Green Park Brass fin.qxp_Layout 1 21/07/2021 09:41 Page 1
RESTAURANT | REVIEW
Green Park Brasserie 6 Green Park Road, Bath BA1 1JB; Tel: 01225 338565; greenparkbrasserie.com
Review
Newton Farm’s 42oz côte de boeuf (for 2)
Melissa Blease devours the croquettes, gets her skate on the plate and manages to fit in the best crème brûlée ever consumed. She also chats to Alex Peters about the last year at Green Park Brasserie and is blown away by positivity.
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s we all know too well, times are hard for the hospitality industry at the moment. At the tail end of a 18-month-long crisis that resulted in an imperfect storm in eating out world, it would be easy to forgive restaurant owners, when asked how they’re coping, for allowing a mindset revolving around optimism and gratitude to slip down the menu a bit. But ask Alex Peters – director of marketing and strategy for long-standing Bath institution the Green Park Brasserie – where he’s at right now, and the only storm you can expect to have to weather is a great big wave of positivity. “Getting our team back together and doing what we love doing again was a big moment for us, and hugely exciting. To welcome both locals and those visiting the city back to the Braz has been an absolute pleasure.” And that’s it; no ‘poor us’ moans, no self-pity, no blame – just gratitude for where he’s at this summer. Even when lockdown was at its most severe, Alex kept calm and carried on, keeping GPB life as ‘new’ normal as possible. “We’re lucky to be a versatile business, which helped us remain optimistic for the future while we tried to make the most of such challenging times,” he says. “While the Brasserie was forced to close completely, we took the opportunity to give the building some love and get on with less sexy but essential jobs like flooring, plumbing and ventilation. It gave us time to focus, too, on re-evaluating our commercial offering and positioning to make sure that, when re reopened, we’d be an even better business than we were pre-pandemic. “Meanwhile, we opened our little sister operation the Bath Pizza Co as a takeaway for six of the eight months of lockdown. I was totally overwhelmed with the fantastic support our local community offered us throughout the pandemic, particularly in the cold depths of winter; even then, we still saw our regulars picking up a takeaway. Being one of the very few places that remained open is something I’m really proud of; we were able to offer a sense of normal life in the most challenging of times, and maintain a sense of community for 46 TheBATHMagazine
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our customers and our team.” The team of which Alex talks so fondly (“led by our outstanding general manager Alex Pitts”) has a huge part to play in the uplifting vibe that suffuses the whole GPB experience now the doors to the business are open again, from warm welcome to nightcap by way of menus that offer fully flexible food for thought (à la carte on a modern bistro theme, or perfect pizzas firing up more casual tastes). And if you visit on any evening between Wednesday to Saturday, live jazz, funk, swing and/or soul adds a subtle beat to the eats. I ask Alex what aspect of this buoyant, multi-faceted operation, opened by his father Andrew back in 1992, he’s most proud of today. “Broadly speaking, the atmosphere! And simply seeing how much guests enjoy being here when the terraces are buzzing, the cocktails are flowing and there’s live music inside the restaurant,” he says. “I honestly don’t think there are many other places in the country that have the unique environment that we offer.” Indeed, our most recent visit to GPB reminded me of visits to London’s Shoreditch, or New York’s Union Square – there’s something unselfconsciously, comfortably cool about the whole affair; it’s a ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ party to which everybody’s invited. After pre-dinner drinks on the lively terrace on the Green Park Road/James Street West intersection to the front of the building, we took to a cosy little corner table in what was, between 1870–1966, the Green Park Railway Station booking hall and is today the dining room at the heart of GPB, as suitable for families and party groups as it is for a smoochy supper for two. While local swing/jazz supremo Gavin Lazarus crooned dreamily on the little stage, we dived into starters of exceedingly moreish crispy/creamy smoked west country pancetta and leek croquettes and divine Monkfish scampi; one course in, and the going was very good indeed. From the main course selection, Alex cites the steaks (“sourced from our producers Hugh and Celia at Newton Farm, who are just
