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The 1699 Brasserie, 49-51 Lower Bridge Street, Chester, CH 1 1RS – Visit Now
1699 The Brasserie is the in-house restaurant for the excellent Townhouse hotel in Chester. An intimate space with just a few dozen seats, it’s a relaxing, elegant room with an equally graceful soundtrack of instrumental music. The aim is to bring unintimidating fine dining to the city, something a city as storied as Chester certainly deserves.
Demonstrates a real love for how food should fit together
The waiting staff are second-to-none, engaging when they need to be, and never obtrusive. If you listen hard, you can hear the kitchen staff proudly announce each creation – as well they should, the food is exquisite.
First up, goats cheese and honey bon bons, on a bed of quinoa, plus some pickled slices of beetroot and a drizzle of balsamic dressing. The elements are well-balanced, with the beetroot and glaze adding a sharpness to the creamy murkiness of the goats cheese, and there are enough textures on show to demonstrate a real love for how food should fit together.
Then Welsh lamb rump for main, featuring cubes of roasted garlic-infused potatoes, a mild celeriac puree, topped with slender well-cooked carrots, resting on some wonderfully crunchy green beans. The rosemary jus is the star addition here, warm and satisfying, a perfect match for this quality meat.
This high standard of cooking continues through to dessert, with the delicious banana cheesecake proving to be a highlight of the entire meal. The cheesecake is surrounded by singular pieces of fruit – a raspberry here, a blackberry there, but the sugar-glazed slices of banana are what ties the dish together. The sugar glass coating breaks with a gratifying crack and begs to be paired with a mouthful of the cheesecake. It’s a superb end to a very, very good meal.
The 1699 Brasserie is the restaurant Chester deserves. This is modern British cooking fed through with a depth of knowledge and history – a cut above the average meal out.
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