‘Would hold its own in Lyon’: Bavette, Horsforth, reviewed

Lyon early autumn – a lovely time to reconnect with that epicentre of traditional French cuisine. The other week I was in its Old Town gorging on stinky andouillette sausage, tête de veau (pressed calf’s head), quenelles de brochet (creamed pike dumplings) and the like. Always in old school bistros called bouchons.

I’m apparently on trend. Back in gastronomically more diverse London there has been a surge of Francophile homages opening, notably Claude Bosi’s swanky Josephine Bouchon and Henry Harris’s benchmark Bouchon Racine. In their wake have come Camille, Bistro Freddie, Cafe Francois and more, offering on a plate Entente Cordiale à la Lyonnaise. 

All the latter pale in comparison with a northern take on the genre. And, whisper it softly, Bavette, in the far-flung Leeds banlieue of Horsforth, would hold its own in France’s second city - it’s that good. That’s why, only months after it opened, the Good Food Guide named it the UK’s Best Local Restaurant 2024 – the ‘youngest’ ever to win the accolade – and I’ve visited three times.

Yes, there is a Frenchman involved, though Clèment Cousin, front of house/sommelier, hails from the Loire not Lyon; his husband, chef Sandy Jarvis, is a Yorkshireman returning to his roots. That his adopted roots are definitely French is obvious from the menu that confronts you in the smart 40-cover dining room on Horsforth’s main drag. It had been a trek out from Leeds centre by bus. Warning: the town’s rail station is a fair schlepp from Bavette.

Yet, voilà, the welcome makes it instantly seem worth it. Buzz is an overused word. You suspect the fast track to fame has put pressure on a tight operation, yet they are coping admirably. The dining room is a smart fit-out with the open kitchen set well back. What takes my eye is the food books on shelves that divide the space. Think of them as a mission statement.

A large illustrated tome devoted to Pâté en Croûte nudges me into ordering pork and prune terrine (£10). A masterly morass of tangled meat flakes in a taut pastry casing, its savoury handmaidens a blob of earl grey jelly and a piercing pickled walnut.

A completist could splash out double that for the house charcuterie selection with its parfaits and rillettes, but that might mean denying oneself the pleasure of a quartet of the fluffiest, ooziest Comté cheese croquettes (£6.50) or cervelle de canut (£7.50). The latter, basically a fromage blanc spread laced with fresh herbs, garlic and shallots, harks back to 19th century Lyon (no escaping the place) and literally means silk weavers’ (canuts) brain (cervelle). It reflects the low opinion the city’s affluent had of the workers in its defining industry.

Meanwhile, back in 21st century Horsforth, braised squid (£12) and pork belly rillons (£10) make their entrance. Fennel is a constant Bavette riff and, with tomato and reduced red wine, forms an intense sauce for the squid, toppings of aioli and gremolata enforcing the Med vibe. A more delicate mustardy, ravigote sauce accompanies the crunchy rillons, draped with frisée.

All quite a Tour de France, this menu that sticks to a formula of snacks, four starters, four mains and four desserts plus cheese with, naturally, a côte de boeuf to share. Previously I’d been won over by their eponymous bavette (punningly it also means bib in French) after stringy encounters elsewhere with this flank steak. This time its muscly cousin onglet was standing in and ordered by my companion. It was the one slight disappointment of the night. You expect a certain chewiness from what we call hanger steak. Compensation is the whack of flash-fried flavour you’d rarely get from far more expensive fillets. This onglet (£26.50) lacked it. Unexpected since Bavette sources their meat from the unimpeachable Swaledale Butchers. Fennel frites and a punchy sauce au poivre were the biggest flavours on the plate.

The fennel with my pork chop (£25.50) was braised, it tasted like espelette pepper in the piperade and the pomme purée was suffused with proper olive oil. The chop itself was a tadge dry, but the fat was delicately creamy. In an interview Sandy had revealed a pork chop would be his desert island main; Clèment revealed to us on the day that duck would shortly replace it as they sought to rotate the menu for autumn.

Clèment’s own contribution to the success of the operation is substantial and not just for his front of house skills. He and Sandy met when they were working at the groundbreaking natural wine bar Terroirs in Covent Garden. The Frenchman’s family background is very much in minimal intervention wine-making. Father Olivier is natural wine ‘royalty’ in his native Anjou, even employing a horse in the vineyard. 

Alongside bottles sourced from Leeds’ own natural wine specialists, Wayward, there are ‘family specials’ made by Clèment’s brother Baptiste and a red from now semi-retired Olivier, which paired wonderfully with our meal. Pur Breton (£43) does what it says on the label, offering plummy Cabernet Franc fruit of startling purity. We resisted tempting digestifs, and biodynamic liqueurs from Distillerie Cazottes in favour of coffees, as excellent as you’d expect after our desserts. Warm chocolate fondant (£9.50) was lip-smackingly molten, yoghurt sorbet a sharp partner, while my sticky tarte tatin (£10) and vanilla ice cream was, well, so French.

Which takes us neatly to Sandy’s bouchon timeline. His 15 years of cooking across fine London establishments sprang from encountering a guest chef lecturer at Leith’s Cookery School, where he was training. Francophile Henry Harris was an instant inspiration and young Sandy bagged a place in the brigade at the original Racine in Knightsbridge. The rest, as they say, is L’histoire.

Bavette, 4-6 Town Street, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 4RJ