Bristol's first-ever cheese-inspired restaurant has just made its offering even more impressive by launching a special fondue menu. The Cheese Platter housed in the Vincent on Redland Hill is making waves in Bristol's food scene through a menu that celebrates the very best British cheese.
Founded by Joshua Doyle, the restaurant first opened in November offering a fine dining experience centred around some of the nation's best cheeses. The menus boast some of the finest local produce for brunch, lunch, dinner and Sunday roasts, now with an added fondue night every Thursday.
"Our Head Chef did a fair amount of research into existing recipes, both classic and contemporary before we decided on our initial blend. Thanks to our cheese library, not all of that research was online," said restaurant owner, Josh.
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The fondue is made from a concoction of Gruyère AOP, Emmenthal and Pitchfork Cheddar from Trethowan's Dairy in Somerset. It comes with a choice of veggie and meat-friendly dippers, including sourdough bread, pickles, roasted potatoes and chorizo.
Thursday's fondue menu is currently extremely limited, available for lunch and dinner and costs £18 or £20 per head for either a vegetarian or meat fondue. At the moment, there are no plans to extend the fondue night as it works best on a more relaxed night of the week.
"I can't imagine serving fondue amidst the hustle and bustle of a Saturday night, for example. If people really want to come and enjoy our fondue, they'll find time on a Thursday to join us," said Josh.
Open Wednesday through to Sunday, The Cheese Platter caters to meals outside of fondue night, too. It has recently launched its spring menu, with seasonal ingredients and new cheeses taking dishes in interesting and delicious directions.
At the request of the customers, The Cheese Platter has recently added Cornish Yarg to the menu, as well as Gorwydd Caerphilly and Green's Cheddar to the roster. The artisan macaroni cheese is a firm favourite as well as a number of desserts and a knock-out cheese board to finish the meal
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The Sunday roast menu is also helping to put the restaurant on the map. The kitchen serves a choice of beef, pork belly, chicken, salmon and nut roast mains accompanying a selection of starters and desserts from our regular menus - costing £25 for two courses.
"Our strong roast offering is predicated on a number of things, including price and quality, but most importantly, we don't push the cheese concept too far. This would be spitting in the face of an English tradition and cutting our nose off to spite our face," he continued.
"The piece de resistance is our cauliflower cheese, which goes out with every dish and has a minimum of five kinds of cheese blended in. The most we have had is eight, and people rave about this cauliflower cheese.
"I never liked it before I tried it. Beyond that, if people are looking for even more cheese on their Sunday, they can upgrade their dessert to a platter for a nominal surcharge."
Josh and the team have worked hard on creating strong drinks pairings with local breweries, wineries and distilleries to complement the food. "Aside from the wine I have personally approved every drink on the menu in terms of its compatibility with cheese," he explained.
For example, Josh explained how dishes involving sharp cheeses would work well alongside Twisted Oak's Leveret IPA or Dunkerton's Black Fox cider while the goats cheese and gruyere dishes pair with Twisted Oak's Old Barn ruby ale. Blue cheese is well-accompanied by Dunkerton's Premium Reserve cider; while any hard cheese would be great enjoyed alongside Pilton Original keeved cider.
Having only been open for around five months, The Cheese Platter relies on reviews to evolve the business. Josh added: "Our reputation is even more important to us than it might be to the average high street restaurant. People love the concept and are pleasantly surprised that you can engage as much or as little as you like with the cheese USP."
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