Ian Waller and his family enjoy a birthday visit to one of the very best restaurants in Bath
It’s not often that you can combine a family evening out with a gastronomic delight and hugely enjoyable lesson about the geography and food culture of India. However, this was precisely the case with our recent visit to The Mint Room in Bath, now surely our very favourite home of fine dining!
The event was some ageing dad’s birthday (yes, another one!) and the setting, the wonderfully relaxed confines of The Mint Room on the Lower Bristol Road in Bath. Now don’t let it’s location – backing onto the Sainsbury’s petrol station – put you off. Over the last 15 years, The Mint Rooms has established itself as the restaurant of choice for discerning fans of fine Indian cuisine and, as our most recent visit proved, the standards are as high as ever.
We were greeted by manager Soham and his super friendly front of house team, before being shown to our comfy booth. The restaurant should be trumpeted as an example to others – the temperature was perfect, the background jazz at the optimum volume and the general atmosphere conducive to easy chatter and a relaxing evening.
Following Soham’s recommendation, my wife and I decided to go for ‘A Modern Indian Journey Tasting Menu’ (£55 each), with each of the seven courses designed to take us on a tour of India, providing an opportunity to sample a variety of flavours and styles.
The teenagers, meanwhile, decided to go for the main menu, choosing an impressive variety of classic Indian dishes alongside something new. This included a starter of Panjim Crab – lightly fried soft shell crab, flavoured with fresh curry leaves and spices, and served with tangy tomato chutney (£12), along with mains of Old Delhi Chicken Tikka Masala (£16), Sarso ka Jhinga tandoori prawns (£24) and Saag Ghost Welsh lamb cubes served with spinach puree, spiced with cumin, garlic and methi (£17), all complemented with garlic naan (£3.50).
OK, right from the start, the dishes were just incredible – tasty, full of flavour, beautifully served and hugely enjoyable! This is just incredible food that is practically perfect in every way…
Focusing on the tasting menu, mainly because I haven’t stopped talking about it since… we started with an Amuse Bouche of Banarasi Aloo Tikki chaat – cumin and ginger flavoured potato and pea patties, masala chickpeas, mint and tamarind sauce. This was smokey, spicy and so full of flavour and zing – a real little plate of comfort.
To be honest, if the dish had been three times as big and this had been the entire meal, we’d have walked away happy. It was delicious – spicy, fresh and sophisticated. The only problem was that by the time the teens had each tried a bit – and wished they’d ordered it too – there wasn’t a lot left for me!
And so the meal progressed, dish after dish of dining perfection.
The Tasting Menu starter was Kasoori Chicken Tikka, with the most perfectly cooked chicken breast sharing the plate with white pepper, cashew nut, Kassori methi, carrot pickle and plum chutney. By now the teens were wishing they had followed out lead – although saying that, everything that they ordered was sublime too!
Next came the Imli Wali Machli – grilled salmon glazed with tamarind, crushed coriander and black pepper, along with a fig compote and mint chutney. The genius here is how the flavours combined in a perfect culinary concert of taste, with no one taste overpowering the others.
As the meal progressed, from tandoori spiced lamb rump to chicken breast in cashew sauce, along with sides of seasonal veg sauteed in mustard seeds and curry leaves, we all agreed that we had found our favourite Bath restaurant.
And the teens’ choices? Well, our daughter’s comment on her crab starter was, “This is absolutely the best thing I have ever had in my life”, while our 17 year old’s opinion of his chicken tikka was that it was “the best chicken I’ve ever had and the apple sauce is amazing.”
What’s more, the prawns were perfect too – large, lush and coated in a creamy sauce. Add in the garlic nans to soak up the sauce and you get the very clear feeling that the chefs here know their business very well indeed.
Throughout, Soham was just charming, showing a real enthusiasm as he passed on the background of each course, where it came from and what the ingredients were. Around him, the superbly trained front of house team was faultless – attentive, informed and knowledgeable.
OK, yes, by now you’ve worked out that our visit to The Mint Rooms was a huge success and then some. Add in a comprehensive list of vegan and gluten free dishes, and we’re really just looking for an excuse to return as soon as possible!
