Lark, 6A Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds IP33 1UZ (larkrestaurant.co.uk). Snacks £2.50-£7, plates £11-£28, desserts £10-£12, wines from £25 a bottle
Some phrases are extra abused than others. “Particular” is a kind of. Russia’s murderous warfare on Ukraine is seemingly a “particular navy operation”. The Royal Mail’s “particular supply” service invariably means you’ll obtain a card by your door from somebody who couldn’t be arsed to ring the bell, though you had been in, telling you to go and accumulate your package deal from the publish workplace. After which there’s using particular on menus, which can point out that the kitchen ordered an excessive amount of of one thing no one needed to eat, and now it’s been repurposed as a soup nonetheless no one needs to eat.
At Lark, a tiny restaurant in Bury St Edmunds, the particular is correctly particular. The outline, scribbled up on the blackboard, is suggestive sufficient. It reads “rabbit shank and black pudding pie, girolles, cream madeira sauce”. Put apart piffling questions over whether or not rabbits have shanks or whether or not, in the event that they do, there’s sufficient meat between a rabbit’s knee and ankle to go in a pie. Questions of leporine anatomy should not related right here. For that pie is on its manner. Put together to swoon. Maybe unlace your corset.
‘Sensational’: rabbit and black pudding pie. {Photograph}: Chris Ridley/The Observer
Sitting on a mound of a pea purée, amid a pond of shiny, herb-flecked, girolles-studded, varnished-mahogany sauce, is a golden, pastry-encased, thigh-shaped pie. There’s a nice pastry lattice over the case. It has been egg-glazed many times till you may nearly see your face in it. A bone stands out one finish. While you reduce in, you realise it’s a superb piece of set dressing, for that bone doesn’t hook up with something. It’s simply been inserted to remind you of the entire shank factor. Beneath that pastry is a layer of blanched cabbage leaf, to behave as a barrier, which results in a thick, peppery layer of crumbly black pudding with the occasional bead of fats. In flip, that results in the center of the matter, which is to say a beneficiant mound of deeply seasoned shredded rabbit.
It’s the love baby of a wellington and a scotch egg. Perhaps a ball of stuffed cabbage joined them within the sack for a romp, too. I’m consuming with the meals historian Dr Annie Grey who sighs theatrically and says: “The nineteenth century can be very proud of that.” It’s a masterclass in classical cooking which should have taken a number of days to execute. And it’s, in fact, scrumptious: the outer pastry is crisp. The black pudding is gentle. The rabbit is dense. It’s all swept on its outrageous manner by that correct old-school sauce. It prices £28 and if, within the present financial hurricane you assume that’s an excessive amount of, cease studying. Critical effort has occurred to convey this to us and it’s just about the costliest factor on the menu.
‘With jewels of roe, sliced grapes and a dribble of ajo blanco’: sherry-cured trout. {Photograph}: Chris Ridley/The Observer
The rabbit pie is the work of the fabulously named Freddie Footer, working with head chef James Carn. Each got here from close by Pea Porridge, the longstanding Michelin-starred restaurant in Bury St Edmunds. The remainder of the magnificent brigade is named Ewan. He’s not lengthy graduated from catering school. That’s it. Simply the three of them. Afterwards, once I was within the kitchen, fanboying over the rabbit shank pie as in the event that they had been all of the Harry Kinds of meals, I requested whether or not there had been any pushback from their earlier employer over the months-old opening. Completely not, they informed me. That they had been inspired to do it. It’s heartening and proof, if it had been wanted, that high quality begets high quality; that when the tide rises, it lifts all of the boats.
Lark is housed in a stable constructing on the sting of the city sq.. It was as soon as a bus shelter, then a police station and eventually a florist’s. The house, which seats simply 20, was due to this fact typically frequented by fumbling {couples}, then by drunks behaving badly and eventually by stunning aromatic issues. Now it’s a restaurant, all three of these can occur right here once more. The ground is polished concrete. The white partitions are hung with tidy if mildly glowering abstracts. The menu is an inventory of smallish plates, rising in worth with their heft.
