Restaurant Sat Bains

[fisherman]

I thought it was about time Sat had his own thread, just booked a table there (not until June unfortunately) and wondered what other people had eaten there, we'll be going for the surprise tasting menu..........

[CalumC]

Would be interested to try, after seeing the things he does from great british menu. I remember rabbit with chocolate somewhere...

[fisherman]

I'd read some good stuff on here about him, but seeing on the show really made me want to make the journey.

[Bapi]

Bloody hell Jon- this is quite timely. I have just this evening-booked for my birthday- which is also in June. Very glad I did as there were only two rooms left for that night.

We met Sat last weekend at the Hibiscus party, to celebrate its closing in Ludlow. A great night and what a good bloke he is. Bright, articulate, obviously talented and bloody passionate about his food. I hate him already.

I am not giving anything away as it's on their webiste- but he got through to the final of the Great British Menu. I like the look of the new Tasting room too.

Sat Bains

Edited April 19, 2007 by Bapi (log)

[fisherman]

When are you at Sats Bapi? not the 14th is it? I hate Sat too

[Bapi]

No the 8th June. The missus is treating me to a cheeky night away and then back home the day after, to celebrate with our little one and friends on my actual birthday.

[fisherman]

Well I'll have the pleasure of reading your no doubt prompt, informative and entertaining review before I go then, thus saving me the job of writing up the same meal

[Tom Roberts]

Definately worthy of its own thread. I ate there back at the end of Feb and have been neglecting to write it up ever since - had the surprise menu (about 13 courses) and matching wines (about 8 glasses). Most course were very good, some were outstanding. Wine pairings were good (fairly predictable in most cases, but this is not necessarily a bad thing) and predominetly French - I think they were about £60 and there was a lot of quality for that money. The meal was further enhanced by only having to walk about 15 yards back to my room. Excellent breakfast - cooked by Sat, who must be putting some hours in.

Sat is a great guy with a lot of talent and is doing some interesting stuff with the taste, temperature, texture idea (think one raw and one cooked scallop with almond, candied lemon and truffle shavings as a teaser).

I'm happy to give more detail on what I ate if you are interested but don't want to spoil the suprise. Although, from talking to Sat I got the impression that the suprise menu changes quite frequently.

[RDB]

I am a little sketchy on all the details of the dishes, as I visited restaurant Sat Bains at the end of July 2006, but I do remember it being an excellent dining experience. We had the tasting menu.

I hadn’t heard much of restaurant Sat Bain’s prior to my visit, it was one of a few recommended to me by Katie at Juniper. A further trawl on the internet did not reveal anything of great significance, and with no reviews from the usual suspects I had little to go on.

Getting to the restaurant is a tricky business. Our taxi driver in the city centre had not heard of it or did not know the whereabouts of the address, nor did the controller at the taxi rank. A quick call to directory enquiries to locate the postcode and with the help of a ‘sat’ nav (pun intended); we eventually found the place which was at the end of a motorway flyover. Don’t let this put you off, as the actual restaurant and its grounds are very secluded and quite serene. As it was a balmy summer’s night we had drinks in the beautiful gardens and chatted with Sat’s wife and front of house Amanda. Whilst we were having our drinks she suggested our daughter who is nine come talk with the chef about what she wanted in her tasting menu. I was a little jealous as I did not get an invite (albeit spoke at length after the meal) After drinks we were seated in the conservatory part of the restaurant, which was perfect for a summers evening.

We started the meal with two ‘tonics’, firstly carrot, ginger and apple, followed by rocket, lemon and ginger. Both of these I found to be very refreshing and got the taste buds moving. I found the ginger in both ‘tonics’ provided a good cleansing quality.

Then came an amuse named, ‘crab and sweet corn’, which was a miniature crisp crab cake served alongside a tiny sweet corn soup. The crab cake was flaky with a delightful crunch which went well with the creamy sweet corn soup. I thought this was a great way of playing two classic ingredients.

We had another amuse of chicken liver parfait with popcorn which was also excellent but I cannot remember the dishes structure, my memory only remembers a great taste combination.

Then we had the 62 degree egg, with pea sorbet, pea shoots, and jabugo ham (as seen on GBM), excellent summer dish, as the yolk explodes and the sorbet melts, you end up with a classy pea and ham soup.

May have had a foie gras dish with ginger bread next, not sure???

Then the fantastic salmon with fennel vanilla, passion fruit and liquorice. As I have mentioned on here before I found better than the Fat Duck’s version.

May have had a lamb dish with tomato? Again not sure.

Then instead of a cheese course, we had a dish called ‘cheese on toast’, now I remember this as it was divine. Melted Brie de Meaux on Polaine bread with grated summer truffle, absolutely sublime.

Pre dessert, a miniature lemon meringue pie, which was good.

Sorry cannot remember the dessert, except there were strawberries and manni olive oil.

Coffee and good PF’s.

As I mentioned on the restaurant of the year thread I thought Sat’s was on one the best restaurants I visited , in a list that included Fat Duck, Hibiscus, Anthony’s, l’enclume etc etc. Part of the reason being there was no hype and I did not know much about his food, so it totally took me by surprise. Again it is great to see the GBM has brought him some welcomed attention and hopefully endless punters and positive reviews.

I must admit at the same time I have a warm glow that I visited the restaurant before some of the big guns on here, as it is usually via this board whereby I get to hear about great restaurants.

Again sorry about the sketchy review, but part of the reason is down to the exquisite beer menu they have…………

[stef]

Well I live less than 10 miles from Sat Bains and have eaten there 4 times over the years.

I have in fact eaten at Hibiscus more times.

The food is fantastic, however the wine list is a bit over the top price wise.

