Bath Priory

[tony h]

The Bath Priory, Sept 2004

I’m in a room full of bespectacled people who’s lens thickness is capable of altering gravity’s pull and along with a distinct lack of personal hygiene, poor choice in clothes & colour coordination strangely reminiscent of Dylan from the Magic Roundabout, it can only mean one thing: I’m at a digital library conference full of systems librarians (recent job change now puts me in charge, amongst other things, of the library systems, gulp). Anyway, the good news is that its in Bath, a place a have only very briefly visited many many years ago and have always wanted to return but never quite made it.

Anyway – the one of the main benefits of egullett membership is that I cab skip the awful drinks reception(s) in pursuit of a more meaningful quest: my next egullet report; way more important than trying to spill cheap red wine on kipper ties.

The Priory is on my list & I’ve been looking forward to it – stunning period house (Edwardian/Victorian – where’s a librarian when you need one?) and I spent a lovely good half hour soaking up the atmosphere in the drawing room (in the grand sense) – a room packed full of V&A rejects such as a pictures of ladies (in the Little Britain sense of “I’m a lady”) playing tennis (pre Athena poster of girl scratching arse) etc. It’s the kind of room where words like “gosh” and “what-o” aren’t out of place.

The menu took some getting through – all sounded so good & enticing. In the end I let the garnishes & sauces decide.

Pre-starter – artichoke veloute served in a lovely little china bowl with matching lid. Delicate frothy top and long finish made for a good little appetiser. The tiny spoon provided forced you to take your time to consume it. Nice albeit accidental touch.

Starters sounded really really good – scallops hand caught by bronzened divers with a risotto made with crab claw meat and a ginger infused sauce (ok, diver bit’s my imagination). This sounded so wonderful – plump scallops with a risotto to die for. Sadly – the train wreck that was served bore little resemblance to the description & fantasy in my head. You could almost count the grains of rice in the risotto – so small was the portion. Was there crab in the – dunno – certainly something fishy; so if the say crab I kind of had to believe them. The ginger sauce was a lake of white froth over which a piece of ginger may have sat in its vicinity. There was also a bright orange oil slick surrounding the froth – couldn’t tell what it was. The scallops, of which ere was three, were delicious but gone in a single bit.

Mains arrive with a 2 minutes of the starter plate being removed. Not happy about that – however – this time the plate was very heavily laden with the fillet beef, old oak madeira sauce, crushed potato and caramelised onions. There were a few mushrooms and some celeriac puree. Oh dear – what a mess. The beef – perfectly cooked I have to say – was drenched in thyme, as was the sauce. The thyme overpowered everything to the point of almost inducing a gagging reflex. Did the potatoes taste of anything – dunno – all I could smell was thyme. What about the sauce which had the perfect stickiness of a lovingly prepared sauce – dunno – just more fucking thyme. Don’t get me wrong – I love thyme, its one of my favourites – but to serve it in such a concentrated way is a major failing on the chef’s part.

Dessert – couldn’t really find any enthusiasm for this so just let my finger pick at random: poached pear & vanilla bean panacotta. Fine, I suppose, but a bit too Delia for me. Have to say I was fairly pissed off when I saw then serve it to another guest – they got a tuile & I didn’t!

The service was faultless & they floor staff did try so hard. Shame they were let down by the food. Fixed meal: 49.50 pounds for 3 courses – 5 pounds supplement for the beef. Ah well, I’ve have worse & paid more. God, what am saying – it was crap.

[Hallie]

[. Ah well, I’ve have worse & paid more.

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[Andy Lynes]

BLH - I do hope you realise that you are slagging off the food of a chef who "ranks among the greatest of British culinary geniuses." According to the hotel's website at least.

[Romaney O'Malley]

BLH - there's specific mention of the herb garden on the website as well - maybe they had a bumper crop of thyme

[Gary Marshall]

BLH - I do hope you realise that you are slagging off the food of a chef who "ranks among the greatest of British culinary geniuses." According to the hotel's website at least.

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menage a trois with AWT what could be better training!

to be fair cv is good, has it got a star now or did the glory of awards finish in 1999, the last date mentioned on the website?

gary

Edited September 14, 2004 by Gary Marshall (log)

[Andy Lynes]

has it got a star now

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According to Via Michelin it has.

