At The Kensington Arms in Redland, I’m acutely aware that I’m the last face any kitchen brigade wants to see over a long bank holiday weekend. This boozer, a few miles from Bristol city centre, had been mentioned to me by food-lovers several times, and the words “traditional” and “proper” featured regularly, as did “dependably brilliant Sunday lunch”. We all need one of those up our sleeve: there’s not a problem in the world that roast potatoes and gravy do not improve. Aside from, perhaps, gout, though by that stage you may as well crack on.
The Kenny, as it’s affectionately called, is one of the latest projects of chef Josh Eggleton, whom I met across a judging table on BBC2’s Great British Menu. It was the series celebrating “great Britons”, where chefs queued up to cure trout in tribute to their forefathers and present puddings symbolising the Windrush. Eggleton, I learned here, is the face behind the Michelin-starred country pub The Pony & Trap in Chew Magna, and was a curiously humble culinary genius, as well as a restaurant entrepreneur who has opened a number of chip shops and bistros around the Bristol area.
Still, during TV competitions, in which chefs are pushed to be showy, thematic or to “cook outside their comfort zone”, I often long to taste the type of food they think is delicious when they’re not being asked to make great telly. Nobody on MasterChef: The Professionals ever says, “Today, I’ve cooked a leek and jersey royal potato soup, and served it with fresh sourdough and good salted butter”, but by God, sometimes I wish they would. A woman can endure only so many offal bonbons with a Pernod clafoutis chaser.
Joyously, at The Kenny, with Luke Hawkins (ex Pony & Trap) at the helm, the single-sheet Sunday lunch menu begins with precisely this straightforward leek-and-spud pottage. It is velvety, fragrant and balm-like. It reminds me of the folly of how, in recent decades, Brits have been made to feel sheepish over recent decades about choosing soup as a starter, as if it’s only one step up from that other classic 1970s opening act, “a glass of pasteurised orange juice”. The Kenny has the soup to change all of that.
Other starters included a crab cake with curried mayo and pickled kohlrabi, while some crisp brawn came armed with both pickles and piccalilli. Brawn, or head cheese, is made from the rich, flavourful, gelatinous meat from a pig’s head, which all chefs swear is the best bit. It may not be to be everyone’s taste, but if you’ve ever eaten a cheap sausage, I’m fairly certain you’ve consumed much worse.
We were delighted with a bowl of good, fresh, perfectly judged Cornish mussels in a rich, piquant, cider-and-cream broth, which Charles chose and which I pilfered with a long spoon.
The Kenny, I felt after my first white peach bellini, is the type of pub that gives you a crisis of conscience about flagging it up to the outside world. The locals are so happy right now in this space, which is far from gargantuan, and its welcoming, open-kitchened back room that’s peppered with peculiar, culinary-themed art and staffed by people who are far, far more brilliant than they need to be for a pub, as if this were the Mirabelle in the late 1990s.
The Kenny is cleanly kept with non-sticky tables, spotless loos and comfy banquettes that have not as yet been spattered with gravy. It has everything a boozer should have, aside from, perhaps, a saggy-faced pub dog ambling about and begging crisps.
We drank Dashwood Pinot Gris from New Zealand at £7 a glass and waited for what is known on the menu as “The Main Event”. Charles had medium-rare dry-aged Hereford beef rump – thick, pinky-red slices, with fluffy, light yorkshire pudding, crisp, plump, roast potatoes, red cabbage and one of those carrots that are so fancy, they give you only one.
I found my own nirvana in a heavenly sweet potato and chestnut wellington: soft, sweet, nutty and perfectly seasoned, with glorious pastry. I have tasted some beastly vegetarian wellingtons in my time, but this one restored my faith. In fact, supermarkets putting together their Christmas food offerings could learn from The Kenny, and save veggie food lovers from another Yule eating what tastes like budgie feed wrapped in the Dead Sea scrolls.
For pudding, we shared a highly memorable frangipane tart, a deconstructed bakewell of sorts, with tonka bean ice-cream, which I always think of as a sort of wicked, next-level vanilla. I left The Kenny full to the brim of deliciousness and walking like a pregnant penguin. This little corner of Redland won my stomach, and then it won my heart.
• The Kensington Arms 35-37 Stanley Road, Bristol, 0117 944 6444. Open lunch all week, noon-2.30pm (3pm Sat, 7pm Sun); dinner Mon-Sat, 6-9pm (9.30pm Fri & Sat). About £30 a head for three courses à la carte; set weekday lunch £12 for two courses, £15 for three; set Sunday lunch £22 for two courses, £26 for three, all plus drinks and service.
Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Atmosphere 8/10
