“British seafood, Cotswold produce” is the core of Purslane. They’ve made it their purpose to demonstrate to us how the seafood from UK shores and carefully selected produce from our region, combined, is a thing of wonder.
Purslane in Cheltenham is a small, family run restaurant. Gareth Fulford is the Chef/Patron, with arguably Cheltenham’s friendliest looking face and finalist for ‘Chef of the Year’ at the Cotswold Life Food and Drink Awards), read more about him here ». Coincidentally, now’s the time (closes 13 April 2018) to nominate your Cotswold food and drink heroes for the 2018 awards »
Purslane list their suppliers on their website. You can visit quite a few of them and buy their produce for your own consumption from many locations throughout the region. So if you fancy whipping up a meal with ingredients that are good enough for a fine restaurant, you’ve got a guide right at your fingertips!
On our travels we’ve stopped at little produce huts on someone’s driveway, farms, markets, breweries, fairs, car boot sales, shops and villages halls (usually in the midst of a teak furniture sale bonanza) and exchanged coin with people crafting incredibly hard to produce something they’re proud to sell and eat themselves. Gareth and his team obviously take great delight in sourcing the finest ingredients for his culinary creations, ensuring every element of a dish starts off with great pedigree and is then prepared in a way to get the best out it.
During our visit to Purslane on a Thursday evening, we took on their seven course tasting menu with petit fours and coffee for £50 per person. They do offer a regular A la carte menu as well. Do check it before you visit, as the menu will change with the seasons.
Loosen your belts people, let’s dive in…
Introduction
Homemade, warm bread with seaweed butter and taramasalata
Course one
Amuse bouche
Course two
Hand-dived Oban scallop with wild garlic, Cotswold oxtail, chanterelles, parsley gnocchi
Course three
Cornish mackerel with cucumber gazpacho, Porthilly oyster wild horseradish and dill
Course four
Label Anglais chicken with black truffle, peas, Wye Valley asparagus, morels, Jersey Royals
Course five
Roasted white chocolate with hazelnut praline, milk ice cream, chocolate sorbet
Course six
Citrus pavlova with Broadway honeycomb, blood orange sorbet, fennel granita
Coffee and petit fours
And… we’re back up for air!
While watching Richard Ayoade and Fay Ripley dine at Michelin star restaurant, Kontrast in Oslo, on TV’s Travel Man, to my surprise I noticed they were served a similar box to the one above. Here’s the evidence from Instagram (courtesy of @cityfoodsters).
Overall, the flavours were very subtle and delicate and this carried through the entire menu, seemlessly flowing from one dish to the next. By large, the team’s best-loved elements of the meal were the scallop and the chicken. Somehow in life I’ve managed to avoid eating scallops, so this experience was my first and I’d have them again! Chicken I’ve had plenty of and it was by far the softest slice of poultry I’ve ever had in my life. The four of us had a little bit of a debate about the fennel granita with the citrus pavlova being too overpowering, but I’ve clearly got numb taste buds as I found it much more of a background flavour than they did.
A few other elements we found irresistible were the Porthilly oyster in batter from course three, the morel mushrooms and asparagus from course four and the Italian meringue from course six. Bon appetite we did!
To Adam and Mike’s delight, a Cirencester brew was on the menu (Corinium Ales). They love their ales and always choose a local beer when possible (although Stroud Brewery beers are a particular favourite).
Our only gripe from our evening was the distracting sound of the waiting staff pounding up the stairs to get to the kitchen. I guess you can’t help that as it’s a small restaurant, but the pummelling went on for the entire evening. They’ve also chosen not to play music in the restaurant and they’ve obviously decided that for a reason, but I personally would like some to give more of an atmosphere.
We had a really memorable time at Purslane and we’re proud that food this good is being served up in our home town.
We rate Purslane 5/5!
Purslane
16 Rodney Road,
Cheltenham
GL50 1JJ
