A revamped menu at this hotel restaurant offers up clear flavours with global influences
Although Brocco Kitchen has been a staple in the Sheffield food scene since 2014, competition has been steadily growing with new restaurants nipping at its heels. Now Jake Davidson, who has worked in the kitchen for the past three years, is stirring up the menu since taking on the role of head chef.
Both the restaurant and its attached hotel Brocco on the Park maintain steady traditions, from being named after the road on which they sit to the weekly Sunday roasts piled high with meat, veg and Yorkshire puddings. But outside the lines, things are heating up in a balancing act of classic and contemporary.
"I've been going quite steady to try and keep all the traditional stuff together, but I'm now trying to branch out with new stuff and mix them together," Davidson says.
The chef spent his career in Sheffield venues, from being an apprentice at the Showroom Cinema to all-day café Ambulo. Now he is kept busy not just at Brocco Kitchen but also providing breakfast and room service for its neighbouring hotel. A few tables are saved for hotel guests for evening services so that no one misses out on a taste.
For lunch and dinner there is a menu of small plates that change quarterly, with three main sections – the hunter, the fisher and the gardener – covering meat, fish and vegetables. Each section has four items, all of which combine influences from across the globe, from the crispy squid, ink aioli, tomato and caper dish, to the pork chop with miso glaze, pineapple and tarragon slaw with crispy sage.
One of Davidson's most popular dishes takes ideas from Korean, Mexican and Greek flavours: braised lamb tacos with mint yogurt and kimchi. Lamb on the bone is braised for four and a half hours with onion, carrots, garlic and rosemary. The meat is removed from the bone and mixed with its own reduced juices. The kitchen makes its own kimchi by salting cabbage, adding chilli paste and fermenting it. "There are times when we've needed to buy it in, but it just tastes different to the packet stuff when you've done it yourself," Davidson says.
The tacos are then assembled, the lamb topped with kimchi and the mint yogurt, which is made from fresh mint, garlic, cucumber and natural yogurt, just like a Greek tzatziki.
Basil glass – candy-like, clear shards made from sugar and flavoured with basil – were initially created for a dessert of vodka vanilla panna cotta, but Davidson realised it was better used in a savoury dish. It now sits in a ring shape alongside hefty pan-roasted scallops, roe mousse and a roasted red pepper salsa.
"I was trying to make the scallops more sour with the vinegar of the red pepper salsa, and to then add the sweetness of the basil," says Davidson. "Then I thought I'd add a bit of crunch, so that's where the basil glass came in."
To make the salsa, the chefs roast the red peppers until charred, peel and dice them, and mix with sun-dried tomato oil and coriander.
Like many, Brocco has been struggling with the staffing crisis. Its ambitions to create a more elaborate dessert menu awaits an experienced pastry chef, and so the current list sticks to the classics.
"I wanted to do something simple but do it well," says Davidson. There are pub-like offerings of sticky toffee pudding and a chocolate brownie, along with ice-creams such as chocolate orange and pear and ginger. The kitchen shows its mettle in the lemon posset topped with ‘Brocco granola', all pre-made before service.
Breakfasts at Brocco aren't a throwaway affair either, and follow the same ideals as lunch and dinner. The hunter is a meaty full English with Cumberland sausage, while the gardener offers a potato and onion rosti and homemade smoked beans. The egg dishes include baked eggs with pork, onions and roasted fennel, or sweet potato hash browns with hummus, poached eggs and charred feta.
A new sous chef has recently been welcomed on to the team to support plans to change the menu more regularly, but Davidson is waiting until the lull after the summer rush to ramp it up. He says: "We are trying to make the menu smaller but change it more often so we have more experimentation in the kitchen and people don't get bored."
Brocco on the Park, 92 Brocco Bank, Sheffield S11 8RS
Continue reading
You need to be a premium member to view this. Subscribe from just 99p per week.
Already subscribed? Log In
