Ian Waller and his family enjoy a lunch out at Bradford on Avon’s newest restaurant
Sometimes there’s that special something that makes a restaurant stand out alongside its competitors – a menu speciality, a great location, perhaps a celebrity chef. For the Sweet Pea Kitchen in Bradford on Avon, it has to be its pies and puddings.
The Sweet Pea Kitchen opened recently at the Weaving Shed right in the centre of Bradford on Avon. Its riverside location means great views out across the Avon, while the light and spacious venue offers a warm welcome to diners looking for breakfasts, brunches, lunches and evening meals.
Across the board, the menu is generally familiar and tempting, with a promise of ‘comfort food made with quality ingredients guaranteed to keep you full’. Sounds good to us.
However, after our first family lunch at The Sweet Pea Kitchen, while all of our meals were really tasty and very enjoyable, there was one area that excelled – chef Clive’s pies and puddings. Wow, these are amazing!
For our Sunday lunchtime visit, while my wife went for the veggie chilli with loaded fries (£11.50) and our youngest chose the buttermilk chicken, bacon and cheeseburger, skin on fries, onion rings and slaw (£18), I preferred the sound of the pie of the day – sausage and stuffing, with a shortcrust pastry base, puff pastry top, thick cut chips, peas and gravy (£15).
The pies are all made in-house by Clive and his team, with the evening meal menu offering a choice of chicken, ham and leek; beef & stilton; beetroot, squash and pesto; and the pie of the day.
It turns out that the Sweet Pea Kitchen is very much a family affair, owned and run by chef Clive, his wife Helen and son Ed, all of whom are very hands-on, along with a young team of enthusiastic staff. Even Lilly the golden labrador has a part, playing the cute card with huge success as she snuggled up in her bed during our visit.
Anyway, back to those pies… Yes, the chilli and chicken burger really were very good indeed – perfectly seasoned, very flavourful and filling too. But let’s be honest, the pie was the scene stealer! Full to bursting with top quality sausage meat, stuffing, vegetable and taste-tastic gravy, it was pie perfection. Combined with the chunky chips and gravy, plus a side dish of peas, it was one of those dishes that makes you want to return and show it off to your friends and family.
Chatting with Helen, it turns out that a vast majority of the ingredients for all of the meals are free range, locally sourced and prepared in house. For example, the Scotch eggs on the lunch menu see the meat coming from Devizes and the eggs from a farm just ten minutes down the road.
The result is meals clearly prepared with real love and skill. What’s more, the waiting staff share the vibe, demonstrating a pride in their work and clearly feel valued by their employers.
With our mains finished, the dessert menu promised more home-grown gems, including our choices of the waiter’s recommendation of sticky toffee pudding with pecan ice cream (£8.50); caramel, honeycomb chocolate tart with Clive’s handmade vanilla ice cream (£9.50); and a choice of ice creams (£6.50).
Well done Clive, you did it again! Pudding perfection! The chocolate tart was dessert heaven, just lush and sweet, almost too much to eat but somehow I managed. The toffee pudding was similarly wonderful, albeit slightly too large a helping – not a bad problem to have – while the fact that the ice cream was demolished in record time really said everything.
It’s not often I’ll ask for the chef to shake his hand after a meal, but Clive and his team deserve top marks for their baking beauties, producing a very enjoyable lunch topped with pies and puds to die for. I think I’ll try the beef and stilton next time.
sweetpeacatering.co.uk/the-sweetpea-kitchen-at-the-weaving-shed/