Larder, Lichfield: tasting menu

Opened less than three months ago, Larder is set to be one of Lichfield’s top spots for foodies. On my first visit to this relaxed restaurant, I loved the bold flavours showcased in their imaginative, seven-course tasting menu.

LICHFIELD

From where I live in the Staffordshire Moorlands, it’s a bit of schlep down to Lichfield. A good hour, sometimes longer, each way. Consequently, I’m not as familiar with its food scene as I probably should be.

But recent experience has convinced me that’s all got to change.

I paid my first visit to Lichfield Food Festival last Summer and was mightily impressed – with the city itself as well as the Festival. In the Autumn I was wowed by the tasting menu at The Boat Inn which has just been awarded Newcomer of the Year in the Top 50 Gastropub Awards.

And now I’ve discovered the gem that is Larder.

LARDER, LICHFIELD

Larder opened its doors on Bore Street, Lichfield, in November 2018, less than three months before my visit. Although you’d be hard-pressed to guess that, as everything seemed to be operating like clockwork.

Well, nearly everything. In the bar before the meal, one of the staff did smilingly apologize for the sound system suddenly being ‘knackered’. It was nice to hear that refreshing use of the vernacular, in keeping with Larder’s mission statement of ‘All Flavour. No Pomp’. Which is fine with me. Even that hiccup was short lived, however, as the music soon started up again.

But perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Larder got over any teething problems pretty swiftly. Chef Ryan Wilson is formerly of the highly regarded Four Seasons restaurant at Swinfen Hall so I guess he’s a seasoned (ahem!) professional.

MENUS

Evenings at Larder, there’s a three-course set price dinner (£40, or £35 for the vegetarian version), a five course tasting menu (£50/£45 veggie) and a seven course tasting menu (£60/£55).

We (I was accompanied by my partner, ID) did make a show of politely perusing the menus. But we both knew exactly what we’d come for. If there are tasting menus available, we’ll be having one. And if there’s a choice of tasting menus, one of which has more courses than the other, no prizes for guessing which we’ll be ordering.

As you can see from the menu above, you don’t really know what you’re going to be getting beyond the basic ingredients. But that’s all part of the fun!

Plus, there’s no difficult choices to make, no cost-benefit analysis and fretting about what you’re missing when you pick one dish over another. You get to try everything, including things you’d never order in a million years  – and which you just might turn out to love.

SNACKS (PLUS A WORD ON PHOTOS)

Greedy people like me love the now common practice of quality restaurants serving up little extra snacks. Happily, Larder is no exception and we were brought two plates while we were in the bar.

Hang on though, before I tell you about those, a word of apology about the photos.

As is usual these days, I’d planned to take a few snaps to accompany this post so took along a basic camera and lens. In the past I’ve often had ID do evening restaurant photography for me as the lighting is usually pretty challenging. He’s a photographer who knows what he’s doing, has appropriate lighting etc. But I’ve been improving my own photography and also trying to be a bit more discreet about it, not least so as not to annoy other diners, so I take minimal equipment and try to do it fast.

However, the lighting at Larder (fine for eating, difficult as hell for food photography) stumped me. Even ID had problems, particularly due to the equipment I’d brought. So please accept my apologies for the food not looking at great as it really did.

Actually, I’ve just remembered, as evidence that the lighting wasn’t great (or perhaps that someone needs new glasses): ID thought there was a third snack. It turned out to be a dish containing two rolled, black, hot towels to wipe our hands with.

Anyway, the two snacks boded well for what was to come. A crunchy cracker with onions seeds topped with raw beef plus delightfully cheesy dinky little doughnuts.

CRUMPET & CULTURED BUTTER

Upstairs in the restaurant (the bar is on the ground floor and there’s a top floor ‘kitchen table’ bookable for 4-8 people having a tasting menu), we were soon brought an extremely good twist on the usual bread course.

This consisted of a lovely little crumpet, flavoured with black truffle and accompanied by a pat of golden, cultured butter.

Coincidentally, I’ve recently been experimenting with making sourdough crumpets at home. Sadly, with little success. So I was mightily impressed and, yes, a little jealous, when I found myself eating the best crumpet I’d ever tasted.

