The husband and husband duo behind Bavette, Sandy Jarvis and Clément Cousin, met in 2012 when Clément came over from France for a summer of work experience.
Among the winemaking families of the Loire region, it had become a tradition for the next generation to travel to London and work with their family wines in a new setting. Clément was studying for a masters in geography when his father Olivier suggested he get some work experience in London. He joined other winemaker’s children who were working at Terroir, London’s original natural wine bar. But what should have been a two-month summer stop gap turned into 12 years, an interest in wine and hospitality sparked by a summer job rather than the family vineyard.
Now, after years of working in London, Sandy and Clément are proud to call Horsforth their home, fired up by the opening of their unassuming neighbourhood bistro. And wine plays a big part in it’s a success. Clément now imports his family’s wines - Cuvée Bavette - an exclusive blend made especially for the bistro. His dad has been farming his vines biodynamically since the 2000s, using no chemicals in the vineyard or cellar so as to get out the most natural expression of his grapes in the wine. Considered something of a maverick in the vineyards, he even started using shire horses to plough his vines - an unusual method at the time, but several winemakers now use this technique.
But no bistro is complete without its food. Sandy, the other half of the successful duo, is the head chef. Originally from Wetherby, just up the road from Horsforth, Sandy went to university in Manchester before deciding on a career in hospitality. He headed to London and Leith’s Cooking School. Here he was taught by Henry Harris, and ultimately got a job cooking at Harris’s Bouchon Racine in Knightsbridge.
‘It was there where I realised what French bistro food really was’, recalls Sandy. He worked at Racine alongside Trullo’s Connor Gadd, and Pep Belvedere, who has gone on to open Leo’s. But London wasn’t calling either Sandy or Clément. Wanting to open a place together ‘we sort of quickly realized that opening in London wasn't for us.’
The decision to open in Leeds wasn’t a quick one. To get a feel for the area, they moved up north for a year before opening Bavette. ‘We very much knew what we wanted to do, and it was about finding the right place for that, rather than finding a place and deciding what would be the best restaurant for that area’, says Sandy.
But the wait was worth it, with Bavette going on to be awarded The Good Food Guide's Best Local Restaurant 2024 in its first year of trading. Sandy and Clément said, ‘We do feel incredibly honoured to have won the award and because of that, we have a duty to live up to the title and to pass it on for the person that wins Best Local Restaurant next year because it means something to them too.’
