Menuwatch: Casamia, Bristol

20 October 2021 by

At Casamia in Bristol, a seasonally focused menu is led by meat cooked over an open fire, as Andy Lynes discovers.

Chef Zak Hitchman informally refers to the restaurant he's headed up since August 2020 as ‘Casamia 2.0'. While it has retained its Michelin star since 2009 and still serves a multicourse tasting menu based on local and seasonal produce, much at the restaurant has changed. Covers have been reduced from 32 to 18, the walls are now decorated with street art and bespoke projections, a sound system has been installed, and chef-proprietor Peter Sanchez-Iglesias has taken a step back from the kitchen.

"He pops in probably once a week, but he sort of leaves us to it," says Hitchman. "He completely trusts us all in running the place and he wants us to keep heading in this slightly left-of-field direction. We've made Casamia into the sort of place we would want to come in. The atmosphere is more like a cool bar, rather than a boring old traditional restaurant."

After a year as sous chef at Casamia, Hitchman now heads up a brigade of five chefs. Before he arrived, he had spent four years under Gareth Ward at Ynyshir, which changed a lot for him as a chef. Ward's influence can be detected in Hitchman's love of cooking over an open fire, Japanese ingredients and meat, which all take centre stage on the 20- to 25-course £180 menu that's served at each of the restaurant's five services (dinner Thursday to Saturday, and lunch Friday and Saturday).

Tandoori chicken, puffed rice
Tandoori chicken, puffed rice

Hitchman's decision not to cater for dietary requirements was also influenced by Ward. "It just complicates everything. You might have 18 covers in and, depending on dietary requirements and allergies, it might mean you're doing six different menus. It becomes something else; you're just catering for what the guest wants, which isn't really what we do here."

In keeping with the left-field approach, the menu comes in the form of an album cover with the savoury courses listed under the heading of Side One and the desserts under Side Two. It was designed by Bristol-based artist Chris Wright of Turbo Island. Hitchman says: "I've been following his work for a long time. He does gig posters and stuff. It's a bit silly but it's a nice little touch. We give everyone the menu at the end rather than the start because we like it to be a surprise."

Zak Hitchman
Zak Hitchman

Hitchman says he changes his menu seasonally and adjusts "virtually every day" to accommodate ingredients from a network of local suppliers that may have a short season. However, several dishes have stayed on the menu since he took over the kitchen, including a potato snack described with typical idio­syncrasy as "Ratte '72 feat. black garlic".

"We use Maris Bard, which is an ancient variety we get from Northumberland. We cook it in a dashi stock to season the potato, then fry it once to blanch it. We then cover it in a wicked tempura batter and fry it again so it's super-crispy. It's like a triple-cooked chip, but the last method of frying is slightly different. We serve it with a black garlic mayonnaise, some pickles and black garlic."

During service, Hitchman cooks mostly on an open grill (using sustainable wood and charcoal from Whittle and Flame in Oxford) that was built for him by his former Ynyshir colleague Nathan Davies, who is now chef-patron of SY23 in Aberystwyth. "Rather than having to individually cook smaller pieces of meat, I'll cook bigger joints that we call ‘Roast of the Day'. It makes it much easier but also much better, because everyone is getting the exact same thing."

One of Hitchman's favourite meats to cook is cull yaw mutton from Matt Chatfield at the Cornwall project in Launceston. He buys whole animals that are aged specifically for the restaurant for between six and eight weeks. "We'll slowly roast off whichever part is right for the amount of covers we're doing, so it will change from the saddle to the rack to the legs and the rump, until it's perfectly pink and super-smoky. We finish it with a shiso glaze and some fresh shiso, and serve it with a sheep gravy made from the trim and the roasted bones."

The dish is typical of Hitchman's style, focusing on maximising flavour from a few core elements. Another of his favourite dishes involves simply roasting organic chicken legs from Stream Farm in Somerset, then finishing them on the grill to order, serving them with a tandoori-style sauce that fuses Indian and Japanese ingredients including cumin, coriander, ginger, onion seeds, fenugreek leaves, garlic and home-smoked chillies, as well as mirin and miso, and finished with Ampersand butter.

"All the food is quite minimal," he says, "but there's quite a long process to everything on the menu. It may look simple on the plate, but we take quite a long time getting to the end result."

From the £180 tasting menu

  • Trout with caviar
  • Chicken caesar
  • Prawn toast
  • Scallop with wild garlic
  • Tandoori chicken
  • Lobster with plum

Desserts

  • Burnt cream
  • Blueberry s'more
  • Custard tart

The General, Lower Guinea Street, Bristol BS1 6FU

casamiarestaurant.co.uk

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