I know, I know- highlight of the week, chance to catch up with the whole family, can't beat your mum's, blahblahblahyaddayaddayadda. It's not the idea of Sunday lunchtime communal eating which leaves me cold (although you'd stand more chance of seeing Lord Lucan riding Shergar than catching me at my mum's when there's Sunday football on. She understands, bless her). Spread the table with our usual Christmas Eve fare- squid, prawns, cured meats, chorizo, and I'm as happy as a pig in that stuff pigs really, really enjoy.
No, it's the Britishness of it all. The stolid, grim, plough through a litany of vegetables and the predictability of it all. It's as if the makeup of a roast dinner is protected by Royal decree, ancient usage and custom; even the most adventurous eater can become quite dogmatic over its permissible elements. I just don't get it. I don't expect you to understand; this is, by its very nature, a personal digression. In addition, I'm not that bothered about eating at midday on a Sunday; in short, I don't hugely care for sunday lunch, let alone Sunday Lunch.
So I surprised myself more than anything when I had the 'classic' Sunday lunch at Chapel 1877 last week.
There are few spaces in the city, surely, to rival this: The Park House is the one which springs instantly to mind. The imposing Gothic elements of the former Capel Pembroke Terrace give way to the bar which greets you as you enter impresses, certainly, with its sofas and bar and high wooden panneled ceilings, hinting at the splendour of the restaurant floor. The interior has been beautifully restored, of course; the original red-brick walls with cream and black detail, formerly concealed behind plaster, are a striking feature.
We were shown to a curtained booth; the table was 'compact' in the way a politician's conscience is, so some adroit placement and re-placement was needed as food arrived. One man's cramped is another's 'cosy', I suppose. Thankfully, the spatial skills which stand my wife in such good stead as Fridge Tetris Grand Champion of the Universe came in more than handy here.
Warm sourdough bread, a stout little pat of Gloucestershire butter, meaty olives to start; a butternut squash soup was an excellent curtain-raiser which immediately raised expectations of what was to follow. Warming with the background heat of cumin and coriander, sparingly spiked and finished with crisp slices of red chilli, this should be on prescription as an antidote to these bleak wintry skies.
That salad, though... The brittle sweetness of candied walnuts, the salt-sharp smack of Roquefort (recently reported to have health benefits, fact fans; in keeping with our ecclesiastical surroundings, this is known in its native France as 'the cheese of Popes', although one can only imagine what the Vatican would have to say about a Baptist chapel), firm Conference pears and bitter chicory leaves. Although it was a good-sized portion, I immediately found myself wishing I had ordered two and foregone the main attraction.
I needn't have worried, though.
A sauce ('gravy' seems too proasaic a word for something this glossy) so well-reduced, so dark, so silky, you could make the last word in luxury pyjamas out of it. Or something rather more interesting. Roast potatoes which passed the crucial knife-tap test with heads held high, colours flying and metaphors mangled. A selection of vegetables cooked to a pleasing toothiness: green beans, cauliflower, heritage carrots. A puffed tower of a Yorkshire pudding.
And crucially, a prime piece of beef presented exactly as requested, at a good medium-rare. It baffles me that this seems beyond the grasp of so many: it's the norm to not even be asked when it comes to burgers, and so many places cook steaks for too long, that to have one's wishes noted, and acted upon, is almost a novelty. It shouldn't be, but it is. Along with fresh horseradish, with its phasers set to 'sinus-clearing', this was an illustration in doing things simply, but well. Hitting every note. The house Rioja went down a treat, too, and the unobtrusive but well-informed and pleasant service kept things ticking along very nicely thankyou.
Salmon with samphire and crushed new potatoes (with their skins included- lovely!) hit the spot again. Tender, tender flesh, crisp crisp skin: the essential one-two.
This space was built for worship. Chapel 1877's website makes jokey reference to 'joining our congregation'. Dinner is 'service', after all. Papal preferences for malodorous cheeses aside, this was accomplished cooking in fine surroundings.
If they were all like this, I may yet become a convert...
Chapel 1877
Churchill Way,
Cardiff
CF10 2WF
02920 22 20 20
http://chapel1877.com/
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