La Popote Review

Situated in Marston in the heart of Cheshire, La Popote is an unashamedly French "casual fine dining" restaurant (according to the website anyway) which originally opened in 2009. Having been acquired by the current owners in 2019, the restaurant was then awarded a prestigious Michelin Guide listing from our favourite tyre munching inspectors around a year ago in December 2022. Given that accolade and the generally positive reviews from regular punters, I was expecting a quality meal as I rocked up for lunch with my wife on a sunny November Friday.

The restaurant was easy to locate (being directly off a major A-road) and sits within a small group of buildings including a cafe and various other businesses. There was a decent amount of parking at the front of the restaurant and there's more behind the building also which is always a relief to see.

Externally and internally the restaurant is very pleasant; there's plenty of Cheshire brick on show, our table was a good size and in general everything was nicely finished. When we first arrived there was some Katy Perry blasting out of the sound system, but this was swiftly replaced with something slightly more mellow as we sat down at our table (we were first in the restaurant so no issue at all with that).

On offer at lunch is a full carte menu and also a shorter (and much cheaper) "menu of the week" lunch menu; there's also the option of a five course lunch tasting menu. The lunch menu wasn't really leaping off the page at us to be honest, so we opted for the carte, although we were the only table during our visit who did.

For drinks, there's a strong wine list with a heavy French bias (of course, and I have no issue with that at all) but frustratingly this had no information around what was available by the glass or half bottle. I asked for the drinks list in the hope this would help guide me only to be told they don't have one, which I found really odd, and indeed at least one table after us asked for a drinks list to be told the same.

It was doubly surprising given they apparently have a very large selection of gins also, but other than expecting our waitress to recite them, I had no way to know what these were. In the end I just opted for my usual Hendrick's and tonic and after enquiring what non-alcoholic options they had, my wife went for non-alcoholic gin and tonic (no idea what brand it was though).

Lunch began with a couple of slices of fairly mediocre bought in bread; it was fine (and "free") but you could probably get something more memorable from your local supermarket bakery. A little pre-starter bowl of cabbage veloute was very tasty though, both my wife and I enjoyed that. Lunch proper for me began with the wild mushroom tart, served with smoked duck, rocket and smoked oil. It was a decent dish, the main mushroom tart elements were well executed, but the little rubber-like pellets of duck on top were a strange addition and not particularly pleasant.

My wife had more luck on this occasion with her starter of beetroot with smoked eel, watercress and horseradish. She said it was delicious (too nice to let me try any) and one of the best starters she's had for some time. Next up for me was a main of venison, served with parsley root and roasted shallots. Overall, it was a good plate with the venison being cooked well, albeit the sauce was a bit lacklustre. The other little issue I had with this dish was the temperature; the puree was stone cold, the main venison chunks lukewarm and the crepinette piping hot; it was a strange mix. My wife this time got the inferior dish with a so-so chicken dish, served with massive chunks of broccoli and some gnocchi.

There had definitely been some strong cooking up to this point in the meal (albeit not perfect) and with any half decent French restaurant usually being strong in the pastry department, we were looking forward to some top class desserts. Sadly, we received anything but.

My "64% Dark Chocolate" was basically a little bowl of chocolate and cream, with some hazelnut buried within for texture. Sure, it tasted OK but it lacked any kind of finesse in terms of flavour or presentation. Considering my six year old son could have plated it, I found the £13 price point (you'd pay less for a carte dessert at many 1* restaurants, even in these post-COVID times) absolutely obscene. My wife's pear pavlova at least showed a little bit more ambition, but the plating was incredibly clumsy and the flavours were just bland on bland on bland (and again, it set me back £13). It's fair to say desserts here were a massive disappointment.

We'd already ordered a couple of cappuccinos to come after dessert by this point; they were OK but alas there were no petit fours which I'm sure would have helped brighten the day slightly. And so, after collecting the bill (complete with 12.5% service charge) a disappointing lunch came to an end.

Overall, although there was some decent cooking in places, the food here was quite some way behind the level I'd been expecting. Service too was less than stellar; whilst the gentleman who served us a couple of times was very warm and helpful, the lady who served us most of the meal was not. She was quite cold in general and offered other tables (eating from the shorter lunch menu) additional bread and butter for example, but not us, which I found really strange considering we were forking out for the massively overpriced carte menu.

Alas, you can't please all of the people all of the time, and the restaurant had a few tables in for lunch eating the lunch menu who I'm sure were happier than me. Ultimately, I'm sure the food here is better than many restaurants in the area, so if it's good enough for the regular customers to keep the place full, then why do more I guess. But in my view, the food and overall experience was nowhere near a standard that would justify the pricing being charged here, and I unfortunately am very unlikely to repeat the experience.