are limits.

There seems to have been a happy compromise. The pub had an unloved Tap Room which, with a help of some pots of Farrow & Ball pigeon blue, has been turned into the prosaically named 42-cover Dining Room where dogs do not go. There’s a new menu which caters for all and we had been invited as guests to try it out.

It looked pretty good to us. There’s fish and chips, pie, sausage and burgers but, whisper it softly, there’s also turbot: posh fish at a not so posh £15.95. The Rising Sun does well for fish as there’s also stonebass, that lurker of wrecks, with Lyonnaise potatoes, as well cod with an olive and bean cassoulet for starters.

I began with a spiced crab Scotch egg (£6.50) which I think is a dish from Galton Blakiston of Michelin-starred Morston Hall in Norfolk (good food, sniffy service) which I loved, the yolk runny, plenty of crabmeat, the chilli slowly arriving on the palate. My wife had a special, a lively salad of crisp squid, crayfish, loads of peashoots and most of the other things listed on the menu.

My main was braised beef cheek (£12.95), this decade’s cheffy answer to braised lamb shank. It could have been hotter but it was smashing: tasty, tender and juicy on a slick of a horseradish mash with little aniseedy notes which may have come from ‘textures of shallots.’ Now when I see that word on the menu I want to reach for a rolling pin to give the chef a good whacking, if only to stop the kitchen ‘anointing’ its salads or ‘enhancing’ sauces in future.

The Rising Sun’s turbot

But that would be unkind to joint head chef Ashley Bagshaw and chef de partie Rose Heggie because the cooking is light and bright. That turbot, from Mann’s of Sharrow Vale, wasn’t a big piece (it’s a luxury fish) but it was precisely cooked with lots of flavour and served on a bed of lettuce, peas, bacon and mushrooms, very French.

Service from Faith, who started 15 years ago as glass collector at the brewery’s other pub, the Devonshire Cat, was pleasant and swift although probably not as speedy as that day in May, 1891, when 50 members of the Engineers Volunteers marched up to Ranmoor Church on parade and rematerialised in the yard of the Rising Sun, where pints were handed through a window. Then landlord John Guest Taylor was fined £2 for serving out of hours. I wonder what those Tommy Atkins’ would have thought of rabbit croquettes?

They’d have liked the desserts. Co-head chef Luke Hanson  has built up a reputation for them. A whisky flavoured chocolate truffle with raspberry sorbet packed a high-octane cocoa punch while I was entranced by the firm, sponge-textured ‘custard cake’ in my rhubarb and custard ensemble. Both cost £5.95.

So there you have it. Good beer, good food (and more good wines promised when the wine list is updated by Starmore Boss of Sharrow Vale), good service and a good atmosphere. Not too sure about the music, though. We left shortly after the sound system played Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

“I’ll have to make a play list,” said Faith.

Rising Sun: 471 Fulwood Road, Sheffield S10 3QA. Tel: 0114 230 3855. Web www.risingsunsheffield.co.uk

Rhubarb and custard