REVIEW | Brasserie Blanc, Knutsford

A RESTAURANT should know and love its target audience if it wants to succeed.

I’m wondering if the kitchen shouldn’t have added the usually dreaded ‘twist’, the twist in this case being the taste of cheese

Brasserie Blanc in Knutsford is the newest outpost of the Raymond Blanc chain that is currently colonising the more well-to-do towns around the country, from Bath through to Winchester. The Cheshire market town is a bit of a sucker for a premium chain that specialises in familiar classics of a famously foodie nation: Gusto a case in point. So Brasserie Blanc should hit it off perfectly.

The feeling is clearly mutual, as Raymond Blanc stated, “We are very lucky with the demographic. It is extraordinary. It is full of people who like to go out, to the cinema, eating, dancing and celebrating.” Translation: there's plenty of disposable income sloshing round this neighbourhood.

The site of Blanc’s latest venture used to be a Loch Fyne (which shared a one-time owner with Brasserie Blanc) but is still thought of around these parts as the Royal George, a grand old hotel and fine eighteenth century building which has been updated for its new residents by throwing large amounts of matt black paint everywhere (a process I believe is known as being ‘murdered out’).

Cheese soufflé - but where's the cheese?

In his recent Manchester Confidential interview, Blanc stated that “Food should be fresh and light.” If the food at Brasserie Blanc is fresh and light I tremble to think what Blanc’s heavy and decadent looks like. Presumably the items on his menu count as light in the same way a 300-ton jumbo jet can get airborne. Still, I’m not scared by a stick of butter or three. Bring it on, Monsieur Blanc.

And to be fair, there are a few lighter dishes on the menu than the ones I’d ordered. But I’d deliberately snuffled out the most classic dishes on the menu, as the promo material is quite keen on emphasising that this is one of the Blanc empire’s casual establishments, a brasserie rather than a ‘fine dining’ experience.

Expectations appropriately managed, we started with a cheese soufflé (£6.50), ordered because they are notoriously difficult to get right and because it was residing in one of those menu boxes that are meant to subconsciously sway you into ordering. Here, the texture was superb, as fluffy as a savoury cloud spotted with streaks of melting butter, coated in panko crumbs in order to emphasise the contrast between the light fleecy inside and crisp outside. The only problem was that it did not taste especially cheesy. Or of anything at all. If soufflés are more about the air they capture than the actual soufflé, then the star ingredient was really allowed to shine. A pale, creamy sauce added a touch more flavour (of cream, if you were wondering), but with modern palates shaped by pulled this and jerked that, I’m wondering if the kitchen shouldn’t have added the usually dreaded ‘twist’, the twist in this case being the taste of cheese.

70s Cromer crab

The other starter of potted Cromer crab (£8.50) was served in the requisite mason jar, sealed with a plug of vigorously tangerine-coloured butter. The ointment-pink crab was placed above a layer of avocado, creating an exquisitely 70s colour combination. Crab and avocado work well together but need a lift of something brighter so as not to be too bland and smooth. Happily that was provided here by hints of coriander and lime.

As for mains, the Barbary duck (£18.50) was a triumph of traditional brasserie fare. The breast was served at just the right shade of pink, while the darker leg meat was confitted, slipping gently out from under the fatty skin like petals falling from an overblown rose. The potato dauphinoise was a fudgy dream, the bottom richly caramelised so it was almost pudding worthy (but then I could eat potatoes and cream for any course). The Chantenay carrots were sweet and simple, while slivers of bitter orange just managed to steer the whole thing away from diving over the cliff edge into pure fat-slathered decadence.

The beef stroganoff (£13.50, main image) on the other hand, was a rather dull affair, very ordinary strands of beef in a sauce that tasted of essence of mushrooms rather than actual mushrooms. Not awful, but more like one of those really posh ready meals then actual restaurant fodder, brasserie or not.

Triumphant duck

The strawberry savarin - a trifling error

Ploughing onwards to dessert, the tarte au citron (£5.50) was thicker and spongier than I’m used to, more like a slice of lemon flan than a classic thin tarte – everything needs to be thinner, crisper and zingier. The sunshiney lemon flavours were there but the texture wasn’t quite right. Still it captured enough of the citrusy goodnesss of the true tarte and though the large dollop of clotted cream it was served with was rather extraneous, it all managed to disappear.

The strawberry savarin (£6.50) was not as successful. A savarin is a yeasty cake soaked in dessert wine and served with fruit, like a daintier version of a rum baba. We got a cake stale enough to play pétanque with, sodden with sugar and alcohol and served with strawberries someone didn’t know how to hull properly. A trifling error, perhaps, but in an established chain like this one, where ease and predictability are the name of the game, the details need to be perfect. Despite leaving most of the savarin I felt like one of those snakes that has eaten a rodent several times larger than its own head and needs to sleep for a week just to facilitate the digestion process, so ‘light’ was the food.

The last time I was in Knutsford, I was wondering whether its residents were ready for graffiti and swearing in public, undermining their harmonious social order. This time around, as I gazed out of the window of this handsome building, scales distended, watching well-upholstered businessmen stroll up and down King Street in Tory-blue shirts, looking like they’d had a few long lunches in their time, I felt no such anxieties. Raymond wasn’t wrong to declare his love. Brasserie Blanc will do extremely well here, I’m sure.

Brasserie Blanc, Regent Street, Knutsford, WA16 8GR. Tel: 01565 622900