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Bones Supperclub by Lee Skeet, revisit

On July 7, 2021 by The Plate Licked Clean

If you’re new to Lee Skeet’s Bones Supperclubs, you should probably read my initial love letter to his food, here.

Since my first visit- tonight’s was my third, with more to come- I have, in the words of m’colleague Rhydian of Bwyta yn y Briffdinas, ‘banged on about him’. Mea culpa. It worked, I suppose: he booked. He ate. He loved. And that’s why we write isn’t it, to share what’s good? Especially when it’s this good.

Which it rarely is in Cardiff.

We start, as always, with canapés. (A day off for the oyster farm means missing out on a dozen to get the engine running, but that’s what happens when your ingredients are couriered daily.)

They are all (and it’s a key word here) delicately built, elegant, whether it’s smoked mackerel pâté with Granny Smith on a rye cracker (a play on a previous main which teamed the tart bite of apple against the oily meatiness of the fish), or a tartare of veal and smoked eel with seaweed mustard on tapioca. A nugget of bone marrow and avruga (herring) caviar with dill completes the trio.

A tangle of sweet chilled Cornish crab, hand-picked of course, tiny dice of marinated tomatoes, a vivid tomato consommé dotted with herb oil. Finished at the table, it’s an evocative dish: a British summer in a bowl, even though the weather refuses to cooperate. just missing a streak of sunlight. Even on an overcast- eventually, drenched- Cardiff evening, it’s a glorious shaft of sunlight. If only virtually.

There are more Cornish riches with lobster from St Ives Bay, served with the rugged, earthy sweetness of confit carrot and- a lovely touch, this- a chilled mushroom crème pâtissière. All impeccably done, with a special mention for the roast chicken jus binding it all together.

It’s a triumph: rich, insistent, glossy, less sticky than downright viscous, the work of patience and diligence which I’m still licking off my molars.

The lobster is an optional course, as with the oysters, which you can book beforehand.

Do.

And if that was a plate to relish, the next is nothing short of ravishing.

‘I made it up just before you arrived,’ he explains, feeling it might be too similar to a dish I had another time (and that would never do, would it?) Lee likes to make sure you’re tasting new dishes when you come back. It’s remarkable, a litany of my favourite things in one dish. Is it the Orkney scallop, thicker than some unholy conjoining of Dominic Raab and Gavin Williamson? Is it those delicate little parcels of pasta and their subtly bosky filling?  Is it the sweetness of that suckling pig loin, that clear dashi broth. Is it the fried sea lettuce, a chicharron-resembling wink to the pork perhaps? That limpid broth is a sheer duvet of umami.

I don’t have much truck with the word perfection in cooking. It’s spewed out every day, so often in the service of the average, the mundane and above all the free. But if this brute of a bivalve wasn’t ‘cooked to perfection’ then I don’t know how else to describe that texture, that translucence. The entire dish is both comforting and heftily flavoured. Massively delicate, like being slapped with a silk stocking, it’s my Cardiff dish of 2021 to date. Dazzling. No more, no less.

A tranche of steamed turbot comes cleverly dressed with courgette ‘scales’, dotted with peas and tiny balls of apple and more courgette. The cooking of the fish itself is, naturally, impeccable. It’s all awash with a cremant sauce which is a deft balance of the acidic and the lavishly buttery: never too rich, beautifully poised.

A rack of roast lamb blushes like a front row busload of Mother Superiors at a Chubby Brown gig. A few baked spring onions, some aromatic slow-cooked lamb belly with honey & mint and that’s it, brought together with a subtly tangy goats curd sauce. I worry at the bone with my teeth. Despite the skill on ample show, this is relaxed eating, not puckered-sphincter fayne dayning. Simple pleasures, eh.

Raspberries top lemon posset and are laced with olive oil, an intriguing combination of sweet,  tart and grassy-fruity; it’s followed by a dainty construction of poached and fresh cherries and a pistachio crème patissiere sandwiched between fragile layers of cookie dough. Balance is all.

He’s a very self effacing chap, the opposite of some Twitter Billy Big Bollocks making bold claims for his food, though he’d be more entitled to do so than most. He looks visibly sheepish if you tell him how much  you enjoyed your meal. And you will. And you’ll book again, like I did, and like so many others. He tells me of a lady whose upcoming meal there will be her tenth. Why? I hope that’s clear by now. If not, I’ve failed you and the food I have eaten three times now.

He eventually admits he thinks his food is getting better- the unspoken ‘even’ is very much mine. But I’ve ‘banged on’ enough now. Rhydian has a point, though the upside is that he hadn’t heard of these supperclubs otherwise, and now as a Bones convert his assessment speaks volumes: ‘He’s so understated delivering the food- “This is just some [insert ingredient ]…” and the flavours are immense.’

There you go, then: just pure, joyous admiration for what Lee is doing. It’s time you found out for yourself. The next move is yours. Book it, ease into it, indulge yourself.

Just don’t say you weren’t told.

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The Bones Entertainment site is here- https://bones-entertainment.com/collections/supper-club-reservations