Provenance Press Night

PRESS NIGHT

Only recently I visited Provenance Food Hall & Restaurant in Westhoughton, Bolton, and had a very enjoyable breakfast there, which you can about here. 

They invited me to come along to a press night to sample some of the dishes on their new Autumn/Winter a la carte menu, and some Christmas tasters too. As you can imagine, I was more than happy to go along, especially with the latest news that they have been shortlisted for the Lancashire Life restaurant of the year.

Provenance are proud to announce they are featured in the prestigious Good Food Guide 2017 following just one year of trading.

The Good Food Guide is the UK’s bestselling restaurant guide and features the best restaurants throughout the country. It is produced by an expert team of food critics making it the UK’s most trusted and comprehensive restaurant handbook and inclusion can only be achieved by positive feedback from diners followed by an anonymous inspector visit.

Award winning head chef, Lewis Gallagher, has been working tirelessly to ensure Provenance is a success from the start and he is pleased the time his team has put in has paid off. He said: “Having recently launched our new Autumn/Winter menu with a combination of traditional and innovative meals, I’m satisfied that we have achieved our objective of offering premium dining with a classic twist all within a relaxed setting. I’d like to thank all of my team and front of house staff for helping us to feature with the Good Food Guide and I look forward to more recognition from the Guide in the future.”

Provenance was opened in June 2015 by Karen, Brian, and Rob Tinniswood and has already secured itself on the ever expanding North West food scene. Provenance offer fine dining within the upstairs restaurant serving delights such as Monkfish with a Chorizo Crumb and Chateaubriand, whilst downstairs the food hall encompasses a butchers, greengrocers, bakery and delicatessen, products all sourced from within the Lancashire area.

 Lewis has been recognised for his cooking ability in the past having been awarded the Acorn Scholarship by the Caterer magazine in 2013 following on from picking up North West Young Chef of the Year in 2012 and consequently Runner Up at National Young Chef of the Year 2012. He has also been crowned the Lancashire Young Chef of the Year twice in 2011 and 2012 so it was inevitably only a matter of time before the Good Food Guide picked up on this North West talent. 

We turn up and are seated in a private dining area, where I'm pleased to see several other food bloggers I know, including FoodGeek and DollyBakes. Chef Lewis comes out to give us his thoughts and intentions on the new menu ideas, and his enthusiasm for good food, and doing it freshly from scratch where possible, using ingredients available to purchase from Provenance's own food hall. We're presented with the evening's offerings:

The first dish comes out, a platter of Crimbo tasties, black pudding with apple, salmon, and duck, all delicious and perfectly textured. The consensus is that the black pudding was the best, and we all agree we could eagerly eat more! 

Our second dish is pumpkin soup. I've never been a huge fan of pumpkin, but this wonderfully creamy and buttery soup is so flavourful that I'm pleasantly surprised. It might be one of the warmest nights of the year, but I could imagine eating this soup curled up in a corner of Provenance whilst it's frosty and snowing outside, it'd be perfect.

The third dish of scallops, cauliflower and granny smith apple is next. Chef Lewis tells us how the apple is vacuum formed and the juice doubled back into the apple, giving it a truly juicy burst. The dish has both the enhanced flavours of cauliflower, the and differing textures, leaving a pleasant taste in the mouth.

Our next dish is ravioli of truffle and artichoke, and when it comes out, as pleasantly presented as it was, a few of us had the same reaction of, "where's the sauce? is the sauce inside?", but then we tried it, and realised that it didn't NEED sauce, it was perfect, and had a thin layer of oil within the base which meant that it was still delicious and still moist, not dry as expected by the lack of a sauce. Totally schooled by Chef Lewis there!

Monkfish, ham and chorizo is next, and I was looking forward to this as I've never actually tried monkfish, but it turns out it's delicious, and Chef Lewis has prepared it superbly, with ham and a very rich and flavourful chorizo, and accompanied with a lemon sauce which perfectly cut through the richness, balancing it superbly.

Our final main dish is the one several of us have not-very-secretly been looking forward to the most, the aged fillet of beef, onions and mushroom. Before it's brought out, we're informed that the standard is for it to be rare/pink, but that if any of our group wanted it well done, it could be flashed under the grill to brown it off for us, we were then asked if anyone wanted it well done. I'm very pleased to say that everyone in our group remained silent! The beef itself was beautifully cooked, juicy without being bloody, the potato gnocci gave it a more substantial 'meal' feeling, and the accompanied onion sauce was the icing on the cake for me, as it was rich and flavourful, and reminded me of the onion and marrowbone gravy served at Hawksmoor. I could've eaten a bowl of that with some chunky bread all on its own! Delicious!

Finally came dessert, the "Chocolate Mushroom", which turns out is a chocolate ice cream in a shell, on top of a fudgy chewy tasting meringue, accompanied by chocolate bark and crumbled chocolate crunch and sponge. A superb chocolate hit, and the absolutely perfect way to round off this tasting session.

If this is going to be the quality of the Autumn/Winter and Christmas menus, I massively recommend visiting and trying it out, because it's going to be extremely popular. Provenance's regular steak and grill nights require booking weeks in advance due to popularity, so once the public get their tastebuds around these delicious offerings, it's going to be extremely busy I can tell, so make sure you book as soon as you can! I'll definitely be making sure I do!

Our night ended with a big pot of tea and Parma Violet macarons. I TOTALLY DIDN'T EAT THREE OF THEM TO MYSELF. 

Well done to Chef Lewis, his team, and the entire team at Provenance. The fact that you've been trading for only just over a year and ended up in the Good Food Guide 2017 says more than my simple little review ever could. You took a gamble on Westhoughton, but it has paid off hugely, and I can see nothing but success in your future given the quality of the food and service!