We visited Bellota in Bury St Edmunds for dinner on Friday. Bellota is a recently opened contemporary Spanish fine dining restaurant, centrally located in the mediaeval grid.
We generally allow a little time for new openings to find their feet but Grace Dent reviewed Bellota in The Guardian a few weeks prior to our visit and not only did she set high expectations but almost certainly guaranteed that a follow-up booking will be unattainable. Something she openly acknowledges in her review with the faintest note of apology.
As you enter the restaurant, the compression and low ceiling of the entrance area releases into a capacious bar-style seating area overlooking an open kitchen. It creates theatre and transparency, enables guest interaction and provides for connection and personal service. But the concept plays to some of my most curmudgeonly grievances.
I don't want to go home smelling like I pulled a shift in the kitchen nor do I wish to relive the experience of dinner via the ingrained smells in my clothes on the journey home. Perching on a bar stool for nearly three hours is an experience to be endured, not enjoyed. I would also prefer to choose who I sit and eat with, particularly at this price point. I'm not antisocial or unfriendly, but being an ambivert is exhausting at the best of times and it makes it hard to truly relax in that type of environment.
We were warmly greeted by Ruben (Head Chef) and clambered into the heavily padded bar stools, willing and ready to be fed. They did feel like infant high chairs come to think of it. I am convinced that this is designed to be a great leveller, and I defy anyone to execute this manoeuvre with grace. Trying to extricate yourself with an elegant dismount is equally fraught and an exercise in elbows and apologies to your neighbours.
We seldom drink and it was pleasing to see that the menu featured a considered range of non-alcoholic drinks which worked with the menu. Far too often, non-alcoholic choices are token and they needn't be. I'd not encountered the Barcelona based Le Tribute mixers before and their Olive Lemonade was an excellent complement to the food, not being cloyingly sweet as the flavour profile of a lot of lemonades tend to be.
The food itself takes the form of a seven course tasting menu which opened with a beautiful sourdough made with Woodbridge flour and cultured butter. I believe it originates from Woodbridge Tide Mill, a non profit venture and interestingly, is one of only two tide mills left working in the UK. The dough was made with treacle and blended ground oats which created texture, a flaky crunch and a soft pliancy. I've eaten sourdough which is unforgivingly hard and rasps the roof of your mouth. This was none of those things. I genuinely couldn't fault it. Or stop eating it. It was also perfect for mopping up every remaining element of each course and all plates were returned to the kitchen with sumi-e like flourishes and smears. Perhaps with the exception of the dessert courses.
There were many highlights. But the grilled Iberian pork secreto with roasted celeriac purée paired with guindilla & anchovy gurum was exceptional. If you're unfamiliar with secreto, it's a premium cut of pork akin to wagyu. It's intensely marbled and cut from the shoulder of an acorn-fed Iberian black pig. It was cooked sous-vide and finished over charcoal. As the fat rendered, the meat drew in the smoky flavour from the grill.
The caramelised pear with olive oil mousse served with fig cake and a Chardonnay vinegar ice cream also deserves mention as simply beautiful cookery. The texture and flavours were outstanding. I have tried a variety of savoury ice creams but never one with an acidic base. The harmony of the dish was perfectly judged and has inspired ideas for the large volume of Conference Pears that our orchard has produced this year.
I think the petits fours were the weakest element of the entire menu. Not that they were poorly executed, but their flavour profiles were simply not to my taste. They were creative and beautifully presented but not for me.
Towards the end of service, the lights were dimmed and a cake with candles was brought out to the sound of the kitchen singing Happy Birthday. We were quietly celebrating my wife's birthday - she despises this type of public spectacle when placed at the centre of it. For the briefest of moments, my life flashed before my eyes as I tried to remember if I had inadvertently declared this at the time of booking. Before I could give thought to mitigating any threat to my personal safety, the kitchen staff set the cake down in front of another guest and my life was spared.
It was all very good-natured, and the whole restaurant joined in with a surprising amount of gusto. It was short lived as the singing derailed when nearly 30 patrons got to the dear part when a name was needed. The room dissolved into laughter and mumbling. It's indicative of the charm and warm hospitality we enjoyed all evening.
The food was without hyperbole, exceptional. I would have liked to have had a menu to accompany the meal though. I like to know what I'm eating and it helps to consider drink pairings and it serves as a basis for discussion. The format of the restaurant means that it can be quite hard to hear the introduction to each dish so we frequently didn't know the specifics of what we were eating.
The meal was not far off £100 per head with a dessert wine each but given the quality of ingredients and cookery, I think Grace is right. Bellota is on course for feted recognition. I still don't like the high chairs, their only fault. But I think the sourdough, secreto and pear will help me through it.
