Birthday Weekend – Sat Bains

Last weekend was Ross’ birthday so we made a weekend of it. We have wanted to visit Sat Bain’s Restaurant just outside Nottingham for years so a few months ago I booked us a table and two rooms. We rendezvoused with our good friends Kevan and Willem on Friday evening. Both our journeys were terrible, ours two hours longer than expected due to really heavy M1 traffic and theirs an extra three hours due to multiple accidents between Bristol and Nottingham. Unsurprisingly we were all a touch stressed when we arrived but being greeted with a small cup of the most luxurious hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted and an orange and chocolate cookie certainly helped, as did a quick visit to the cigar hut!

The restaurant plus with rooms is small and has a very limited number of covers (28 in the main room). Thankfully they were able to regig our start time and took the traffic chaos issues in their stride, meaning we could fully relax, and a glass of champagne also helped. The dinner was a 10 course taster menu which we had with the most wonderful organic wine pairings which were a revelation in themselves. The menu consists of the sketches that Sat draws at the start of the the creation of each dish.

The introductory course was five small mouthfuls, each highlighting one of the five taste sensations and the gastronomic adventure took off from there, with each dish a revelation. We had two extra courses, a chicken parfait muesli frozen in nitro (one of Sat’s favourite dishes from the past), and a visit to the herb greenhouse where a pesto was created infront of us and used to cook a mini sourdough pizza which was paired with a local beer, rather than a wine. Unfortunately, none of us remembered to take an image of the delicious Jasmine course, always a danger when you’re having wine pairings! It was my favourite of the sweet courses (heavenly) though Willem wholeheartedly disagreed, preferring the chocolate tart (also divine). The meal finished with shards of chocolate (miso, bee pollen and three other flavours) to accompany a perfect espresso.

Next morning started with a coffee in our room made from a selection of freshly ground coffees, accompanied by a mini brownie and mini custard doughnut (which we didn’t have a chance to eat yesterday due to our late arrival) – had I invented the idea of a pre-breakfast breakfast? Downstairs, I chose the most amazing muesli followed by a delicious full english, probably the best I’ve ever tasted. As you can see, this experience was truly worth every penny, and we are now just thinking about what we can celebrate next once we’ve saved some pennies so we can return!