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304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
A true model of great service and dining that suggests a leap forward in Britain’s food and drink culture
5/5
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No beating around the bush this week: Chalk is magnificent. It is wonderful in name, simple in five letters that conjure the soft wash of white chalk (with but one tiny, personal, negative connotation; of the memory of dodging flying missiles, hurled at me for good reason by a teacher at my prep school). Then the mind is drawn deeper by the word, down into the ground where, below the surface of the Sussex countryside, the chalk acts as a kind and protective mattress for the cultivation of vines.
Thus at the Wiston Estate, near Pulborough, where the Goring family produces sparkling wines, reds and whites, they built a restaurant and called it Chalk. It’s in a converted set of barns and is in the tradition of great vineyards across the world where a dining room gets bolted on to the wine business.
And to me, when it’s good, this is a sign of a manifestly mature and confident business, a great leap forward for food and drink culture and a pat on the back for UK plc. Indeed it’s a glimmer of hope, amid the climate change terror, that in the coming years you’ll be able to swan through our southern counties sipping and eating fruits of the land as fine as you can across California or Victoria, down under.
So mark your card for Chalk, for a proper stop and a proper lunch or dinner. And within its chalk-painted walls and exposed flintwork, beneath its impressively exposed beamed ceiling, you’ll find a large oval bar under a swirling beam of steel, both artistic and used as bottle shelving, and then simple wooden restaurant tables and cane chairs.
I spotted a large grill burning out back as I arrived and pledged to eat whatever was destined for it, which turned out to be octopus from the starters. But before that we chewed on freshly baked focaccia with fabulously soft butter. The two of us then attacked the menu like pirates boarding a merchant vessel, a proper occupation; bread, starters, mains, all the sides and pud.
And it’s a well-conceived menu, four or five choices for each course drawn from local ingredients and delivered with a Mediterranean culinary dash
My friend Gaby relished the pictorial elegance and creamy eating of her (chalk white, of course) ajo blanco soup dappled with tiny specks of cucumber, dill and edible flowers. And it was well balanced, tasting more of soft almond than astringent garlic, although I won best starter with my octopus, which came with a dance of heat from a rich, smoky romesco sauce and the bite of spring onion and peppery watercress.
The main course fish of the day was cod, served with a sumptuous and cosy party of beans and a rich butter sauce with little strips of turnip for balance.
I was similarly in admiration of my wonderful dish of quail, beautifully slammed on to that grill (all right, call it spatchcocked) – although the XO and plum sauce was too ripe, ballsy and sweet, particularly as such a fat dollop.
We shared a pear and almond tart, as good as that at the hand of a master pâtissier, with lemon verbena ice cream.
And of course we drank Wiston’s fizz, white and red. Such is their confidence that they don’t force it on you, the manager suggesting some other red wines as better matches, but I insisted on trying their pinot noir which is a triumph. Yes, a pinot noir from Sussex that has fruit, elegance and body. Wiston must be a sun trap in the summer.
So I love Chalk, a model of great service and flavourful food. It fosters a future of rather beautiful possibility.
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