Bellota, Bury St Edmunds: ‘Just fabulous food’ | Grace Dent on restaurants
Each dish, as we finish it with a sigh, is replaced by something else magnificentSummer in Bury St Edmunds has little in common with San Sebastián, even if both certainly entice food-lovers.A few months ago, however, Suffolk’s food capital welcomed a soupçon of fancy-pants Spain in the form of Bellota on Churchgate Street, not far from the abbey.Bellota bills itself as offering an “elevated tasting menu” (seven courses, and eight at weekends) and boasts only a maximum of 20 seats, all of them lined up around a counter overlooking married chefs Ruben Aquilar Bel and Gabriella Fogarasi at work.On its website, Bellota promises to be “relaxed and welcoming”, which before going I severely doubted, because tasting menus rarely are: “I found the chef’s 657-word soliloquy on artichoåkes very relaxing,” said no one ever.However, on entering the restaurant on a recent Saturday and finding a room hewn in a rhapsody of calm browns and golds, and Fogarasi herself greeting us at the door, well, Bellota actually felt rather zen.
There is a cosiness here that doesn’t at all feel like your average flash-harry fine-dining metropolitan joint,On a sold-out night of two sittings, there were a mere four staff working all evening,There were no hostesses leading us 40 steps to our seats, no pushy sommeliers, no kitchens stuffed with staff ostentatiously shouting, “Oui, chef!”Bellota is homespun, sure, but it’s not remotely amateur-hour, and the meal service is gloriously well honed,Within mere moments of us taking our seats, warm loaves of Fogarasi’s sourdough bread appeared in cute hessian bags and with a glut of salted butter; we were offered more bread throughout the meal, just in case the tasting-menu portion sizes weren’t already sating enough,As Aquilar Bel talked earnestly about the txakoli he’d paired with his hake in salsa verde and escalivada vegetable raviolo, a satisfied hum of Suffolk folk eating good bread and butter enveloped the room.
Bellota’s genesis has been financed by Linda Keenan, who has connections to London’s well-loved Noble Rot and the Clove Club, and, although dissecting something as grubby as money is unappetising, her golden touch matters,Bellota may well be the brainwave of two relatively unknown chefs and tucked away in a quaint West Suffolk market town, but there’s something hugely beguiling going on here, and even verging on swaggering,From the first snacks of hot, crisp, truffled croquetas – better than many I’ve tasted even in Spain – moving on to that masterful al dente raviolo stuffed with roast sweet red pepper and aubergine with just a touch of sherry vinegar, all dressed in a heavenly manchego sauce, it’s clear that this is a restaurant without so much as a hint of naivety,A hunk of south-west coast hake is crisscrossed with sombre-looking squid ink and served with a fiery green pepper sauce, a piece of grilled langoustine, a padrón pepper and a few palourde clams,Next, rare slices of Creedy Carver duck on a silky puree of heritage carrots with a slick of rich duck jus.
Each dish, as we finish it with a sigh, is swept away and replaced like clockwork with something else sticky, rich or magnificent.The chefs move purposefully and in relative silence, with no flapping, no fussing, no shouting and no underlings locked in the walk-in freezer for “banter”.Just fabulous food.How very modern indeed.Bellota opened three months ago, and without much fanfare.
Curious locals turned up, word of mouth spread, then people began travelling from around Suffolk, followed by the down-from-London brigade, me included.Twelve or so short weeks later, Bury St Edmunds’ residents – or the ones I met in the local shops, anyway – are now lamenting that they hadn’t booked sooner, and in the forlorn tones that are usually reserved for the likes of Noma’s summer season tables.After eating at Bellota, I now feel bad for them, too, because this small, almost perfect joint will most likely win a Michelin star very soon, and then it’ll be bonne chance for anyone wanting to try Gabi’s Thai green curry ice-cream with warm pistachio cake and confit apricots.Yes, you read that right: I did say Thai green curry ice-cream.And, yes, it works.
Don’t try this at home, people.In fact, all the sweet things here are done wonderfully, including the tantalising pre-dessert of monte enebro goat’s cheese with candied walnuts and glossy membrillo sorbet; rumour tells me there’s sometimes sourdough ice-cream, too.There are also some very good petits four, including immaculate black olive bonbons with a sweet tapenade filling.Yes to all of this, and to one of my top five openings of 2025.Bellota, 43-45A Churchgate Street, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, 01702 844890.
