February isn’t here yet and I may already have eaten the best meal of the year in the most unlikely of spots. I got told we were going to a wine bar for some small plates, which I assumed was to get a little tipsy and fill a gap before dinner. I was not expecting plate after plate of food that I wouldn’t change a single thing on, or to find room for a dessert so good I almost wept into a glass of Nebbiolo. Erst is one of a kind, except it’s not, because it’s the same type of wine bar with some small plates that you find everywhere. Just off the top of my head I can name five in London. Birmingham has them, as do Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and likely many more places that I am yet to get to. Yet none will be as good as Erst.
The room, much like the menu, is small and perfectly formed. It’s sleek and grey, with polished raw materials on the floor and unpolished raw material on the wall. The square space has two walls of glass bordered with wine bottles, so that natural light floods the dining space where natural wine is being drunk. The menu is controlled and simple; ten savoury items, two of which are on bread, one raw (a tartare which was unavailable that afternoon), one cured. A cheese offering and two desserts finish the menu. The desire to order the entire menu is real, though we have dinner in a couple of hours. We show restraint by only ordering most of it.
The flatbreads are probably a good place to start given that the restaurant is an offshoot of the closely located Trove bakery. They are perfect. Puffed and blistered and smokey and almost candy floss light. One comes with a gremolata that is green, zesty, and full of raw garlic heat, another brushed with beef fat and finished with both chilli and onions that appear raw but seem to have been run under a tap until the harshness starts to retreat. The one with beef takes me straight back to Ynyshir, where the very best dishes are smeared in A5 wagyu dripping. This has a similar elegance and understanding. It takes flatbreads to levels you can merely dream of.
There is salt cod, cured so that the colour of the raw fish has dulled and lost life, with sweet red pepper, capers, and onions, all bound in the greenest of olive oil cut with lemon juice. The bread with the gremolata is the ideal surface to scoop the last of it on to. Boudin noir is fresh and almost paste-like, the sausage focusing on the pigs blood with little in the way of filler. It comes with sweet and soured radicchio and a cream laced with roast garlic. It’s grown-up and unrelenting, full of subtle nuance. Even better are the potatoes braised with wine and herbs that is a mess of sage, thyme and garlic. It’s a top five potato dish that starts a top five potato dish conversation (aloo tuk at Opheem, crispy terrine at Quality Chop House is as far as we got, if you’re wondering). My piss poor words can’t do this justice, other than we contemplate ordering another portion in a vain attempt to try and work out the cooking process.
Instead we order dessert. Hands down the best dessert I’ll eat all year. Bay pannacotta, prunes steeped in px sherry. The pannacotta, quivering like an anxious dog, light and medicinal in flavour, bouncing off the boozy prunes, dark and brooding. It’s the ideal way to finish a meal where every point was hit with total clarity. 6 dishes. 7 glasses of wine. About £70. Erst is pretty much perfect.
10/10
