When you think of the great culinary capitals of the world, your mind probably wanders to Tokyo, Paris or perhaps San Sebastian, cities where the great chefs of our time gather, their collective talent creating a surge of excellence and innovation. You probably do not think of Nottingham, or, more specifically, a nondescript little corner of that city located beside a grey commercial estate.
But over the past two decades, Sat Bains has built a powerhouse of British fine dining there, one of only 22 two Michelin starred restaurants in the country – an accolade he has held since 2011 – having won Nottingham its first Michelin star all the way back in 2003, just a year after he relaunched what was then Hotel des Clos. The restaurant includes rooms for overnight stays, a neat little kitchen garden from which Bains sources much of his produce, a greenhouse, and various outdoor spaces that can be incorporated into his sprawling tasting menus, weather permitting.
The whole operation is spoken about in food circles in the same hushed, reverential tones as Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume (the site of one of my most fondly remembered meals in almost two decades writing about restaurants), with diners booking months in advance and treating the excursion as something akin to a secular pilgrimage.
And so it was that I packed my overnight bag and caught the train up to a rain-soaked Nottingham (it takes two hours and change from Paddington, which beats the hell out of driving), with the restaurant a 10-minute Uber ride from the centre of town.
The dining room at Restaurant Sat Bains
Having worked your way around the nearby flyover and passed beneath a crackling electricity pylon, you pull into a low, handsome redbrick complex where a small army of chefs and front of house staff mill back and forth, some laden with ingredients plucked fresh from the garden. After checking in I was shown to my room which was – and I timed this – about seven seconds away from the snug little bar area and perhaps 15 seconds away from the restaurant itself. You could quite literally fall out of the room, tumble down the stairs and be ready to accept your first glass of champagne.
My room was a smart, quiet affair with the air of a country hotel, a freestanding bathtub dominating one side. Without a car, there’s no reason to leave the enclave and the rooms are a perfectly lovely place to while away a couple of hours before dinner, which began at six with a drink in the bar.
The restaurant is relatively small – there’s space for up to 28 covers – with lots of exposed wood and heavy flagstone floors. The walls are hung with semi-abstract paintings of wheat fields and moody landscapes. The widely-spaced tables are split between the conservatory and the main building.
I took a seat to the faint sounds of easy jazz and the dim murmur of conversation from my fellow diners.
The tasting menu is officially 10 courses but far more than that arrive over the three hours of dining. Bains’ website promises his dishes have been “developed / tested / picked / cooked / chilled / salted / aged / frozen / beaten / whipped / poached / nitro’d / clipped / chured / cured / grown / wood-fired / roasted / seared / boiled / fermented / pickled / dehydrated…” and while that’s all undoubtedly true, his cooking doesn’t feel like the ostentatious molecular gastronomy of someone like Heston Blumenthal or his acolytes: it’s more careful, studied, considered, more interested in the precise flavour of a thing than in creating something wildly new.
This was clear from the first course, pumpkin served a variety of ways – sliced, frozen, pureed – which looked and tasted spectacularly autumnal (you can see those same pumpkins growing in the garden). There was crab in a rich bisque topped with a sheet of peanut brittle, then a mad looking dish of barbecued potato with potato mayo and thick cables of truffle, which tasted of nothing more than… potato. Only better, somehow. The Platonic ideal of potato, earthy and buttery smooth. A little curl of salmon comes in a decadent pool of dashi butter and topped with pike roe nori.
One of the rooms at Restaurant Sat Bains
About an hour in, each table is invited in turn to join one of the chefs, Neve, in the greenhouse, where she prepares a tiny pizza while you watch, then fires it in a miniature pizza oven. It’s a lovely bit of theatre and a chance to talk to the the people making your food – Nottingham local Neve is only 19 and has already worked for Bains for more than two years.
Back inside, the courses come thick and slow: a cep and girolle tarte, duck in blackberry sauce, sweetcorn ice cream, each one accompanied by an excellent and eccentric wine pairing, the most memorable being a bright pink, light, sweet, sparkling glass of Philippe Balivet Bugey Cerdon, which was a wonderful palate cleanser between desserts.
And when it’s over – 10, 15, 20 courses later, depending how you count them – you can sashay the 15 seconds back up the stairs to hibernate while your body attempts to digest it all.
Breakfast the next morning is predictably great: a sizzling skillet of fried eggs with shitake mushrooms and beluga lentils; a perfect fold of omelette. And then it’s back to reality, out beneath the pylons, through the winding grey of the commercial estate and homeward towards Paddington; a little fatter, a little wiser and safe in the knowledge you’ve just dined at one of the best restaurants in the country.
• A tasting menu and overnight stay at Restaurant Sat Bains costs from £455. Bains is hosting a series of events with former alumni including Paul Ainsworth and Claude Bosi. For more information go to the website here