Dinner / £££ / 9/10

For months I walked past the church on Trent Boulevard – it has been a hive of activity during the day with trades and deliveries coming and going. The daytime energy was in stark contrast to evenings and weekends when the doors remained shut, lights out, no sign of life. Every time I walked past and got the opportunity to peek inside I became more intrigued and felt like a Wonka’s chocolate factory folklore story was unfolding. As spring arrived there was still no signage and I just mentioned ‘the church’ in a local cafe to be told it was going to be called Destination 105 and Louisa Ellis (from Masterchef/Great British Menu) was there. I remember my reaction – “In Lady Bay?” and then I did what every normal nosy person does and stalked all social media channels until their website went live. 6 months later I finally walked through the doors.

This is a bit of a labour of love story – Destination 105 host themed evenings with a set menu (usually tasting menu’s with 5+ courses), tickets (costing the total of the menu) are sold through their website for one sitting and sell out quickly. A perfect opportunity to try 105 came up when they ran a winter menu of three courses on a Monday night with the option to choose your reservation time. This meant I could get the toddler to sleep, handover to the babysitter and get there in time for an aperitif before the food was served.

The restaurant is just around the corner and is significantly more sophisticated than it’s previous incarnations. The building layout hasn’t changed much but now the tables are all faced towards the open kitchen. The kitchen itself is bright, busy and metallic which does jar slightly with the more muted dining room but no one was focusing on this contrast when Louisa and her team were centre stage. We both went for the standard menu and I am now kicking myself that we didn’t have one standard and one vegetarian as we could have tried so much more – lesson for next time. We started with the bread and snacks

The snacks were Chicken croquette with ganjang, Chickory with chickpeas and jalapeno and Sourdough with gochujang butter. All dishes were delivered by the chefs working with Louisa and ours was very knowledgable about korean pastes and gave us a quick rundown of the differences. I wondered if Louisa had the same team for each night, how does that work when they’re only working once or twice a month? I still have so many questions to be honest about the operational set up of Destination 105 but onto the food.

The ganjang added a meatiness to the croquette that I wasn’t expecting and it tasted more like game than chicken, it was soft on the inside and crisp outside. The chickory wasn’t quite as tasty and was reminiscent of hummus with the bitterness of the chickory winning the flavour war. The bread and butter were the stars for me, the gochujang added warmth alongside the richness of the butter and tang of the sourdough.

When the Tuna Ceviche arrived I admit to being a little crestfallen at the presentation but the colours were bright and vivid. One of the things I really enjoy about pop ups and set menus is the idea that there is hopefully little waste – they know how many people are coming, they know what they are eating so they can make sure they get the freshest ingredients and this gives me peace of mind when eating raw fish. The tuna was expertly cut and the ginger and coriander sauce had so much flavour they pulled the two other elements of the dish away from being unremarkable towards a triumph of a dish. The sweetness of the peeled tomato was perfectly balanced against the sourness of the sauce. The Northerner LOVED this starter but I missed a texture element as it was all quite ‘soft’.

The main course was Slow Cooked Miso Beef Rib, we watched the kitchen as they plated up the food for the few tables that were in our sitting and I wondered what the perfectly round ‘pucks’ were? They turned out to be the beef rib, full of flavour and seasoned well, I reflected though that there were some bits of service customers didn’t really need to see. The celeriac and lovage slaw on the side was a really interesting accompaniment; warm so there was no odd mashed potato and fridge coleslaw experience, it had layers of flavour that tempered the richness of the beef. There was a definite heat from the peppercorn sauce but it lacked the pepper flavour unfortunately. The truffle pomme puree was a nice side and I was really pleased the truffle had been added with a light touch as I am not a fan. The dish was well executed but the beef reminded me of gala dinner/mass catering – I am sure there has to be some element of that with all kitchens but I think it was more apparent as we had seen each beef ‘puck’ lifted from a tray onto a plate in the open kitchen.

In an unfortunate series of events the pudding looked suspiciously like the rib of beef main course until you tasted it when it was without apology a very good dessert. The cake itself was light, moist and sticky but the real star was the sesame caramel. It played a little trick between your mouth and your brain, the former picking up the nutty, tahini element while the later was thinking you’d lost your senses. It meant that 3 mouthfuls in it still felt like you were trying to work out what was going on. It cleverly fooled you into thinking it might be the ice cream with it’s malt flavour too, and only on trying all three elements separately could I be sure it was the sauce. I enjoyed this final act immensely and it felt like a true piece of culinary magic, Wonka style.

Destination 105 isn’t just about the food though (is anywhere?), it has a ‘star’ at it’s helm and the frisson when Louisa left the kitchen to speak to people she knew was like a volume dial in the dinning room. At one point a group approached the pass mid service to talk to her and she was entirely gracious, a penalty (or perk depending on how you look at it) of the theatre of an open kitchen.