'Immaculate' ingredients and a melon dish that is 'pure summertime succour' - Tom Parker Bowles is impressed by a sunny new spot in Bristol

Daily Mail​

6 days ago

Bristol, on a blazing Thursday lunchtime, and there's nowhere I'd rather be. As we perch on the terrace of Ragù, a new Italian upstairs at Wapping Wharf, in the shade of a vast umbrella, I realise I've yet to have a bad lunch in what is little more than two storeys of repurposed shipping containers. There's Seven Lucky Gods and Root, and Gambas, where I first came across Mark Chapman, manning the stoves before going on to open the excellent Cor in Bedminster.
He's now back as co-owner of Ragù, with his wife Karen, and he's done it again – no faff or fuss, just cooking that captures the pared-back purity of proper Italian food. There are baby artichokes deep-fried in the Roman style, getting that all-important combination of soft heart and crisp leaves.
A swaggering aïoli adds to their bronzed allure. Then Tuscan mortadella, lusciously piggy, with great ivory blobs of fat, topped with cornichons and a lusty glug of olive oil. And sea bass crudo, clean and pristine, with black olives and slivers of orange and onion.
Melon with prosciutto and tomatoes sees the sweetest, most fecund and heavily scented fruit, draped with silken ham and a few leaves of basil. Every ingredient is immaculate, and all it takes is a sprinkle of salt and still more grassy, peppery olive oil, to create a dish of pure summertime succour. Classic, but beautifully done. Pasta is equally adept – tagliolini with a mass of fresh white and brown crab meat, lots of lemon, a whisper of chilli and pangritata (deep-fried breadcrumbs) for discreet crunch.
My old mate Mark is less keen on the fregola with fennel sausage, judging it a touch too oily. But I'm more base than he is, and crave the gleaming porky slick. Next, slow-cooked lamb, formed into a thin patty and served on a pea ragù, with a jolt of salsa verde and a sprinkling of pecorino. It's both rustic and refined, the acidity perfectly judged. For pudding, a peach and basil sorbet that's River Cafe good. It's one of those lunches that doesn't put a foot wrong, the sort of Italian that should grace every neighbourhood. As the last of the pudding disappears, we sit back, order another glass and ease into a sun-dappled, postprandial Bristol afternoon.