The French, at least at one stage in culinary history, would not have balked at eating the entire cast of Watership Down in a robust dijon sauce. The British, on the other hand, have always been rather less keen, so it was surprising to hear reports that Lapin, a new French restaurant in Bristol, had been struggling to keep fluffy bunnies on its classic, single-sheet menu due to supply reasons, apparently because its game dealer couldn’t shoot them quickly enough to meet Lapin’s demand. Instead, its diners had had to settle for confit duck leg, coarse sausage and deep-fried pig’s head.
Lapin patently aims to offer actual French cooking, albeit stopping short of the likes of pungent andouillette, complete with its tubey innards escaping on to the plate. That said, I’d bet that chef Jack Briggs-Horan and restaurateur Dan O’Regan tinkered with the idea before accepting that serving something quite so smelly in a small, repurposed shipping container was probably one Gallic step too far. I’ve mentioned Bristol’s love of delis and dining spots in former shipping containers before, and here we are again at Lapin, gasping at how, with a little imagination and clever sleight of hand, you can turn an impersonal iron box into a tiny slice of France. The walls are painted a calm, elegant sage-green, there’s a dinky little drinks trolley and a prix-fixe menu up on the wall – £29 for three courses – all while France Gall coos Ella, Elle l’a coquettishly over the speakers.
