Restaurant Sat Bains

Although I’ve been looking to get to Sat Bains’ eponymous restaurant for a few years, this was not the trip where I expected it to happen but luckily fate played into my hands. Hereford’s away game at Alfreton on the August Bank holiday Monday meant that Nottingham was my choice of place to stay afterwards. It seemed like a great opportunity to get together with my best friend of many years and have a few beers. Wrong. The bank holiday meant he and his family were going to be in London instead. Still every cloud....

Restaurant Sat Bains with rooms is tucked away on the edge of Lenton Lane industrial estate on the banks of the River Trent. The sheltered location means it is actually quite peaceful. After a few posts as a trainee chef, Sat Bains won the Roux scholarship in 1999 that gave him the chance to work in France and travel through Europe. He took over at what was then Hotel des Clos in 2002 and Restaurant Sat Bains was born, winning its first Michelin star in 2003. A second star followed in 2011. The restaurant is open from Tuesdays to Saturdays.

The restaurant and rooms are based in a cluster of low brick buildings centred round a gravel courtyard and surrounded by immaculately groomed trees and bushes. The restaurant itself is in the only two storey building and oil lamps illuminate the path to the front door.

Immediately inside the front door you are welcomed by front of house with the choice of going straight to the table or spending time with a drink in the garden or bar area. The small dining room with space for 16 covers is dominated by two large oil paintings on the back walls. The evening dining options are a choice between a 7-course or 10-course tasting menu and for me the 7-course menu sounded the more interesting. It was also possible to add Sat Bains’ Great British menu winning dish as an extra so I opted to go with that supplement. Each dish description lists a measure of the balance of tastes between salt, sweet, sour bitter and umami. The chosen menu is placed in a frame at the table so you can refer to it throughout the meal.

The first of the food was an amuse bouche known as NG7 2SA because it uses ingredients foraged within the restaurant’s postcode. This started with a bowl of vibrant green nettle soup with a centrepiece of horseradish custard. This was a delightful mix of delicate flavours where the subtle heat of the horseradish gave it a welcome additional kick. This was accompanied by a horseradish ice cream sandwich with a lovage tuile where the balance of horseradish and wholemeal was outstanding.

The breads were a mix of slices of crusty sourdough and black treacle rolls accompanied by Lincolnshire poacher butter. The sourdough was simply superb. The black treacle bread was a bit of a startling taste at first but the savoury and sweet blend quickly settled in and lingered nicely on the palate.

Next up was the Great British Menu dish. 62 °C duck egg with textures of peas got a perfect score during the competition and was served during the final meal. Not surprising really because it was truly lovely. The slow cooked egg predictably combined with the ham and parmesan crisp wonderfully but the various forms of peas took the dish to another level. The sweet garden peas and pea shoots added a fresh dimension although the star of the show for me was the refreshingly intense pea and mint sorbet. 

The scallop with belly pork and apple was another superb dish combining a classical blend of flavours with some innovative special touches. It’s debatable which was better, the sweet juicy scallop or the cube of intensely flavoured salty pork though both played superbly with the apple sauce. Apple cubes and a cumin jelly topped the pork and the popcorn crackling added some crunch. 

As good as the dishes had been to this point they were mere support acts to the Loch Duart salmon with sea vegetables and oyster soup. The dish was gorgeous to look at with the soup being poured over the other ingredients at the table. The slow cooked salmon was incredibly tender and it was topped with pickled cucumber, crisped rice and pickled mushrooms that all combined to give a wonderful mix of fresh tastes. The sea vegetables that included samphire kicked in a delightful salty touch. The subtle smoky hit of the squid ink dyed smoked herring roe was a phenomenal additional touch. This was an utterly brilliant dish.

After that the next dish could only suffer and it wasn’t helped by the way it was billed. Listed as venison tartare with baked onion and thyme it didn’t prepare you for the baked onion being the centrepiece of the plate. The baked onion was wonderfully sweet and the treacly undertones blended perfectly with the thyme oil. The thyme and crispy onion both worked really well with the subtle flavour of the venison. Overall it was a good dish but I’d hoped for more of the venison rather than it being almost an afterthought on the plate.

The main savoury course was Goosnargh duck with melon, feta, mint and BBQ carrot was another delightful dish. The duck was exceptional with the rare meat edged with crispy skin and its hint of star anise. The melon and mint oil added a delightful freshness while the saltiness of the feta was perfect in this setting. The carrot purée added a more mellow sweetness. The only unconvincing part for me was the charcoal carrot roll. I could have readily used a spoon to mop up the remaining gravy. 

I passed on the cheese course so we moved to the crossover. The sweet curry lollipop combined a mango sorbet in the centre with a hard outer curry shell that had a liquorice type flavour. I totally loved this and would happily have eaten many more.

The first of the desserts was simple in appearance but utterly sensational. Tiramisu with its blend of coffee, mascarpone and chocolate is a regular on many restaurants’ menus but none are like the Sat Bains version. The light mascarpone base had a truly intriguing texture resulting from the white chocolate being aerated in a vacuum machine and frozen for six hours. The chocolate cream on top had intense hits from amaretto gel and coffee crumbs. Wonderful.

The final dish of the night was lemon with blackberry, fennel and basil. The lemon parfait base was absolutely gorgeous and it combined really well with the fennel in the forms of a caramel and ribbons of pickled fennel. The blackberries added a strong sour blast that worked well. The basil meringues were good but a little too dominant for me when compared to the other ingredients.

And so ended a wonderful meal that demonstrated there’s no doubt that Restaurant Sat Bains deserves its positive reputation. The thoughtful food was superb throughout and although the dishes used combinations that sounded unusual they worked really well most of the time.

Front of house were efficient and helped to make the experience a pleasure. They were helpful throughout and made each customer feel thoroughly welcome. It’s amazing to see how much the menu changes over a relatively short time. I’m very much looking forward to see what it includes next time I make it to Nottingham.

 Overall Rating – 4.5/5