Restaurant Review: Montparnasse, Southsea

Pub food embraces a myriad of sins but GARETH DAVIS discovers a local that scores a bull’s eye...

Where to eat out in Portsmouth? The home of Nelson’s HMS Victory is not awash with eateries to tempt an admiral though there’s more than enough to satisfy an old salt. So I stepped into neighbouring Southsea where I found a charming 11 year old bistro on the fringe of the town centre.

Montparnasse is the kind of place that becomes a local favourite. It a little gem that you stumble across –which is just what I did. My first visit to this part of the world and Montparnasse was a case of interweb serendipity.

The main dining area is a small, narrow space with bright shop front windows, cosy, worn floorboards and equally cuddly apricot walls, all warm and glinting in the candlelight of a Friday eve. There are 35 covers on this split level and a further 30 in a function room upstairs.

The menu is modern with some international flourishes though at heart it’s French, and well priced. A wider world intrudes with tempura prawns, and sweet pea mousse with coconut, aubergine and kohlrabi cannelloni. Two courses come in at £31.50 and three at £36.50. Some dishes have supplements but no more than £2.50.The wine list is a real grab bag of grapes with interesting varietals; verdicchio, viognier, riesling, malbec and so on. Whites kick off at £17.50, reds at £17.95, and you can get your hands on a glass for £3.50.

I settled on the house aperitif, a fruity champagne cocktail with blueberry, pear and pomegranate at £6.50, then moved onto a beautifully zingy Traminer/Riesling from SE Australia with lots of spiced fruits and surprising length and minerality.

While I was still chewing on my bubbles and berries, an amuse bouche landed before me; a cauliflower cheese veloute with a parmesan crisps. The flavour was gorgeously intense with fine cauli undercurrents. Rabbit ballotine, charred onion mayo and baby carrots were my starter, pretty as a picture, fanned out on a square plate. The lovely sweet meaty rabbit was matched by the onion mayo and onion crisps, and the whole things had a real whirl with my Traminer/Riesling.

My main was fillet of lamb with confit shoulder boulangere potato and fennel. The meat was beautifully cooked, pink and soft, but my eyes shrank at the sight of additional veg on the side. By now I was beginning to fill up. Which meant dessert was a no-no, though I must admit to being less than a fan of chocolate. So a big no to the hot chocolate pudding with blood orange terrine (20 mins in the making) and the baked passion fruit cream with mango samosa and white chocolate mousse, both of which were huge hits with the ladies in the room. I nibbled on some cheese.

There are flashes of modish, even cheesy, presentation at Montparnasse that pitches the restaurant at the higher end but essentially flavours and textures here are pretty rustic. This isn’t piss elegant fare so anyone visiting expecting Michelin-aspirational cooking is barking up the wrong confit and is sure to be disappointed. And as for enjoyable? Well when the mains arrived at a nearby chatty table of four, the silence that fell said it all, naught but the clacking of cutlery.

This is a local to be cherished and with an 11 year vintage it is to be hoped that there’s another 11 years ahead of it.