Chez Candice, Boiling Wells: 'I fell down the rabbit hole and never want to leave'
If anyone is considering writing a guide on how to open a restaurant, you might consider using Chez Candice as a great example of how not to do things. You'd be wrong.
If anyone is considering writing a guide on how to open a restaurant, you might consider using Chez Candice as a great example of how not to do things.
You’d probably have a chapter about where to locate a restaurant, advising budding restaurateurs to choose busy streets, or at least somewhere vaguely accessible. Chez Candice is very much a horsebox on a farm and frequently has to shut due to the nearby Boiling Wells tunnel flooding.
Infrastructure is important. It’s not the first thing on a diner’s mind when researching a restaurant but you very quickly notice the absence of things like plumbing when they are not there. With these current cold climes, at Chez Candice there is a serious risk of the water freezing, thus delaying lunch. And I’ve heard tales of a nearby compost toilet.
If you close your eyes and imagine a successful restaurant, there’s a strong likelihood that tables will have featured in your vision. Chez Candice has four. Two outside, and two that appear to have been rescued out of a skip in the adjacent greenhouse.
A yurt is being constructed as we eat by two dedicated local builders (Candice’s parents), who assure us through heavy West Country accents that it will be fitted with a wood burner for warmth and should be ready by next week.
With all that considered, Chez Candice should not be a good place for lunch.
But that is where we must throw out the rule book, because in reality, the cornucopian sandwich I enjoyed in that greenhouse was one of the best things I’ve eaten all year and all those idiosyncrasies only add to the charm.
On this particular stretch of mud, choice is limited. Meat or veggie. Coffee or not coffee. Tart or no tart. The best menus are short menus. For those who feel like exploring, there is also a plate of saucission (£6.50), a comte and lovage choux (£3), and a farm complete with cows, chickens and a dangerously weed-disguised pond. Wander at your peril.
The meat option was lamb in harissa, kale, bagna cauda w/ almonds, preserved lemon and yoghurt in a bun (£10). The non-meat option was squash. No awards for guessing which I chose.
While you wait, enjoy an unexpectedly good coffee (£3) from the machine Candice has somehow managed to fit in this capsule of a cabin. The TARDIS ought to take note - the answer to how she’s managing to produce such goodness in such a tight shed must surely be that Candice has figured out how to transcend the boundaries of time and space.
Frosty fingers are long forgotten when the sandwich arrives. The small, toasted bun never hoped to contain so many harissa drenched chunks of lamb. Garlicky, tender kalelettes have vastly outshone their older, more bitter siblings. Salad leaves, preserved lemon and yoghurt bring a snap of texture and acidity to an incredibly well balanced symphony. Unsurprising that someone with Wilsons, The Ethicurean and Katie and Kim’s Kitchen on their CV should be able to whip up a sandwich that demonstrates such a deft understanding of flavour.
It’s not perfect; the lamb chunks might benefit from being a little smaller and the fat better rendered. The chewing makes attempting to maintain conversation futile. So we save all our positive remarks for the gap between sandwich and tart. I’m confident that the squash would have been just as good actually. I hate to paraphrase Sainsbury’s but you really can taste the difference when the veg has been plucked from just a few feet away only hours before.
A lack of plates means tart is served in a little ice cream bowl, warm and doused with cream. It tastes like a dressed up collaboration between Terry’s Chocolate Orange and Nutella - delightful. Festive too. The whole thing feels very festive actually. The Christmas spirit in this greenhouse is just as defiant as the strawberries shooting out of near-frozen ground.
Recently I’ve been feeling a little disillusioned by the Bristol food scene. The closer you get to something, the more you can see its flaws. I fear our restaurants become increasingly homogenous, perhaps because behind the scenes everyone has their nose, fingers and possibly other body parts in everyone else’s business. Chez Candice was just the antidote. The wander up the path to Watercress farm is just long enough to trick you into thinking you’re somewhere else entirely. I felt like I fell down the rabbit hole into something slightly bonkers, and I never want to leave.
I’ll always remember my first time placing an order at that hatch, though I hope it is overlayed with many other memories over the many years that Candice will surely be in operation. I’ve added a pair of wellies to my Christmas list. Nothing will stop me making way through that tunnel, come rain or shine.
Words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Chez Candice, Watercress Farm, Boiling Wells
Had a plate of salad here, back in the hazy days of summer - delish! Candice had done something clever with the tomatoes and they were delightful. Am very much looking forward to the yurt going up so I can try something else. :-)
Love this. Beautifully written and completely on the money x