Seaside specialities
"I walked the six or seven miles of beach and there was nowhere you could eat decent food, nowhere that had such a stunning view of the Needles and Isle of Wight. At 5pm everybody just went up a bloody zig-zag cliff path to the car park and that was it. I just thought about the places I'd been to on holiday in the south of France and Portugal and thought, ‘God, this could be so lovely…' and the idea grew from there," says Ryan.
Five years down the line the Ryans have been so successful at establishing a destination restaurant in Bournemouth - the 65-seat Bistro on the Beach was taking six-month advance bookings for Friday and Saturday nights within six months of its April 1995 opening - that they have been able to launch a sister restaurant in nearby Christchurch.
Referring to the 90-seat Christchurch eaterie as a sister restaurant, though, is somewhat misleading. The Ryans were able to invest £675,000 in the purchase and refurbishment of Christchurch - against a mere £60,000 spend in Bournemouth. And there are distinct differences in the venues and the food that each serves.
The Bournemouth restaurant, which has been known to turn over 100-plus covers on a busy Saturday night, serves essentially straightforward, rustic bistro dishes - the likes of cod on a bed of roasted peppers, or pan-fried breast of chicken with grain mustard sauce - while the Christchurch site is the next culinary gear up. More complex. Foie gras terrine with toasted brioche and apple jelly, or seared sea bass on tomato confit with basil dressing are more the order of the day on its menu.
The differentiation in style extends to the dining area. Bournemouth's Bistro on the Beach is a cheery, no-frills seaside yellow-and-blue ex-council café. Christchurch's Bridge features slick blond wood and stylish blue chairs - and white table linen. It's a very deliberate ploy.
"I didn't want people to make comparisons between the two. The Beach is a caf‚ during the day, a restaurant at night - incredibly busy. To get the mise en place out for the evening is difficult with just four in the brigade. You have to be versatile. At the Bridge, I have a brigade of five, and they've got more time to focus on what they achieve on the plate," says Ryan.
Although no longer cooking on an every-day basis - he has two head chefs running the kitchens, Nick Cook at the Beach and Phil Burt at the Bridge - Ryan splits his time between the two bistros, overseeing the pass and helping with mise en place during the day. Generally, he is in Bournemouth in the morning, and Christchurch at lunch and for the majority of the evening. Saturdays are the exception, when he's at the hectic Bournemouth site until 9pm, by which time the major covers have gone through. "Then I come over to the Bridge and spend about an hour going round the tables chatting to customers."
His wife, Sheila, also divides her time, overseeing the front of house operations at the two venues. It all makes for a busy life and a bit of tongue-twisting with Bistros, Beaches and Bridges, but, for Ryan, the journey has been worth it, both financially and personally.
"I was 41 when we opened in Bournemouth and I wanted to control my own destiny. Chefs come to a time when the amount of jobs available in London, where I had worked for most of my career, are few and far between. The guys coming up are as good, if not better, than you - and if you're a person like me you need to have something to do, something to go for."
Ryan is chatting on a swelteringly hot morning in early summer in the walled garden of his Christchurch restaurant. Against the intrusive background roar of a lawn mower he admits to a feeling of immense satisfaction. "I'd always wanted to have a restaurant that was successful. I achieved that. Then, I wanted a restaurant where I actually had time to enjoy the cooking - and I've achieved that. Now I've got to make sure that restaurant number two achieves the financial results that number one is achieving." And if that happens, will there be a restaurant number three? "Possibly, given time. The idea's floatable," he concedes.
In the meantime, he's concentrating on the job in hand. Getting it pitch-perfect at Christchurch, Ryan's mantra for attaining that desired state of affairs hasn't changed since he launched himself as a chef-restaurateur in 1995. With "quality food at value-for-money prices" in mind, he offers a fixed-price du-jour menu (three courses for £21.50) with supplemented specials at Christchurch. That structure is the same as at Bournemouth, but there the similarity stops.
