Food Review Kendells Bistro

Nell Frizzell gets blown away by a former Leodis partner's new venture

You are in: » Food Review »Kendells Bistro

Say the word ‘Halifax’ and if your first thoughts are of succulent scallops, fresh crispy french bread, soft french music and sauvignon blanc, then you are either extremely romantically inclined (I mean come on, this is the city that invented the toffee crisp) or you are already familiar with the wonderful restauranteur Steven Kendell.

Steven Kendell knows about French food. As one of the former owners of Leodis you may imagine this, but one look at the huge menu of Kendells Bistro (chalked up on the wall so it can change as often as they please) confirms it. There are frogs’ legs, they have braised belly pork, they have escargot, there are illes flottantes: there is frankly everything you may have wanted to order but never had the chance.

Once we had been seated at our low wooden table in front of a huge gilt mirror, the waiter brought over a basket of fresh, warm, crispy bread and creamy butter. I have never felt impelled to write about the bread at the beginning of a meal before but, then again, it has never been this good. I don’t even like bread and I ate almost an entire loaf.

My starter of king scallops with pea puree and mint, finished off with a thin strip of bacon, (£.) almost made me cry. The scallops were huge and plump, the puree was rich and the mint hit the sides of my mouth with a freshness that changed the whole feel of the dish. My companion, who will forgive me for called her a cheese eating food monkey, had a Roquefort salad with chicory, pear and walnut (£.), which was potent and delicious. Instead of sharing a bottle of wine I had a glass of the guest wine, a sauvignon blanc (£.), whilst my partner had a very fine merlot (£), which, she informed me, ‘had legs’.

Then it was time for our mains. By this point I was so excited I all but bit a hole in the table. I had ordered leg of lamb on a potato cake with red onion confit and roasted garlic (£.) with mange tout and haricot verts. Well, the potato cake was like a very thin slice of crisp roast potato and the lamb was so rich and flavoursome that my heart started to do double time. My companion had a whole roasted seabass (£.) with potato dauphinoise and she is still talking of it now.

For dessert (by this time it was hard to breathe, but I took it like a tough guy and ploughed on) I had a crème brulee (£.) made with real vanilla seeds, whilst my friend had illes flottantes (£.) — a great pudding of puffy clouds of softly poached meringue floating on a vanilla custard — which is all too rarely seen in this country.

For a meal that tastes like it should break the bank but doesn’t, in a restaurant that is somehow cosy and spacious, with great but relaxed service, you’ll have to go a very long way (over the Channel probably) to find somewhere better.

Posted on Friday 26th October 2007
LG

You are in: » Food Review »Kendells Bistro