I so enjoyed my visits to Cave, and then reliving the experience through writing about it. It’s gone straight to the top of my favourite restaurants to recommend, and I’m only annoyed I haven’t been and written about it sooner. Book a table. You won’t regret it. Help us uncover more great restaurants by becoming a paying Saucer!
It’s an uneasy friendship, that of the chef and the critic. Like that dog that was put in an orphaned tiger cub’s enclosure to keep it company; at some point the relationship is surely going to combust and have disastrous consequences.
Yet still I persist in such friendships, knowing that there is a greater-than-average chance we will break each other’s hearts at some point. And so in the last few weeks, I have sat in Cave on two different occasions with two different chefs, both of whom I love dearly, chewing the figurative fat and licking our fingers of the literal fat, beautifully rendered, from a confit chicken leg served atop a buttery green peppercorn and tarragon sauce (£24); a recipe that you’d happily swap your firstborn child for.
Chefs are the best people to go to restaurants with. They order superbly — knowing intricately which fish has arrived bruised from Brixham that day, the plumpness of this week’s tomatoes, the dishes that have sent electric shocks down the grapevine of gossip and are therefore essential ordering. They’ll then debone the Dover sole they’ve ordered (£30) with the casual efficiency of a seven-year-old showing a bewildered parent how to convert a PDF. You’ll be left to enjoy the immaculate pearlescent flakes bathed in a pool of verdant olive oil, the colour of autumn leaves just on the turn, without a care in the world.
You’ll never be bored with a chef — conversation lunges from hot takes on tonight’s fare to stories from behind the pass. Stories so mad that even if I did write them here, you wouldn’t believe them. They’re walking, talking, cooking bundles of writing material. As such, the first chef raised an important point as we were being far too polite over the last bite of a pâté de campagne (£12), glistening with fat and flecked with herbs, which sat between us. He said Charlie Hearn, head (and indeed the only) chef at Cave, is one of Bristol’s best chefs. State the obvious much. But he went on to say why:
When you strip away the recipes, the fancy ingredients, the development time, the decor, the service — there’s only a handful of chefs in Bristol who can really, truly cook. As in: you could give them nothing but a whole fish, some butter, a planche, half a lemon and some seasoning and they’d be able to turn it into something amazing. Charlie Hearn is one such cook — the man could dumpster dive outside Asda and still blow your mind.
I kid you not — neither visit to Cave, despite the restaurant being fit to burst and Charlie multitasking like an octopus on steroids — brought to light a single flaw.
He’s a fan of game is our Hearn, so the first visit centred on venison — grilled with spiced red cabbage (£25), and then baked in short pastry to form a textbook venison, cep and bacon pie (£24). This is the kind of pie that surely started Mrs Tweedy’s fixation; the pastry cracks and then flakes to reveal chunks of tender meat which collapse under the fork quicker than Pero’s bridge.
Charlie’s meat and fish cookery is sublime, as you’ve surely gathered by now, but I’m sorry to say the man is masterful with vegetables as well. Celeriac remoulade may be a distant cousin of coleslaw, but I can assure you that Charlie’s remoulade (£12 with Bayonne ham) is to other mayonnaise-based salads as Fortnum & Mason is to Iceland.
The second visit heralded a molehill of brown shrimp, white cabbage and chervil (£12); more a clever assemblage than a show of cooking, but nonetheless a lively textural combination interspersed with high-fives of umami.
Of course, the greatest thing I ate at Cave was the dish I made myself — a chip butty. The beef dripping frites (£5), pillowy white slices and ample butter (£4.50) were begging for it, and fortunately the chef that got to witness this is familiar with my antics, so it didn’t even raise an eyebrow. You can take the girl out of the north…
I should point out that Cave is also a wine bar and shop, which is where the name comes from, so all of this was accompanied by some lovely booze. Champagne the first time round, followed by chenin blanc and then a glass of Château Dauphiné-Rondillon Loupiac with our chocolate mousse (£10). Despite the second visit being marginally more sensible, the note-taking was considerably worse; a glass of something sparkling followed by a glass of something white.
The latter visit ended with a thick slice of ginger loaf swimming in a toffee sauce moat and topped with a fat quenelle of clotted cream (£12). We were stuffed already, but that had no bearing. Charlie came over to chat for a moment, and he’s not only a fiercely talented chef but is as sweet as the sauce on that loaf.
I’m going to become a regular at Cave, and I intend to befriend Charlie. He has no say in the matter. Whether we eventually break each other’s hearts remains to be seen; but like a young’un falling in love for the first time, the world seems full of promise anew and nothing bad will ever happen, ever. Not to us.
All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Cave, 286 Gloucester Road, BS7 8PD
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Totally agree with this review- Charlie is a very gifted cook whose concise menus never disappoint.