During early April, potential diners walking along Chilwell High Road were encouraged by the emergence of the latest outlet – welcoming leaflets on the table outside, exciting social media promises and beautiful smells coming out of the kitchen.
The Library restaurant on Wollaton Road, which closed a few years ago, gained an excellent reputation and has been much missed – so the news that the same highly experienced and skilled chef who cooked there (and previously at La Toque), Mattias Karlsson, was coming back to cook in Beeston. He has now set up an establishment along with Patrick De Souza, a local talented home chef and this has been greeted with much excitement.
The Frustrated Chef has been pretty much packed out since its opening on 14th April. Since then many people have had excellent experiences and have been pleased to share the news on Facebook, and across the garden fence. It has now extended opening hours to include lunchtimes and will start a special Sunday service on 19th June.
The Frustrated Chef’s offer is World Tapas and the ever changing menu features a diverse range of dishes with multi-national inspiration from nibbles such as delicious hummus with smoked paprika and fried broad beans, goat cheese parcels with sweet chilli, piquillo peppers with feta, olives and orange to more substantial meat and fish dishes such as Swedish meatballs and mussels with white wine and harissa, alongside salads and breads and specials every night. The desserts were also highly enjoyable – pistachio shortbread with rum and cinnamon chocolate sauce was yummy. It is fantastic to go around the world from Chilwell High Road!
For every morsel consumed and cocktail drunk I think we should spare a thought for the team behind Relish. Their vision to make a café out of three rather unloved shop units and hard work to establish it lies beneath this exciting new restaurant.
I hope Mattias and Patrick are frustrated no more!
Karen Allwood