The Christchurch food is altogether more refined. And nowhere is the difference more apparent than in its dessert selection. The reason? Ryan has employed a pastry chef, Tim Gower - previously of the Pomme d'Or in Jersey - who brings great precision and skill to the section. With Gower on board, Ryan can put out dishes such as peach parfait with a warm peach compote. He can garnish desserts with tuiles and spun sugar rather than finishing something such as a poached pear in red wine with fresh berries; or dusting down a chocolate tart with sugar or chocolate powder. "The plan was to push the cooking forward at Christchurch in stages, but it's gone on to another plateau much more quickly with Tim. He's a diamond," says Ryan.
With help of the Bridge's head chef, Nick Burt, Ryan has also taken his main and starter dishes up a notch in Christchurch. In contrast to Bournemouth, where mains are served with side orders of vegetables, main course options here are designed as entities in themselves. All carbohydrates and garnishes are on the plate. A piece of sea bass might come, for instance, with tomato confit made of vine tomatoes, a pesto and saffron potatoes. However, because Ryan's own inclination is towards simplicity, the presentation is unfussy. Garnishes, he says, are "enough, but not too much".
When it comes to starters, Ryan likes to include recognisably luxurious or exotic ingredients somewhere in the line-up. Foie gras, caviar, scallops and lobster are favourites of his. Foie gras might be served, for example, as a terrine with toasted brioche and an apple jelly to cut through the pâté's richness. Scallops could come with a pancetta salad and walnut dressing.
The food style is unswervingly simple, but with an evolving modern edge - apple jelly with foie gras, a Muscat grape chutney with double-baked Stilton soufflé, gravadlax marinated with Oriental spices served with a lightly tossed bean shoot salad.
Democracy
Planning menus, which change every two weeks, is a democratic process. Burt draws them up initially - with input from his brigade - and then runs them past Ryan, who either ratifies them or suggests changes after menu tastings. The same system is operated with Burt's counterpart, Nick Cook, in Bournemouth. Often, Ryan will give Burt and Cook pre-planning pointers - he has pushed terrines recently in Bournemouth because they are made prior to service, thereby taking some pressure off the brigade at the busy venue - but leaves dish development to his head chefs.
That Ryan has hit the ground running at the new Christchurch venture is beyond doubt. Advanced bookings at the weekend are running around the one-month mark, repeat custom has hit 50% and already he has gained two AA rosettes for the eaterie. He believes that he could gain three rosettes given time, but is ambivalent about the business wisdom of striving for them.
"I'd like to have three doing what I do now, but I think I might have to change my method of doing things. It's not viable now to bake our bread with the number of covers we do, for example, although we have it specially made for us to my recipes. I'd have to start putting up prices to cover the labour costs of baking in-house. And I don't want to stop putting out value for money or change our pricing structure. Going somewhere like Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons [in Great Milton, Oxfordshire] is a treat. But it's not the real world. The Bistros are the real world, where you'll get more than your expectation, hopefully - and it's a great feeling to be able to give my customers that."
David Ryan on…
Family origins: "My parents were Irish, but I was born in Highbury, London. I suppose I'm a plastic Paddy - you know, a person who likes Irish music but doesn't know why!"
Customers: "I noticed last week at Bournemouth that I knew only half the people dining in the restaurant. It was brilliant. All the people who couldn't get in before we opened in Christchurch are getting in now because we've brought some of our regulars from the Beach with us down the road."
Media publicity: "I always make myself available for local and national press."
Menus: "I judge the quality of a menu on how much I'd like to eat all the dishes on it. You should put out one where you'd want to eat everything on offer."
Finding the Bistro on the Bridge site: "I saw an ad in Caterer - the site was up for tender. So I thought I'd go and have a look. It was grotty - but there was potential."
On repeat bookings: "A good night is when someone has a meal and asks to make a further booking there and then. Often at the Beach, you don't see the diary for a whole evening once it comes out. It just flies round the tables. And that's started to happen at the Bridge, now."
Ingredients: "If you buy crap, you're not going to get very far."