If you get to try one of these delights, break it open with your fingers, bring it up to your nose and give it a really good sniff. Doughy, with a pleasing, fermented aroma and a hint of truffle. Heaven. Texture-wise, it was perfect too. Lightly crisp on the outside, yielding and soft within.

You might think there’s not a lot to say about butter, but I beg to differ. I’m a big fan of the stuff and would happily pop a pat in my mouth like cheese. I’d first had cultured butter at another restaurant that knows how to lay on a good tasting menu: The Lighthouse in Boylestone, Derbyshire. (Incidentally, click on that link to my review to see what good restaurant photography looks like when ID’s got his lighting and equipment!). Cultured butter has a very distinctive, strong taste (a little bit farmyardy perhaps, but in a very good way) and the version here was nice and salty. Just how I like it.

BEETROOT – PORK FAT – SAMPHIRE

I think it’s the photograph of this, our first course proper, that most disappoints me. Even more difficult to capture due to the dark chunks of perfectly cooked beetroot at its heart, I hope my words can do justice to this dish, as the image can’t.

The beetroot had been cooked over open coals, imparting it with a strong smoky flavour. And when I say strong I mean like, have you ever lived in a house with an open fire, and there’s a sudden draft of wind down the chimney so that coal-smelling smoke bursts into the room? Like that. But in a good way.

I often find myself, trying to describe food, qualifying it by saying ‘but in a good way’. I’ve done it twice in this post already. I think it’s because food so often evokes memories, especially childhood ones, that we can’t help making connections, however odd they seem.

When the menu said ‘pork fat’, I thought perhaps it would be trendy lardo – cured back fat often sliced thin and served as an antipasto. But then, what do I know about what’s trendy? I’m a fat, middle-aged woman living in Cheddleton.

The pork fat turned out to be lovely little crisp, puffed up bits of fat, the texture of popcorn. I’d recently made a few of my own, albeit as a byproduct of making pork rillettes, although they were a lot browner. And, like my crumpets, not as good.

The sea vegetable, samphire, brought a fresh and tang to this complex dish that lingered long on the palate.

PRAWN – RHUBARB – GARLIC

If you don’t like too much showiness with your food, then you might initially be a bit sniffy when Larder serves you a prawn impaled on a pair of chef’s tweezers.

But you’d be wrong. That’s because it encourages you to put it in your mouth all in one go. Dinky as the prawn was, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one, had a knife and fork been provided, to cut off silly little bits. No. Eaten all at once, you got the full flavour.

As someone who usually prefers a good colour on their prawns, I was surprised at the intensity of this very lightly seared, Argentinian prawn. Like the beetroot dish, it had long lasting flavour, with wild garlic and a delicious powder reminiscent of a bashed up prawn cracker.

The tiny cubes of rhubarb gave contrasting crunch, albeit with little flavour. Still, it was a nod to Larder’s goal of using seasonal ingredients, with the forced variety currently appearing in the shops.

CHINESE CHICKEN – TRUFFLE – AGED SOY

You could say that the two small pieces of boned chicken wing in the next dish really weren’t much to look at. Especially if you think one of the joys of chicken is a crispy, golden skin.

But their pale appearance belied a huge whack of flavour. Quite how two mouthfuls of soft, perfectly cooked chicken could be quite so full of chicken-y-ness, I don’t know.

One of the pieces sat on a little heap of delicate, noodle-like enoki mushrooms. A broth of beautiful intensity was poured over them at the table.

The other piece of chicken came on a skewer, wrapped in lettuce. Here, the aged soy came to the fore just on the right side of too salty; perfect for me who loves salty flavours.

STONE BASS – ONION – CAPER

Formerly known as meagre or wreckfish, stone bass’s re-marketing (like pilchards’ transformation into ‘Cornish sardines’) seems to have done its fortunes the world of good. This was my first taste of it and, although it didn’t have quite so fine a flavour as sea bass, I thought it made a pretty good alternative to currently unsustainable wild sea bass.

It probably helped that this particular piece of fish was cooked perfectly. Just done and moist inside with a crispy, crunchy skin.

