Barroux, Chandos Road: Snobby's goes to Provence
More excitement in Redland's gastro-quartier
Christmas is but around the corner, and gifting a subscription to a Substack will provide your loved one with information, entertainment and intellectual stimulation for a whole year.
We are apparently living through an age of cognitive decline, caused in no small part by our lack of reading. Save your nearest and dearest from this fate — we’d recommend sending them the gift of Vittles, Somerset’s finest intel via The Wallfish Journal, wine expertise and inspiration from Fiona Beckett, or perhaps a humorous digest of restaurant reviews from Smashed. Or a subscription to The Bristol Sauce, of course.
More excitement in the febrile world of the Chandos Road gastro-quartier, as it’s known in Redland: the opening of Barroux, a new French influenced wine bar. Taking over the premises vacated by the amiable but inept tapas joint Picaro, Barroux is the new sibling of Snobby’s across the road. It’s also the establishment Snobby’s was always meant to be, according to the proprietor Nick Bethell, who in the rush to open before Christmas has been standing in as cook, supported by dishes sent over from the basement kitchens of Snobby’s.
Chandos Road now hosts so many destination eating places there are near traffic jams on some weekend nights, and doubtless confrontations between national restaurant critics emerging from taxis to bag the last table at Dongnae or Little Hollows. It can’t be long before the Deliveroo scooter park which is Ahmed’s Curry Cafe gets a visit from Grace Dent, thesaurus in handbag, gearing up to declare the place meta.
Before the current crop, Chandos Road’s star tenants included the Markwicks of Culinaria renown, their successors the Wilks’, and, most famously of all, Keith Floyd. It’s in the corner premises — where Floyd’s hospitality so impressed the TV producer Dave Pritchard in the early 1980s — that Nick Bethell set up shop nearly four decades later.
Snobby’s launched in 2019 as a wine bar with snacks, and was greeted with some derision for its name. Derision soon superseded, as it became clear this was an attractive, well-run place with a serious wine list, and, as its food offerings became more important, some heavyweight cooking. One day, even the name will be re-appraised, as a masterstroke of click-hate, or whatever they call marketing by annoyance.
If Snobby’s was a precursor of the current wine bar vogue, Barroux is the latest in the field. Spurning anything too user-friendly, like Nick’s Wine Bar, it’s named after a wine-making abbey in the Vaucluse, among several even more obscure connotations.
The site is a little stark of decoration as yet, with banquettes and tables down both sides of the room and a small, steel-surfaced bar with four stools at the back. In some new wine bars, the actual bar space is limited, with the food more central and the atmosphere consequently tending towards restaurant. This could apply to Barroux, though the opening party, packed but manageably so, demonstrated that it might function well with some standing custom, making for a more informal atmosphere. An atmosphere the parent establishment has almost managed to retain, in spite of having crossed clearly into restaurant territory.
As for Barroux’s wares, there’s plenty to like. Frenchified cocktails, like an absinthe-laced kir (£13) or a telepherique (£12), a version of the classic San Franciscan cable car with rhum agricole . The wine offering — sixty or so mainly French bottles, from £34 to £120, around twenty by the glass from £7.50 to £14.50 — seems good, as it should be.
A former wine trade insider and perpetual enthusiast, Bethell is still buying choice batches at auction, which furnish his lists in both Barroux and Snobby’s. If the patron is on duty in either place, copious details of every bottle are available. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been sat in Snobby’s with a wine buff friend sharing anecdotes with Nick about some obscure new Balkan vigneron they both know personally, while I throw in comments on Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Languedoc Blanc.
Barroux’s fledgling food offer, although small, is looking promising. While Italy is the reference over at Snobby’s, here it’s France. I tried some tasty freshly-fried cubic croquettes of Alsace bacon and comté in a rather large-bore crumb (£6), and a plate of terrine, saucisson, cornichons and homemade chutney (£14). All first class charcuterie, the saucisson imported, but the real eye-opener was the terrine, rich and succulent, crammed with slices of duck and forcemeat, as good as from a quality French traiteur. In fact, it came from the third, non-Italian member of the Snobby’s subterranean kitchen team, the baker. Whose baguette at Barroux isn’t up to the standard of his celebrated Snobby’s focaccia, it must be said.
Which brings us back to Snobby’s. Corner locations have an advantage in window area, and the relative spaciousness, for Chandos Road, is another plus. The little side terrace, to be upgraded for next year, helps further, while the rather ad hoc décor and pleasingly bottle-lined bar give the place its homely feel.
Snobby’s culinary breakthrough was spearheaded several years ago by a talented, now departed Sardinian chef, succeeded by two younger cooks from Sicily and Puglia, keeping the same style and many of the same dishes. Nothing too exotic, diversely regional, distinct from pedestrian UK Italian high street fare and on a par with the best dishes from the repertoire of Bianchi’s and Cotto.
There’s always a good original pasta, often involving top quality sausage — fusilloni with fennel sausage and a thick and luscious tomato and burrata sauce for example (£18). Tasty ways with lamb, notably a rich patty of shredded braised lamb with cannellini bean cream (£17), or a terrific lamb and ‘nduja ragu with orecchiette (£19). Meatless items include a version of the ubiquitous hispi cabbage griddled and drenched in miso tahini and crispy chilli oil dressing (£12.50), or plump soft gnudi dumplings of ricotta and parmesan, made rich with miso buttered carrot purée, almonds and herb oil (£14).
In theory, you can still occupy a Snobby’s table just for drinks. The kitchen closes early at 9pm, as in many places these days, but you can carry on later and even use the house backgammon board (as long as it’s to play backgammon on).
It’s always felt, in fact, as if there’s a bit of the bon vivant spirit of Keith Floyd in Snobby’s, though hopefully not too much for the sake of the business’ solvency. Barroux could just pull off the same trick. Get there before the Financial Times does – those people have their spies everywhere…
All words and photos by Philip Sweeney, edited by Meg Foulk
Snobby’s, 6 Chandos Road, BS6 6PE
Barrroux, 19 Chandos Road, BS6 6PE
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