In fact its cheaper for us to go to Ludlow, eat at Hibiscus, stay at the Travel lodge, taxi there and back than eat at sat Bains and get a taxi 10 miles home.

However now that Hibiscus is gone we might eat more often at Sat Bains.

We certainly will not be staying there as with most locations we would rather spend the money on food & drink rather than a bed.

It's location is strange but when you have lived in the area for a long time it's not that bad, reminds me of my childhood.

Once again the food is great, in fact Hibiscus had their staff do there last year, and the price is great considering what you get. Just watch the price of the wine.

[Jon Tseng]

Yummy

You know I always think there's an argument for doing a "Yes They Do Have Restaurants North of Watford" food tour. Try to hit Sat Bains, Juniper and L'Enclume in a weekend (do any of these places open on Sun?)

... see if you can get more than 100 different degustation plates in over a 48 hour period (OK Juniper would probably be half of those, from what I hear).

Of course you could also drop into Anthonys for coffee if you're not full yet

:-) :-) :-)

J

[Anne Benson]

IAs I mentioned on the restaurant of the year thread I thought Sat’s was on one the best restaurants I visited , in a list that included Fat Duck, Hibiscus, Anthony’s, l’enclume etc etc. Part of the reason being there was no hype and I did not know much about his food, so it totally took me by surprise. Again it is great to see the GBM has brought him some welcomed attention and hopefully endless punters and positive reviews.

I must admit at the same time I have a warm glow that I visited the restaurant before some of the big guns on here, as it is usually via this board whereby I get to hear about great restaurants.

Again sorry about the sketchy review, but part of the reason is down to the exquisite beer menu they have………… 

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Have you tried Fraiche in Oxton Village, Wirral. I think it is on a par with those you mention and better than Anthony's.

[Anne Benson]

Yummy

You know I always think there's an argument for doing a "Yes They Do Have Restaurants North of Watford" food tour.  Try to hit Sat Bains, Juniper and L'Enclume in a weekend (do any of these places open on Sun?)

... see if you can get more than 100 different degustation plates in over a 48 hour period (OK Juniper would probably be half of those, from what I hear).

Of course you could also drop into Anthonys for coffee if you're not full yet

:-) :-) :-)

J

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I think you would want to include Fraiche on that list, I think it tops Juniper!

[RDB]

As I have actually mentioned recently , I included Fraiche on my list of restaurants North of Watford.

To keep the topic relevant, if you look on Sat Bains website, under 'Great Places', he highlights some of his restaurant reccomendations with the more cutting edge and innovative being North of Watford e.g Midsummer, Juniper, Champignon, Jessicas, Anthonys, Northcote, Hibiscus. He does ( Sat Bains) however exclude the excellent L'enclume and Fraiche.

Fraiche better than Anthonys or Juniper, maybe another thread. I have chanced my arm with this one already

Edited April 20, 2007 by RDB (log)

[ginger chef]

you can only recommend if you have eaten there. i dont believe sat has as yet. Sat hopefully is coming down to torquay in the very near future to do an evening at the elephant.

[Bapi]

Sat hopefully is coming down to torquay in the very near future to do an evening at the elephant.

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Oh dear Simon- are you a little short on staff or something?

Sounds like that could be an interesting night out.

[ginger chef]

hopefully he is coming down to do a chefs luncheon and a open to public dinner. Pr for both him and us and hopefully will lead to a few more chefs coming down this way on chef evenings.

[olicollett]

I was meant to go a few weeks back when the tasting room opened, but sadly some of my friends couldn't make it and i couldn't change for a smaller table I'll hopefully go in the summer though!

[Bapi]

I'm happy to give more detail on what I ate if you are interested but don't want to spoil the suprise. 

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Bringing this back up as our stay is drawing nearer and have only just noticed Tom's offer. Yes- I'd be grateful for some more detail Tom.

Cheers

[britcook]

I went to Sat's last year, never did get around to posting. The tasting menu (around 7 courses I think) was excellent and reasonable value for money, the dishes were full of little surprises as you might expect, especially now you've seen him on the TV. The only slight disappointment was the high cost of the wine, we had the matching flight, nothing special, tiny pours and high prices. So far not mentioned by anybody is the service (supervised by the splendid Mrs Bains) which is exemplary.

[RDB]

I went to Sat's last year, never did get around to posting. The tasting menu (around 7 courses I think) was excellent and reasonable value for money, the dishes were full of little surprises as you might expect, especially now you've seen him on the TV. The only slight disappointment was the high cost of the wine, we had the matching flight, nothing special, tiny pours and high prices. So far not mentioned by anybody is the service (supervised by the splendid Mrs Bains) which is exemplary.

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..........ahem, I think you will find I (kinda) did:

As it was a balmy summer’s night we had drinks in the beautiful gardens and chatted with Sat’s wife and front of house Amanda. Whilst we were having our drinks she suggested our daughter who is nine come talk with the chef about what she wanted in her tasting menu.

In contrast to the wine, Sat's has a really good beer list which in my opinion is quite special, great big pours and low prices (well much less of a mark up). I wish more places like Sats and Anthony's took beer with food more seriously.....

[britcook]

So you did, that's an "ooops" then

[Andy Lynes]

Sat Bains is Square Meal's Uk restaurant of the year 2007 click here.

[Bapi]

Sat Bains is Square Meal's Uk restaurant of the year 2007 click here.

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And deservedly so. We had a stellar meal there the day before yesterday and there wasn't a single dish out of ten I didn't enjoy. I will write it up shortly.......

[RDB]

Well done Sat, truly deserved! Maybe the guys at square meal seen I had nominated you in the 'restaurant of the year' 2006 thread.

Looking forward to the write up Bapi, hope it arrives quicker than the Juniper review .......