It was accompanied by onions cooked three ways: pickled, confit and as a foam. While all were good in their own right and brought something to the party (texture, acidity, sweetness), I especially liked the airy onion foam. It reminded me of a top-notch onion tart where the onions have been cooked slowly in butter until they’re almost falling apart and take on a lovely sweetness.

I can usually take or leave capers, but I even liked these particular examples of pickled flower bud. They were subtly flavoured and didn’t overpower the dish as some inferior ones can.

VENISON – SQUASH – RAISIN – CHILLI

At first, I couldn’t tell where the chilli was coming from in this colourful plate. Turns out it was just around the edge of the nicely rare piece of venison. There wasn’t too much of the chilli, it just left a whisper of a warm afterglow.

Consequently, the flavour of the venison still came through. As with beef fillet, the loin often doesn’t have as much flavour as the tougher cuts which need longer cooking (see my own, rather more humble, recipe for Venison Stew for an example of that). But this venison was impressively well flavoured.

Venison is often traditionally accompanied by sweet elements, so the choice of squash and raisins was a sound one. The raisins were fat and juicy, the squash puree smooth. The one thing I was unsure of (and I mean one thing from the whole menu, not just this dish) was that lump of squash. Not too hard, not too soft, you couldn’t say there was actually anything wrong with it. But, compared to everything else we’d eaten, wasn’t it just a little boring? Maybe a little charring or some-such would have sexed it up a bit?

Nevertheless, as with the preceding dishes, everything was perfectly seasoned. I also loved the added crunch from the pumpkin seeds and the drizzle of meaty juices.

PINEAPPLE – MINT – BUTTERMILK

Apologies again for this photo. What you probably can’t see is that this course consisted of a cool sphere of fruity pineapple sorbet, a tinglingly fresh mint granita and, sandwiched between the two, a perky hit of buttermilk.

Was it a palate cleanser? Was it a pudding? Who cares? It was stunningly good with the clean, pure flavour of the individual ingredients shining out.

LEMON – GINGER – PINE

In the wrong hands, a dessert including lemon AND pine could end up like an explosion in a toilet cleaner factory. But, as you’ve probably guessed by now, that’s not what you’re going to get at Larder.

The lemon came in the form of a rectangle of velvety lemon curd. This was wonderfully tart and not overly sweet. The ginger element was a very gingery and very creamy ginger ice-cream. Textural contrast came with shards and crumbles of meringue. But it was the pine that we ended up ooh-ing and aah-ing about.

The pine, largely powder, was intriguing. It had a spicy pepperiness that was quite unexpected. We found it to be one of those on-the-edge flavours that, at first, you’re not quite sure whether it’s vile or one of the best things you’ve ever tasted.

We had a similar experience when sampling 70% dark chocolate with bee pollen from bean to bar maker Seed Chocolate. Other half’s first impression of that was ‘dry rot in old (wooden) drawers’. But, tasting a little more, then a little more, we grew to love it. And that’s how I felt about the pine, after being unable to stop scraping tiny morsel after tiny morsel off my plate.

Talking of chocolate…

With the bill, Larder gave us each another extra treat. It was a little gold-wrapped bar of chocolate, flavoured with lime and miso. Us being us, it didn’t even get as far as the car. We eaten it all before we’d left the restaurant. Suitably, given the meal we’d just enjoyed, the parting gift was robustly flavoured and left you wanting more.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Larder describes itself as “a relaxed, honest, ingredient-led…modern restaurant proudly serving quality produce with bold flavours … that packs a punch”. Based on my first experience, I’d say every word of that is bang on.

Besides the outstanding food, all of the staff were friendly, efficient and appeared enthusiastic about what they were serving up.

Admittedly, even by tasting menu standards, these are small courses. But don’t let that put you off. Go to Larder for an incredible taste experience, in my book an extremely good night out, and not what The Beano used to call ‘a slap-up feed’. However, if tasting menus aren’t your thing, don’t forget there’s also standard three course dinners available plus two, three and five course lunches.

Personally, judging by the immaculate food they’re producing after less than three months, I can’t wait to eat what’s on Larder’s next tasting menu.

Highly recommended.