Wilsons restaurant, farm and bakery treads gently with a circular menu and low wastage
When Jan Ostle first started his career as a chef in London, working at the likes of Restaurant Gordan Ramsay and Phil Howard's the Square, he admits he was an "absolute liability".
"I was an atrocious employee," he says. "I was the guy who was never ready and always late. I just didn't get it for so long, but through osmosis and people's generosity and kindness, I kept plugging away and I learned a fair bit."
Ostle always knew he wanted his own restaurant and, after meeting his partner Mary Wilson in London, they settled in Bristol and opened the 24-cover Wilsons on Chandos Road in the neighbourhood area of Redland in 2016. Their small, no-dig farm on the outskirts of the city, which supplies the restaurant's fruit and veg and is overseen by Mary, soon followed.
"I came from a world where you'd order 10 punnets of micro-flowers and 20 punnets of tiny vegetables, where everything is perfect and you throw the peelings away, and that was my conception of what success looked like," he says. "But Mary taught me that success starts a long time before that. When I first tried something straight from the farm it was frightening because it didn't taste like something I'd ever had before, so we thought, what happens if you pick something that day and serve it that night?"
The ethos of Wilsons was born and while Ostle "didn't conceive it to be a trendy farm-to-table restaurant with a cult following", that's exactly what is has become, with the restaurant's seven-course tasting menu (£60) and four-course lunch menu (£25) becoming a hit with locals and out-of-towners alike.
"It doesn't cost the earth, and it isn't exclusive. It's democratic and it feels right," says Ostle. Guests experience a circular menu of innovative ingredients born out of a want to reduce waste. Ostle encourages his team to think creatively, with a ‘breadso' currently in development, which is simply a type of miso made from old bread. One of his favourite courses is a palate cleanser, where fresh dill and chervil are used to make a herb sorbet, topped with Italian meringue in a nod to a "wicked lemon meringue pie". Meanwhile, a considerable amount of work goes into washing mackerel bones and then drying and smoking them before steeping in hot water to create a tea-like broth, which is either set as a jelly or served with Cornish mackerel, leek, burnt cream and wild garlic.
Head chef Henry Wadsworth joined Wilsons from Le Manoir (via a stint during Covid on a super-yacht) and, having been very familiar with Raymond Blanc's kitchen gardens, took to the Wilsons' approach to sustainability with much enthusiasm.
"I joined last August and began preserving produce ahead of the winter," he says. "We were dehydrating as many herbs as possible. We came across some really interesting flavours, like when our farmer turned up with five big bags of shiso. We pickled a lot, which bought out its cumin taste, but when we dried it into a powder it had more of an anis flavour, which our bar manager infuses with sugar syrups for our soft drinks."
A fish course of dry-aged pollock sees Wadsworth dry pollock in a fridge for five days to draw out the moisture and intensify the flavour. "We cook it on the barbecue, which crisps up the skin and the flesh is almost cured, creating an interesting flavour and texture. We serve this with a rich sauce made from langoustines that are roasted until caramelised and then blended with stock, fennel, carrot and shallot before mixing with butter."
Meanwhile, wild garlic from the farm is blended with mushrooms, lemon zest, chicken breast and cream to create a chicken mousse, which is stuffed under the crown of wild chicken. The birds are "a lot older than the average chicken and give a gamey flavour".
The crown is steamed at a low temperature for an hour before it is finished on the Konro barbecue to crisp up the skin. Wadsworth says: "We're currently serving this with a celeriac purée, mushroom ketchup, more wild garlic and these beautiful spring onions that have come from the farm this week. We barbecue them and finish the whole dish with an aerated chicken jus."
With Wadsworth capably taking over the reigns in the kitchen, this leaves Ostle with a chance to step back and flit between the restaurant, farm and the bakery, which opened a few doors down during the pandemic.
"The thing I'm best at is asking people I work with for ideas," says Ostle "I'm so lucky to be surrounded by incredibly talented and diligent people, who like what we do. I listen to what they have to say and make sure everyone feels like they can share their ideas. Everyone has a part in this, and if they feel like they're committed to it and there is a part of them on the plate, it's going to be better."
24 Chandos Road, Bristol BS6 6PF
From the menu
- Gold cross, leek marmalade
- Bread and butter
- Confit trout, land cress, burnt cream
- Barbecue red mullet, chard, carrot
- Russell's chicken, wild garlic, celeriac
- Farm herbs, meringue
- Rhubarb, custard