‘Terrific’: muntjac tartar on a hash brown. {Photograph}: Chris Ridley/The Observer
The classical drift of the rabbit pie is matched by sautéed sweetbreads, in a deep, sticky lake of café de Paris butter with a number of white beans. It’s topped with fronds of bitter frisée (or the Jolly Inexperienced Large’s pubic hair, because it was as soon as described to me. You’ll by no means take a look at it in the identical manner once more). Different issues are from a extra fashionable playbook. Vivid orange lozenges of sherry-cured trout nestle amid vertical ribbons of kohlrabi, with jewels of roe, sliced grapes and a dribble of ajo blanco. A courgette flower, nonetheless hooked up to its courgette, is filled with smoky baba ghanoush then expertly tempuraed. We have now crunchy radishes with a silky quenelle of whipped lardo, and spherical croquettes of scorching shredded smoked mackerel. In addition they do a terrific line in sharp-edged, golden hash browns, both topped with a tartare of muntjac and shiny leaves of radicchio, or as a aspect dish with the garlicky, smoked paprika wonder-dip that’s mojo rojo.
In the way in which of most former bus stops, this isn’t a glamorous house. It has been bludgeoned into being a snug room. As an alternative, all of the glamour is on the plate. There’s a robust sense of younger cooks pushing on the very fringe of what they will obtain in a tiny kitchen; of them making a primary, stand-alone assertion. As we work our manner by our plates, a chap in a solar hat and shorts is available in alone, will get a desk for one and orders the half lobster with lobster butter and sea herbs. It’s clear he’s been earlier than. It’s clear he’s blissful.
‘That righteous stability of acidic and creamy’: mango and fervour fruit trifle. {Photograph}: Chris Ridley/The Observer
To finish the deal, they’ve an inventory of correct desserts, which incorporates an apple tarte tatin. A mango and fervour fruit trifle, with beige wafers of caramelised white chocolate, is that righteous stability of acidic and creamy. Dig down and you can see a gentle puck of sponge. A scoop of darkish chocolate mousse is piled with grainy pistachio ice-cream. It’s then topped, as if it’s a jaunty hat, by a textured chocolate tuile, coated with nice shavings of extra chocolate. The wine record is compact and priced for that second bottle. The service, by simply two individuals, is swift and guaranteed. There are many phrases you may use to explain Lark in Bury St Edmunds: it’s bold, intelligent, relaxed, and massively pleasurable. However I’ll go for only one phrase, used accurately. Like that rabbit shank pie, it’s particular.
Information bites
The Crown Inn, a meals pub at Upton in Hampshire, has joined forces with its sister firm The Charcuterie at Parsonage Farm, which produces a variety of cured meats and has a cookery college. They’re providing a brace of latest programs to company. One is within the craft of constructing charcuterie. The opposite is named “Make your personal breakfast”, and can lead individuals by the butchering of pork shoulders to make sausages and the curing of bellies to make bacon (parsonagefarmcharcuterie.com).
The hyper-late evening Chinese language eating choices within the centre of London have simply doubled. A yr in the past, the 4 Seasons Chinese language restaurant group opened Chop Chop, a Cantonese restaurant on the decrease floor ground of the Hippodrome On line casino near Leicester Sq.. It’s open till 4am. Now the Empire On line casino, a number of metres up the strip, has collaborated with Asian restaurateur Ellen Chew to launch seventh Cat. It too serves a Cantonese menu and is open till 4am (thecasinolsq.com).
Closure information. Le Ache Quotidien, the Belgian-born bakery group which operates in 20 nations together with India, Brazil and Japan, has closed all however certainly one of its British branches after the UK holding firm went into administration. Solely the department at St Pancras station stays open. In the meantime the big upmarket restaurant group D&D London has quietly closed its longstanding Canary Wharf web site which was buying and selling as Plateau. It’s the sixth D&D restaurant to shut this yr.
E mail Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or observe him on Twitter @jayrayner1