Telephone: 0117 910 5309
Address: Marriott Royal Hotel, College Green, Bristol
Open: Lunch, Tues-Fri, 12 noon-2.30pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 7-10pm.
Price: Starters from £7.95, main courses from £17.50, desserts £8.50. Wheelchair access and WC.
We all know what Larkin said about your mum and dad, and the first time they "fuck you up" is when they name you. Romeo Beckham is going to be tormented throughout his schooldays simply because his parents wanted to display their single scintilla of classical knowledge, and he's by no means the saddest case I've come across. Think of the childhood hell that must have been endured by the TV reporter Nina Nannar, the radio announcer Fenella Fudge, or the journalist Michaela Wrong, and years of cruel playground jibes were surely the reason that Big Daddy (originally Shirley Crabtree) took up wrestling. Even at university, a clarinettist I once knew called Richard Bauwels was always sniggeringly referred to by fellow students as Dicky Bowels.
When I told my guest (a Vivian Stanshall lookalike) that we would be lunching at Michael Caines Restaurant, he nodded and said, "No wonder he changed his name from Maurice Micklewhite." I was referring, of course, not to the film star proprietor of Deya, but to the West Country's finest young chef, who lives in the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, adjacent to its Champagne Bar, where I tried to con the Viv-alike into ordering a fashionable new cocktail. "Ask the barmaid for a 'Hands up and give me everything in the till - now!' " I advised him (a ruse that sadly is seldom successful).
On the wall was a photograph of Archibald Leach sipping champagne, a picture that puzzled me until I recalled that the actor better known as Cary Grant hailed from Bristol (not a lot of people know that). And I also remembered that he'd once received a telegram from an impertinent (and tight-fisted) hack asking, "How old Cary Grant?" to which he'd replied, "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"
The restaurant itself was formerly the hotel's main lobby, and has all the imposing formality of the Royal Courts of Justice. There's something almost intimidating about the Georgian neoclassic vaulted atrium with its Bath stone pillars, arches, balconies, stained glass and faux-Greek statues, which may explain why nobody else had dared to venture inside when we entered at 1pm. As we sat down, a man sporting a garish jacket that made him look like a children's entertainer (or possibly molester) walked in, but lost confidence and quickly slunk out again. He should have stayed, because what Caines and his head chef, Shane Goodway (who studied under Michel Roux), have created here is a gastronomic experience of exceptional intensity.
Like the crab bisque, with globules of basil oil floating beneath spume. And the risotto of wild mushrooms in a Gewürztraminer sauce with asparagus, far better balanced than the more commonly encountered version with vermouth (which tends to drown the delicate flavours of the vegetables). The pan-fried scallops wrapped in pancetta with an aubergine truffle purée and a lemon thyme jus had Viv-alike raving about Goodway's lilliputian-style cuisine. "There are hundreds of things in here," he mused. "Bonsai ... not things that have been chopped, just tiny things that have stayed tiny." So there were. The first sproutings of a lettuce here, courgettes that never turned into courges there, carrots that never went through puberty. Vegetables that were the victims of infanticide.
The lilliputian theme continued into the main courses, such as my pan-fried fillet of Pembrokeshire cod with broad bean purée, peas, wild mushrooms and a broad bean sauce. In particular, the tiny wild mushrooms had been steeped in some sort of fruity wine vinegar, and had turned into miniature squibs, detonating in a series of controlled explosions in the mouth.
As for Viv, his fillet of sea bass with vegetables à la niçoise and a rich gazpacho reminded me of how they used to prepare this percoid fish as a speciality at the Carlton in Cannes. Only the mashed potato was a disaster. Had it been near a machine, which invariably turns honest mash into either wallpaper paste or potty putty?
The corpse of milk was overpriced at £10 for the selection. But what a selection, including Keens cheddar and le Troupeau (a handmade Roquefort, and there are precious few of those remaining). Viv, meanwhile, munched through the "homemade macarons (sic) with a selection of ice creams and sorbets", which were served in a line, and looked as though (like Monty Python's mouse organ) they should be played rather than eaten, while lecturing me (amateur botanist that he is) about the wild chanterelles I'd just eaten. Apparently, mushrooms have as many as 36,000 sexes, which might make blind dates a bit risky.
As we stood up to leave, someone approached him asking, "Are you Viv Stanshall?" "Yes," he replied without missing a beat, "and I have been dead for nine years. But I still find that a good lunch sets me up for the day." Not just a good lunch. It was "perfick", as the other Mr Larkin once said.
