Martin Dawes

Bon appetite – French food is an art at Artisan…

Hearing that you needed a PhD to get to grips with the labyrinthine menu at Richard Smiths new French bistro Artisan, we downloaded it from the website.

It took a good half hour to digest the various sections: starters, soups, salads. House specialities, plat du jour, pasta, risotto and veggie, fish, meat, char grill and two fixed price menus.

Our mission: to spend as little as possible, because while Mr Smith & Co cook exceedingly good food it can be painful on the wallet.

Homework done, we arrived ready to order, only to find they’d changed the menu. Not that much but dishes had vanished. It is also marginally easier to read.

Richard, as you will have read, has revamped his Crosspool Thyme flagship with a fish restaurant, Catch, upstairs and the bistro upstairs.

The feel of the space has been totally changed: a “wine arch” of wooden shelves and pigeonholes divides it into two, with angled mirrorsa feature of the white, brown and burgundy décor; leather banquettes, ceiling fans, David Mellor cutlery, veg in little copper pans and the return of the side plate. It is needed.

It also has restaurant manager Tim Treeby, a man who is getting as many reviews as the Thyme chefs, shuttling between the two.

The food is French orientated, with some dishes drifting downstairs from Catch, although few Parisian bistros can have served steak and kidney pud. Saturdays plat.

The menu is packed with good ideas, rump steak burger with foie gras, duck shepherds pie, seven hour braised lamb with polenta cake, and classics such as daube of beef and tournedos Rossini.

What hasn’t changed is Richards penchant for serving up hefty value for money portions, so it might be wise to fast for a week before you eat here.

After super bread I started with rillettes (£6), a dish found i9n most French bistros and much talked about in Crosspool – mainly by people asking what it is. This is meat slowly cooked to melting then shredded and eaten on toast or bread like a high class Sutherlands Spread.

It is tricksily served on a wooden board in a kilner jar; beneath a blob of goose fat on top of which is some beautifully dressed posh salad, alongside bowls of pickles and a rich plum chutney.

Greenery goes flying as you remove it (thank heavens for side plates) and life can get a little messy. But its messy heaven. These rillettes are duck, rabbit and pork and while underseasoned the joy in this dish is in the soft, melting texture. And it wasn’t bulked out with too much fat.

My wife was eating from the fixed price menu number two (£18 for two courses, three for £23) and started with plum tomato and basil galette, which like many of the dishes is available elsewhere at £6. The thin pastry disc with flavour bursting thinly cut tomato and a basily “tapenade” was simple but superb.

On the old menu, I’d have had the boeuf bourgignon (Wednesday plat), now it was the Artisan cassoulet (£10). My stomach still aches to think of it.

More pastis has been drunk and Citanes smoked arguing over what goes in a cassoulet. Head chef Simon Wild opts for topping his with bread crumbs.

Mes braves, I was gobsmacked by how much meat had limbo danced in. There was homemade black pudding, sausage, lamb, pork and a whole confited duck leg, white beans and vegetables. It was gloriously rich and filling and still moist with a decent amount of broth. I could not finish it.

“You’ll want a bit of green,” Tim had said so we chose spinach only to find a big dish of green beans came with the price so we were £4 the poorer: Naughty Tim.

Across the table the finnan haddock lasagne was a winner before it arrived as the aromas preceded it. Full marks for the al dente pasta sandwiching the precisely cooked fish and the rich (again) gorgeously creamy sauce with leeks and Cheddar.

I desperately searched for something light to finish, found an ice cream parlour like “coupe” of apple sorbet, vanilla and cinnamon ices, blackberry compote, apple crisps and crumble topping (£6), as tasty as it was clever.

My wife moved off the fixed price menu and back into the Kilner jars for a soft, sweet nougat glace with passionfruit on top (£6),

This is cooking of a very high order. The dishes are very accurately prepared with enough élan to satisfy any Francophile.

Minus points? Not many, apart from the Mistral of a draught in the waiting area and too small glasses if you order wine by the glass. My classy montepulciano (£4.25) tasted much better when decanted into a larger tulip glass.

We paid £50 for food, £8.25 for two glasses of wine, £3.50 for sparkling water and a fiver for two excellent espressos with truffles.

Star ratings out of five

Food *****

Atmosphere ****

Service ****

Value *****

Middle market restaurant. Do not compare ratings between places of different style or price.