Bench
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
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Named for the softly glowing slice of wood at the heart of the room, Bench is subtly polished in other ways, too. Staff know exactly what they've got (including coolly inventive cocktails and the new-wave wines also stocked for retail), while every plate, created with a eye for colour, is a still life about to be eaten. For those who are not communally minded, high tables edge the room; views are of Nether Edge outside, and of the open kitchen counter with its mandatory stickered fume hood and ranks of sourdough boules. On the menu, favoured combinations shift around with the seasons. The salsa rossa and hazelnuts that might have been served with agretti and preserved lemons could end up giving crunch and life to slices of fat-but-delicate raw chalk stream trout with bergamot. A standalone salad of radicchio with blood orange and togarashi-cured ox heart is also paired with a whole, gently volcanic boudin noir - blood on blood, red on red, it's dramatically satisfying. The same skill evident in that poppy seed-crusted sourdough is also on show to finish, when a textbook bay leaf panna cotta is partnered by whisky prunes and their syrup – these fudgy, wrinkly beauties are just one of many rewards for taking a seat at the bench.
