Restaurant Sat Bains is Nottingham’s only Michelin stared restaurant and boutique hotel.  I was lucky enough to be taken out to dinner in this remarkable restaurant last week.  I had been looking forward to the dinner for weeks and had huge expectations, every expectation was exceeded.

Knowing Sat Bain’s philosophy for giving guests something unique we decided to opt for the tasting menu - a culinary journey through various courses of taste, texture and temperature.  The menu was seven set courses plus a number of sublime surprise courses in the form of Amuse-Bouche prior to the menu starting. 

The “Duck egg 62c with artichoke veloute and Bellota ham” was out of this world.  Every course after this was equally delicious and exciting.  We finished with Blackberries with honey and lavender and were all disappointed that the “culinary journey” was over.

I really cannot recommend this restaurant enough - from the food and wine to the ambience to the knowledgeable staff.  It is expensive, but so are most of the local Gastro Pubs, and if you compare the food at Sat Bains to that of the pubs it is absolutely worth every penny.  I only hope that I can go again and stay the night next time!

Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms, Lenton Lane, Nottingham NG7 2SA
www.restaurantsatbains.com
Tel:  0115 986 6566

Paul has been serving contemporary cuisine at his restaurant in Bottesford for eight years now.  It is without a doubt my favourite restaurant locally. 

The restaurant is a great place to meet friends, but be warned you do need to book, especially at the weekends.  I can’t recommend their Seabass Fillet on Grilled Asparagus with Sunblushed Tomato and Lemon Dressing highly enough.  I have something different every time I go and have never been disappointed, they also have a wide range of delicious wines.

My husband and I often pop in to the Wine Lounge early on a weekend evening, you can’t book there but if you do go early, especially in the Summer when you can sit outside, you will usually get a table.  The food is just as good as in the restaurant but the menu is slightly smaller.

Go to www.pauls-restaurant.co.uk for more information.

One of our very helpful Gonalston Farm Shop customers has given me a gentle nudge to encourage me to write about our favourite restaurants closer to home. He made a very valid point that although it is interesting to hear about exciting places to eat around the world, wouldn’t it be slightly more useful to hear some reviews of places we actually might get to visit?!!

So going forward we will regularly be featuring our favourite restaurants in our local region. This week we will be starting with Kevan’s reviews of two restaurants in Nottingham, having read about them I am now longing to visit. Please let us know your special eateries too!

The first is called French Living, I believe established in 1994 - you may be familiar with it? It is small establishment with an excellent cafe and delicatessen at street level and a wonderful restaurant below stairs. The proprietors, who are a married couple, are, I believe, one from Corsica and the other from Nottingham. The environment is pleasant, the service is both excellent and friendly and the food divine, fresh and authentically French in every detail. I can heartily recommend a visit to it. I discovered French Living about ten years ago when my daughter, then only eleven years old, and I used to visit it for fresh coffee and croissants on Saturday mornings, before I dropped her off for her drama class. We’ve been going back ever since.
www.frenchliving.co.uk

The second restaurant, which currently shares the title of “my favourite” is located just a few doors down the hill from French Living, towards the Market Square. It is called the Lock Fyne Fish Restaurant. Though I believe this is part of a chain of similar restaurants situated around the country, that fact takes nothing away from the experience of eating there. The environment is very comfortable and very professional. It reminds me, in style, of a sea-food restaurant I’ve eaten in in Soho. The service is good and the seafood served there is of the highest quality. Again, I can heartily recommend it.
www.lochfyne.com

These are a few of the Gonalston Farm Shop team’s favourite places to eat accross the globe - please let us know your most memorable eateries from near and far. 

Codfather Seafood and Sushi, 37 The Drive, Cape Town, South Africa

Codfather opened as a Seafood restaurant and Sushi Bar about five years ago - one of the first Sushi venues in Cape Town.  They serve an amazing array of freshly caught seafood and sushi in a very buzzy, yet warm and relaxed environment.  They do not have any menus and the unique way in which the waiters help you put your meal together works beautifully in that it allows you to select everything according to your appetite and budget.  In other words the options and possibilities are endless.

Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, 21 Upper Merion Street, Dublin 2, Ireland

Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud has been offering the ultimate in dining experience for food lovers since 1981 when the restaurant first opened.  Since then they have continually set the standards by which others are judged and they have won every major food award in the world.

Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud is set agains the backdrop of one of Europe’s finest wine cellars.  Visit the link below to look at some of their moutwathering menus.

www.restaurantpatrickguilbaud.ie

R C Otter’s Island Eats, 11508 Andy Rosse Lane, Captiva Island, Florida

Award-winning RC Otter’s is a place for the whole family.  It is located in the heart of Old Captiva Village with lovely shopping and dinning, you can enjoy live music daily with dining inside or out.  Great island food, local fun and affordable prices with casual and comfortable surroundings.  Serving the finest seafood dishes, voodoo steak and chops, creative pasta, and  large vegetarian kids’ menu.  Right on the beach, stroll in wearing your bikkini and no one will bat an eyelid!

Carnivore Restaurant, Nairobi, Kenya

The Carnivore is a unique experience.  This open-air speciality restaurant sells every type of meat imaginable, including four choices fo wild game.  The meat is roasted on traditional Maasai swords over a huge, visually spectacular charcoal pit that dominates the entrance of the restaurant.

The waiters then carry these swords around the restaurant, carving unlimited amounts of the prime meats onto sizzling, cast iron plate in front of you.  A wide selection of salads, vegetable side dishes, and a variety of exotic sauces accompany the meat feast.  Dessert an dcoffee follow this.  The full meal including a soup course if flat price.  This all has to be seen (and tasted!) to be believed!

Otto’s, Woolloomooloo Wharf, 6 Cowper Road, Woolloomooloo, Sydney

Otto’s is a decidedly authentic Italian restaurant that places a modern spin on more traditional dishes, and the generous view contains a bit of everything: the green Botanic Gardens, the busy skyline and the harbour lapping against berthed yachts.  It is also an awesome spot to watch the fire works from.

The menu reads like a map of iconic produce regions; Sicilian olive oil, Spencer Gulf prawns and Tasmanian Spring Bay scallops.  The interior is pleasant, but be sure to call ahead if you want to snare one of the more fashionable outside tables.  The menu is tweaked almost weekly to keep regulars enticed, and the whole baked Barramundi is the unspoken star of the menu and is left off the printed menu for fear it will sell out and disappoint those who miss out!

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