[tony h]

BLH - there's specific mention of the herb garden on the website as well - maybe they had a bumper crop of thyme 

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maybe it does, maybe it doesn't - couldn't see a damned thing got the rain

[tony h]

According to Via Michelin it has.

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yeah, but for much longer

shame - superb place to hang around it

[Hallie]

I will be going here for dinner on Saturday night. According to the Michelin guide it is one-star worthy. I'm particularly intrigued by the scallop and crab ravioli.

Has anyone been here lately?

[Hallie]

Its a shame that this place as received such bad press on this site. We've just returned from a lovely weekend there - hopefully I can do something to resurrect its reputation.

I'm terrible at giving detailed reviews of precisely what I ate. I live for the moment and after the wine and post dinner drinks the minutae of a good meal just seems to blur into one very fond memory. In a nutshell:

Service was fabulous -attentive, professional but down-to-earth. Thankfully, the Bath Priory does not have a 'whispering dining room' which would have just ruined it for me. I was totally overwhelmed by the starters - a great selection. I couldn't decide between the rabbit ravioli and the roast quail breast. I eventually went for the roast quail breast with cepe cream and parmesan crust. What a lovely combination - the parmesan added such an interesting crunch and zing to a smooth taste and texture. Frank had a terrine of duck and foie gras which he enjoyed greatly (I didn't get to taste it). My main was the sea bass with roast tomato cous cous and braised fennel. Again, a very well thought out harmony of flavours. The cous cous was of a more traditional pearl barley type redolent with a tomato-y sharpness that lifted the sea bass. I had the cheese plate for dessert - its rare to find an entire cheese trolley composed solely of British cheeses so I chose to indulge. Frank had some sort of melting chocolate fondant thing. I was too stuffed to have more than a mouthful, but what a mouthful it was.

In my humble opinion, the Bath Priory does deserve its star. I've been to places with one star (da Fiori in Venice comes to mind first) that don't deserve it. It is certainly on a par with London one-star establishments like the Orrery.

I think Tony's experience of being there with a conference might just explain the slight slip in standards. Its not a big place - both the hotel and dining room are on the intimate side. I would imagine that the kitchen would be quite pressed under such circumstances.

All in all, our meal was top notch.

[tony h]

I think Tony's experience of being there with a conference might just explain the slight slip in standards. Its not a big place - both the hotel and dining room are on the intimate side.  I would imagine that the kitchen would be quite pressed under such circumstances. 

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I wasn't there with the conference - I escaped from the conference for the evening to got here on my own. Christ - the kind of conferences I go to usually barely have enough money for hand made sarnies (actually happend to me). Also, the restaurant was not full so they were hardly stressed

Perhaps because it was a Sunday night may explain why the food was less than wonderful when I was there - or - maybe they just had the odd good night when you were there

btw - did you stay there - what were the rooms like?

Edited November 9, 2004 by blind lemon higgins (log)

[Hallie]

I think Tony's experience of being there with a conference might just explain the slight slip in standards. Its not a big place - both the hotel and dining room are on the intimate side.  I would imagine that the kitchen would be quite pressed under such circumstances. 

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I wasn't there with the conference - I escaped from the conference for the evening to got here on my own. Christ - the kind of conferences I go to usually barely have enough money for hand made sarnies (actually happend to me). Also, the restaurant was not full so they were hardly stressed

Perhaps because it was a Sunday night may explain why the food was less than wonderful when I was there - or - maybe they just had the odd good night when you were there

btw - did you stay there - what were the rooms like?

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On and off nights seem to be de rigeur with restaurants (even those with stars that shouldn't have off nights). They were certainly 'on' when we were there.

The place in general is lovely. We had one of the smaller rooms which was still of a sufficient size and quite comfortable. Breakfasts were excellent and included a continental component as well as a cold buffet and a cooked 'main' - I had smoked haddock, poached eggs and champagne sauce. Most of all we made use of the gorgeous swimming pool, steam room, sauna, gym and also booked beauty treatments. We just wanted to chill out, eat well and be within walking distance of central Bath. The Priory hit the mark on all three. We also went for tea at the Royal Crescent - really nice but surprisingly quiet for a Saturday afternoon.

Re: the conference - since we seem to run in the same professional circle I was wondering how they managed to swing a group meal in a one star place. In my experience, you don't even get sandwiches - biscuits maybe and undrinkable wine at private views. You've clarified my misunderstanding of the situation nicely. For a moment there all of the BM's financial problems seemed to be put into perspective!