Blackshop

Having sampled the fare at Cambridge's Blackshop Restaurant numerous times in recent years, it was with great anticipation that we arrived at their new location, a spot of health and vitality on an otherwise unbroken stretch of urban disease in Cambridge.

After many years near the river in Galt, Blackshop(!) has relocated to the heart of the Hespeler Road strip, in the renovated and, thankfully, unrecognizable remains of the Mirage dance-club and bawdy house. We waited as long as we could stand, fearing the undoubtedly voluminous fumigation-clouds, but deemed the last Saturday of the year to be an auspicious night for a visit.

The main dining-room of the old Blackshop was overly bright and overly noisy, giving the impression, we always thought, of a summer tea-house rather than a decent dining establishment. However, we gladly ignored the old surroundings in favour of the exceedingly good food.

The new face of the Blackshop is a more attractive, refined, subdued one; the colours are dark and muted, without being dim; the décor ranges from the classical – dark wood and leather-covered booth seating – to the inexplicable – an array of horse-shoes mounted on a wall above two small hassocks covered with cows'-hide.

One unfortunate feature of the new Blackshop is the bar area. A large and bright television-set displayed some manner of footballing-contest throughout our meal, the garish woolen jerseys of the contestants unfailingly drawing the eye with their excessive movement. In addition, the bar's blender spoke loudly, though not often. (Why one would consume a blended-ice drink in winter is an unfathomable mystery; a good restaurateur would have suspended the requester's dining privileges, we contend.) We longed for the small, out-of-the-way, and unintrusive bar in the old Blackshop, it must be said.

But to the food. We have learned, through experience, that one ought to favour the specials and the less familiar menu items at the Blackshop; in short, we trust the chef. Thus we ordered “Caramel Chicken” to begin, and the lamb sirloin special as an entree; our companion selected a pork tenderloin with caraway spaetzle, braised cabbage, apple, raisin chutney, and port cream.

We ought to mention, at this point, service. The service at Blackshop is typically superlative; we still recall our very first visit, where the stalwart Master George, a waiter of, we estimate, perhaps thirteen years' age, catered with the perfect blend of deference, attention, and intelligence. We have since marvelled often at the extremely well-managed wait staff at Blackshop, and indeed it is a rare bright spot in our locality.

It was thus somewhat surprising to have our waitress, Renee, read the specials at length from her note-pad, bafflingly noting the number of items served on each plate (example: “broiled tiger shrimps, of which there are five”), and prefacing nearly every statement with the qualifier, “we do have” (example: “we do have a selection of sorbets, of which we do have raspberry, mango, and mocha”). I fear I must protest in advance that these are the literal words employed by our server, and are not embellished in any way. Our fears were raised immediately that we would not receive our anticipated level of service professionalism.

We feel we ought to make note of the offered specials. There is, you may have seen, some manner of restaurateur-abusing documentary offered by the BBC starring a strange Scottish troll by name of Ramsay. We were amused to hear one of Ramsay's most detested flavour-combinations, that of salmon with strawberries, actually offered as the fish-special. We did not recognize this ominous sign, to our regret.

The caramel chicken is described on the menu as “crispy fried chicken, spicy caramel dip”. We hoped to find an interesting and unique combination of flavours. Instead we found five small pieces of over-fried, over-seasoned chicken thigh, one including excessive gristle; and a small pot of caramel-sauce with dried hot pepper flakes in it. We may have been ill-advised to select the dish, but what, then, does that say about the man or woman who conceived of it? We suggest that it says something of the manner of “lunatic”.

The entrees arrived, although we were left without any fresh mineral-water for nearly a quarter of an hour. Our companion's meat was cooked extrelemy well, and caraway spaetzle are an inspired idea; the raisin and apple were also agreeable. But what, we wondered, is such an immense heap of cabbage doing on the plate? We are aware of the Germanic segment of the local population, but we do not think that even they would have finished such a heroic portion. The port cream was a complete mis-step, adding a bizarrely sweet note to an otherwise balanced savoury combination. The dish was, our companion assessed, at best a partial success.

We were more impressed with our own plate, we think. Our choice was a lamb sirloin with juniper crouquettes, asparagus, and peppercorn-cream sauce. The sauce was beautifully done (and in our experience the Blackshop's sauces were always well made, before the caramel chicken disaster) and the lamb was cooked correctly, with good tenderness and flavour and not a scrap of excessive fat or gristle.

The crouquettes, however, were problematic. First, our server, true to form, had noted that four crouquettes would be included on the plate; there were in fact three. These three, while perfect in both seasoning and internal texture, had been fried too little; what little crust they possessed was eliminated entirely on contact with the cream sauce. We would have preferred to have been offered mashed potato on the plate, for that is what we received; we protest not because the effect was unsuccessful, but because we had been misled by our server.

We elected to forego dessert and coffee, as another engagement was looming; we will undoubtedly visit Blackshop again soon, but we hope that we will find a happy return to its more agreeable previous form in the kitchen.