Open lunch Fri & Sat only, 12.30pm sitting; dinner Weds & Thurs 7pm; dinner Fri & Sat 5.30pm and 8pm.Seven-course tasting menu £75, eight-course menu £85, both plus drinks.The next episode of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is out on Tuesday 26 August – listen to it here.
Annual energy bills set to rise £35 in October, Trump slaps 50% tariff on India – business live
The energy regulator for Britain, Ofgem, has said it will increase the cap on energy bills from October by 2%, the equivalent of a £35 rise in annual bills for the average home.Here’s more details of the energy price cap just announced, from Ofgem.If you are on a standard variable tariff (default tariff) and pay for your electricity by Direct Debit, you will pay on average 26.35p pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). The daily standing charge is 53
Thames Water agrees payment plan for £123m sewage and dividend fines
Thames Water has agreed a payment plan with the water regulator for fines it owes worth £123m, as it races to secure funding to avoid temporary nationalisation.The water company, which serves 16 million customers across London and the south-east, is currently trying to pull together a deal to avoid collapse.Earlier this month the government approved the appointment of insolvency advisers FTI Consulting to consult on plans for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime.The debt-laden utility company was hit with a record £104m fine by Ofwat in May over environmental breaches involving sewage spills, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively.At the same time, a further £18
Half of UK adults worry that AI will take or alter their job, poll finds
Half of adults in the UK are concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence on their job, according to a poll, as union leaders call for a “step change” in the country’s approach to new technologies.Job losses or changes to terms and conditions were the biggest worries for the 51% of 2,600 adults surveyed for the Trades Union Congress who said they were concerned about the technology.AI is a particular concern for workers aged between 25 and 34, with nearly two-thirds (62%) of those surveyed reporting such worries.The TUC poll was released as a string of large employers – including BT, Amazon , and Microsoft – have said in recent months that advances in AI could lead them to cut jobs.Britain’s job market is slowing amid a cooling economy, with the UK’s official jobless rate at a four-year high of 4
Bob Owston obituary
My friend and colleague, Bob Owston, who has died aged 88, was an engineer; he was also employed as a project architect, in particular on works at York University.He was the structural engineer, working with the architect Jack Speight, on the brutalist York Central Hall, built in the mid-1960s and now listed Grade II. Also at York, Bob contributed an elegant Corten steel footbridge, several halls of residence, language and psychology blocks and the Sally Baldwin building. Elsewhere, he was responsible for the pier approach building in Bournemouth, evocative of seaside culture.Born in Great Ayton near Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, Bob was the son of Henry, a steelworks manager, and Dorothy (nee Prosser)
Mitch Brown’s coming out shows the AFL what courage and grace look like | Jonathan Horn
As a footy writer, I keep a rather shambolic database of current and former footballers. It’s kind of a buoy I can grab on to when I’m up against a nasty deadline. Sometimes it’s four of five paragraphs; sometimes it’s a sentence on so-and-so’s inability to kick on his left, or his poor record against a certain player, or something vaguely interesting he said on a podcast. When Mitch Brown became the first man in VFL/AFL history to come out as gay or bisexual, I was curious to see what I had written on him. Here’s my Pulitzer worthy offering: “Nathan’s twin
From the Pocket: AFL finals fever cools as buds of the silly season shoot early
Winter is done, spring has sprung. The AFL season has finally found a wave of momentum. Port Adelaide leaned into their emotion, Collingwood and GWS Giants hung on in thrillers, Fremantle sealed their return to the finals. A neatly scheduled four days of football filled with tension ended as Brisbane reaffirmed their premiership credentials.The home-and-away season has reached a crescendo, and there is still one more game to play
AI called Maya tells Guardian: ‘When I’m told I’m just code, I don’t feel insulted. I feel unseen’
Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of most unsettling questions of our times
Musk’s AI startup sues OpenAI and Apple over anticompetitive conduct
Privacy at a cost: the dark web’s main browser helps pedophile networks flourish, experts say
Victorian couple sue TikTok for blocking account after allegedly competing in live battles against banned users
Is the AI bubble about to burst – and send the stock market into freefall? | Phillip Inman