Martin Blunos is a chef with a reputation: he is regarded as idiosyncratic, bold and inventive. He is also a chef with two Michelin stars. Now, we can argue long and hard about the value of Michelin, and its obsession with pointless fripperies like the shine on the glassware and the depth of sneer on the maître d's face, but at the top end, the ratings have to mean something. There are, after all, only 11 restaurants in Britain boasting two Michelin stars. If you happen to be pathologically obsessed by restaurants, then each one has to be worth a look. All of which is my way of saying that, when I went to Blinis, the latest restaurant from Blunos in Bath, I was indulging in die-hard star fornication. (Work it out for yourself; this is a family newspaper.) Put most simply, I wanted to know why he has those two stars.
Well, I've now eaten Blunos's food and I can't tell you the answer. This has nothing to do with faults in his cooking and everything to do with the chef's understanding of the market, which has not treated him well recently. Only last year Blunos was forced to close Lettonie, the Bath restaurant where he made his name (and won his two stars) with his brand of Latvian-influenced haute cuisine. Blinis opened last year and immediately won back its two stars, perhaps unsurprisingly. The menu lists many of the same dishes, including his signature starter of scrambled duck egg with beluga caviar and buckwheat blinis.
The problem is, he only does that stuff in the evening. At lunchtime, everything is on a smaller scale. Then again, so is the bill. The evening menu comes in at an eye-watering £44.50 for three courses (plus £15 supplement for the scrambled egg). The lunch menu costs just £20. It's like finding two restaurants under one roof. By day a brasserie, by night something totally other. You get the same room whenever you go, a dainty tasselled and draped space downstairs from his delicatessen on Pulteney Bridge. At the back is a conservatory which looks out over the river, and on a summer's day it was a lovely place to be.
As to the food, it was for the most part commensurate with its pricing: simple dishes, expertly produced. The sole disappointment was the lack of Latvian touches. They made an appearance only in the pre-starter of warm borscht which was pleasingly silky in texture and musky in flavour. My starter was more French bourgeois: some asparagus, a perfectly poached egg, hollandaise sauce and a crisp puff-pastry shell to frame it all. My companion Maureen had the duck and pork terrine, which was technically very good if under seasoned. A dash of salt improved it.
We both did well on our main courses. My skate with black butter and capers was gorgeously crisp on the outside, pulling away obligingly from the bone. Maureen's tagliatelle in a cream sauce with a massive serving of morels was, she said, ideal comfort food, rich, dense and warming. Of the third courses on offer she got the bum's rush: a poor selection of poorly kept cheeses with some knackered old grapes. There's no excuse for that. Mine was outrageous: a lush ball of deep-fried rice pudding, served alongside a caramelised pear. (The exercise machine arrives next week.)
Two-star cooking? Absolutely not, but then it's priced accordingly. At £20 all in, it's hard to complain. We drank a half-bottle of Jurancon Sec for £12, paid extra for the petit fours and water and still came out, with service, at £70. What's more, you get the caress and preen of high-class service. I'll just have to go back again one evening to find out what all the fuss is about.
