Sam & Jak, 2 Cricklade Street, Cirencester GL7 1JH (01285 704 478). Starters £8-£15, mains £16-£37.50, desserts £5-£8, wines from £27
On a warm, late-summer afternoon, Cirencester feels like a personable place to be. There’s a whole shopping parade here, along Black Jack Street, studded with businesses with which you can be on first-name terms: a coffee shop called Keith’s, a bookshop called Octavia’s, a fine and sturdy butchers, thick-glossed with heritage, called Jesse Smith. And there, on the other side of Market Place, in the shadow of St John Baptist church, is Sam & Jak.
It’s another business with which you can be on first-name terms, literally so for many locals. From 2019, and throughout the ravages of Covid, Sam Edwards and Jak Doggett ran the very much-loved Upton Firehouse in a broad shed not far away at Burford. They made blistered and singed pizzas in a wood-fired oven. They grilled mackerel and steaks over coals, served smoky potatoes slathered with ’nduja and got weekends started with heroic breakfasts that demanded to be followed by the sort of bracing Cotswolds walk to which I am allergic.
Last year, they moved here. They put in an open kitchen and a big bar downstairs, sanded the floors, painted the woodwork a soothing shade of teal and hung the upstairs walls with David Shrigley prints. It’s an unpretentious, but beguiling little bistro, which is best summed up by my companion, who looked up from her main course and said, “You just feel this is food prepared by people who give a toss.” Except she didn’t say “toss”, because she’s got a mouth on her like a sewer. Frankly, I welcome her language. That’s why she’s my friend. You, however, may not want that kind of talk on a Sunday.
She’s right, though. Not that this comes as a surprise, because I have previous with these two. They met in 2009 at Made By Bob, another Cirencester gem, which I reviewed the following year. To start, Sam was chef de partie and Jak an occasional kitchen porter, though they rose to be head and sous chef respectively. There is a lovely story here, of skills and good taste being passed down kitchen generations. Made by Bob belonged to Bob Parkinson who had worked at Bibendum, made famous by chef Simon Hopkinson. Parkinson made a fish soup, the colour of loose copper change and the flavour of the Marseille docks, which recalled both Hopkinson and Bibendum in its French country cooking pomp. He now has his own events company.
Meanwhile, his culinary progeny are now here, paying attention to detail and giving a righteous toss. The menu is tight and in places, market-sensitive. There are a couple of steak and chip options and a grilled chicken breast, for those desperate for the completely familiar. But there are flourishes and there is pizzazz. At lunchtimes they have a short pizza menu, for between £11 and £14. Alongside the offer of burrata with mint and cucumber salad or deep-fried cod cheeks with Korean mayo, that pizza dough becomes bubbled and blistered flatbreads, the cheery shape of a wide, oval smile, topped with nuggets of cumin-rich merguez sausage, a spiced yoghurt dressing and pickled chillies. Tear the hot, yeasty bread apart. Use it as an edible sponge to wipe up any of the lamb-fat juices that dribble down your forearms, if you’re eating it properly.
Or have the satsuma-orange trout tartare, rough cut and thickly dressed then mixed with chopped capers and cornichons. It’s laid with beads of trout roe that burst, oily and rich, against the roof of your mouth. Chase forkfuls around the plate with the golden croutons with which they are accompanied. Perhaps precede that with some of their Porthilly oysters. They come with shallot vinegar or chilli and lime and a family-size bottle of Tabasco. Our enthusiastic waiter apologises for the bottle’s heft, but a big bottle of pepper sauce can never be a bad thing.
Fish cookery is a strength here. The fillets of a lemon sole slip from the bones as if it simply can’t wait to get its kit off. And yet it retains bite and tension. There are cloves of confit garlic, the colour of patina-rich marble, and nutty brown shrimps. Shredded sorrel leaves and capers bring acidity. It looks proper messy, but it all makes sense when eaten. There’s nothing you can do to make a bowl of fried rice look elegant. Indeed, if it does look elegant, something’s gone wrong. Here, it’s mixed with generous spoonsful of curried white crab meat, red chilli, crispy shallots and fronds of coriander. Give it a squirt of lime juice and off it goes. It’s hinged between a kedgeree and a nasi goreng. The giving of a toss continues unto the sides: glossy greens come in an expertly judged harissa dressing; new potatoes are boiled then fried to crisp and smothered in salsa verde and parmesan.
A vanilla panna cotta, released from its setting bowl so it gets to wobble alluringly on the plate, comes with peaches roasted to the sweetest and stickiest version of themselves. But I’m most struck by the presence on our table of a St Emilion au chocolat. The terrine is the colour of dark leather. It’s spoonable, but slightly crumbly, with flavours of caramel and fruit and just an edge of savouriness. It needs the accompanying whipped cream. There’s a recipe for this venerable dessert in Elizabeth David’s French Country Cooking, first published in 1951. It was served at Bibendum and a recipe was included in Roast Chicken and Other Stories, the seminal cookbook Hopkinson wrote with Lindsey Bareham. Presumably, Bob got it from his Bibendum days and then passed it to Sam and Jak. I am a romantic at heart and love it dearly when the culinary golden threads get pulled through the decades like this.
There’s always the possibility that this kind of unabashed praise will look like too much. Can’t I find one sharp corner on which to stub the metaphorical toe? Well, our waiter did decline to use a notebook to take the order. I accept this is my neurosis. I want all the lovely sounding things I’ve chosen to reach the table; in my experience, 50% of the time where some sort of note is not taken, they don’t. So humour me. Scribble things down or at least pretend to. That said, she forgot nothing and was attentive in all the right ways, so I’m literally complaining about nothing. Everyone at Sam & Jak knows exactly what they’re doing. The result is the kind of meal you always hope for and don’t always get.
News bites
Tickets are now on sale for the ever-brilliant Dartmouth Food Festival, which takes place from 20-22 October in Devon. Alongside a full programme of events, including chef demos and workshops, there is a set of big-ticket lunches and dinners. Chef Mark Hix will be celebrating 15 years of his Oyster and Fish House in Lyme Regis with a four-course menu. The great pie maker Callum Franklin will be taking over Mitch Tonks’ Seahorse. Finally, on the Sunday Henry Harris of London’s Bouchon Racine will join forces with Mitch Tonks for a lunch extravaganza (dartmouthfoodfestival.com).
The death of the great oysterman Richard Haward has been announced. Haward, a familiar white-bearded figure at Borough Market and food festivals across the country, was the seventh generation of his family to have farmed oysters, having started working with his father on Mersea Island in Essex when he was just 13. As well as producing oysters that were prized both throughout the restaurant trade and by oyster lovers, he was a passionate spokesperson, campaigner and advocate for the industry. Our thoughts are with his family (richardhawardoysters.shop).
Gary Usher of the Elite Bistro group in the English northwest has decided to rename Wreckfish, his Liverpool restaurant. ‘It’s a ridiculous name. I called it Wreckfish and everybody thinks it’s a fish restaurant and that’s a deterrent for a lot of people.’ If you search for it online the words ‘(not a fish restaurant)’ now come up with the title, but clearly that hasn’t solved the problem. Usher is considering changing it to Wreck Bistro but worryingly, says he may also ask the public for ideas. Bistro McBistroface ahoy (wreckfish.co).
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
