Review: Waterside Brasserie, Arden Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon for pre-theatre dinner

If you’re planning a pre-theatre dinner at the Waterside Brasserie, in the Arden hotel, just opposite the newly opened Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, then you’re in for a treat. But somehow I think this restaurant is far too good to be relegated to the ‘quick bite to eat’ category. When we ate there last Saturday night, we loved everything about it, from the inventive cuisine to the casual-chic plum and olive dining room, to the champagne by the glass.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

First a bit of background. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre just opposite reopened in 2011 after a major rebuild and renovation for the last 4 years and as a spin off to this, the Arden Hotel which is part-owned by the RSC has also gone through it’s own strip down and brush up under it’s new co-owner, the Eden Hotel Collection.

The hotel was gutted and rooms re-arranged with fresh new décor, re-opening with 45 rooms, as well as the Waterside Brasserie, terrace and Champagne bar.

A new Head Chef, Adam Brown, was drafted in, with experience in some top Michelin star kitchens, including the Mallory Court also owned by the Eden Hotel Collection and since July has been building up the Waterside Brasserie’s reputation.

The Waterside Brasserie

There are some restaurants where you get ideas to recreate at your next dinner party and there are some where the delicious complexities of flavor and texture are way beyond what you’d achieve at home, and you know you are eating something special. I’d put the food at the Waterside Brasserie into the latter category as the sophistication of what we ate left us oohing – a week later and my husband was still raving about his meal.

To start the evening, we sat at the zinc topped champagne bar in the center of the restaurant, sipping one of the several champagnes available by the glass -my favorite first drink of the evening is always a glass of bubbly!

Cozy atmosphere at Waterside Brasserie

The restaurant is arranged around the central bar area, with some of the tables at the front of the hotel overlooking the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre opposite, and others in cozy corners at the back of the restaurant. The decor is smart-casual Euro-chic with plum velvet  buttoned banquettes and comfortable leather or striped velvet tub chairs .

The floor and tables are in shades of dark cherry wood with decorative table pedestals and there’s curvy modern cutlery and starched napkins. The overall effect is of an upmarket brasserie where I’d be happy to have anything from a pre-theatre dinner à deux to a celebration meal with friends.

The Market Menu at Waterside Brasserie

As I was curious to see how the good value menu compared to the à la carte options, I decided to order from the Market Menu while leaving dearly beloved to try whatever he fancied from the other options. The conclusions of this scientific experiment were that that there was no discernible difference in the quality of the dishes and that the Market Menu is a steal considering the standard of the cooking.

The Head Chef – Adam Brown

Head chef Adam Brown is clearly devoted to seasonal cooking and on the winter evening we were there, we found game such as Wood pigeon, Rabbit, Pheasant and Venison on the menu as well as plenty of fish choices and a separate vegetarian menu is available.

He’s also a fan of using wild food, drawing on the efforts of foragers for such ingredients as seaweed, wild salad leaves, berries and mushrooms in season. I had visions of country folk in tweed caps and wellies knocking at the kitchen door with a basket of pickings from country hedgerows and woodland glades, but apparently it’s all done through specialist suppliers who gather together different foraged ingredients from local pickers.

So here’s what we ate;

The Main Course

From the Market menu I ate Ham hock croquette with spiced plums and prune puree as a starter with grainy ham chunks cased in a crispy breadcrumb case, scattered with plums that had been cooked with cloves, and a scattering of finely sliced radish, yellow pickled cauliflower and some fruity chutney, sitting on a prune puree. It was a great salty with fruity, sweet combination.

My main course was Pan fried bream with a crisp skin on a bed of cooked caraway cabbage with some batons of beetroot at the side and some soft cooked shallots scattered with a pretty pink garnish that looked like cress. It was both pretty and delicious.

Wonderful Dessert

For desert I had a chocolate truffle cake with a block of chilled soft truffle, set on a sauce of darker chocolate, some vanilla cream and a brandy-snap tube filled with a soft chocolate mousse. This was a wonderful harmony of the same ingredient used in variations of flavor and texture that I noticed elsewhere on the menu.

We also tried…

My husband who was eating from the à la carte options enjoyed;

A starter of pan seared diver scallops with a crisp, thin slice of pork belly scattered with roasted pine nuts and pretty green herbs, set on a thin creamy parsnip sauce and a froth of chestnut velouté – a kind of sophisticated surf and turf.

For  the main course he ate a couple of rounds of venison loin cooked juicy and pink, with some caramelised plums in its sauce and a flash of green wild cabbage with some more cooked ‘venison bolognaise on the side. He was relishing every melting mouthful of that meat, I can tell you.

Some Cheese Plate and Veggies

Not being a pudding sort of chap he decided to try the cheese plate to follow, with a selection of English and continental cheeses, biscuits, grapes and chutney. The cheeses were all in perfect condition and I enjoyed nibbling so much that I had to stop myself ordering a plate just for myself. We also ordered a bowl of seasonal mixed vegetables, which you might need or not, depending on how many courses you have and your appetite.

As you can judge for yourself this was sophisticated and accomplished cooking, using ingredients that were both unusual and felt right for the season. We relished every mouthful, and as the menu evolves with new dishes being added all the time depending on the available ingredients, if I were local this would certainly become a regular haunt for me.

Coffee at the Small Lounge

There is a smaller lounge to the side of the restaurant where you can relax with a coffee, that is also used between 3 and 6pm for afternoon tea. We admired the pretty floral bone china cups and cake-stands on the dresser that are used to serve the traditional afternoon tea of finger sandwiches and home made cakes.

They’ve even done a children’s afternoon tea to tie in with the Matilda musical RSC production, with milkshakes, home-made sausage rolls, raspberry jelly and chocolate cake.

Special Events at Waterside Brasserie

The restaurant also holds a number of special events throughout the year, from a popular monthly ladies lunch with a speaker, to the other seasonal events from a Fish and chips Good Friday to the Royal Wedding champagne afternoon tea. There’s also a covered terrace that would be great to dine al fresco in summer, with a view of the river just beyond the theatre.

We thought that the food at the Waterside Brasserie was outstanding, and will be appreciated by anyone that enjoys cuisine that is seasonal and local, yet with inventive  taste combinations to get the taste buds tingling. The Market menu was also exceptional value, since I could discern no drop in quality from the main menu, and would be ideal for an early evening meal before seeing a performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre opposite.

Just so you know, the Waterside Brasserie treated us to our meal but the bubbly was on me.

What you need to know

Waterside Brasserie, Arden Hotel, Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6BA
Telephone: 01789 298682 email: [email protected]

Parking: There is residents parking behind the hotel that you may be able to use when dining – check when booking. Otherwise there are a number of public car parks in the town and just over the bridge as you come into Stratford, that are a short walk away.

More articles from this part of England

The Tower and other transformations at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
A winter walk on Edge Hill near Banbury
Country House classic at the Welcombe Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon

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