‘Raise your voices and howl for The Chefs’

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They taught us about Stroud at school. A cloth town at the confluence of five valleys, if I remember correctly. Particularly famed for the mills in which the wool of local sheep was made into the Stroudwater Scarlet uniforms of the British Army. It looks quiet, but it has an unusual history of radicalism. From weavers’ riots going back to the Industrial Revolution to the founding of Extinction Rebellion in 2018.

But, according to the urgent whisperings of the gossip sphere, Stroud is also the location of an interesting new collective. Sculptor Daniel Chadwick (who owns The Woolpack in Slad) reimagined an old industrial building and drew in two young chefs. Oli Gyde, who trained at The Woolpack with Adam Glover. And Will Rees, who worked at Michelin-starred Wilsons and the critically admired Clifton. Unusually, for chefs, they are modest and self-effacing. Their back-story took deep digging and they refer to themselves as “The Chefs”, a refreshingly egalitarian idea. Nonetheless, their reputation is fearsome. Pictures online of their French- and Italian-inspired stylings have drawn admiring comparison to the River Cafe and St John, so when I arrive at Juliet with a small cadre of West Country foodisti, expectations are high.

I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that giardiniera is going to trend this winter. God knows why these things happen, maybe it’s confirmation bias, but a month ago, I saw a few jars of it in an Italian restaurant and, bored to death of summer green salads of tasteless hydroponic biomass, I wondered if I shouldn’t chuck a few veg in a jar and pickle them a bit. I did, and I felt like Akira Ogata when, in 1919, he first synthesised methamphetamine. “Blimey,” he must have thought. “This stuff’s not bad. I reckon it’s going to be popular.” Juliet’s giardiniera is better than mine. Crunchy, bright-looking and with a pickle, just sweet enough to knock back the vinegar, but basically extremely savoury. I reckon we’ll all be making this stuff to stave off scurvy until the spring.

A plump just-set egg, enrobed in silken mayo, a couple of anchos thrown over the top like discarded stockings, was almost sufficient to distract a chap from vitello tonnato. Almost.

The Chefs are skilled enough to have roasted, rather than poached the veal, then sliced it as thin as a worn out credit-card and rushed it to the table still warm and surrendering juices. Thus the sauce — already ointment of the Gods — is further enriched. I felt like running through the streets of Stroud, haranguing the locals. “Put down your pasties and foregather at once in front of Juliet. Bring your pitchforks, light your torches. Raise your voices and howl for The Chefs and their vitello tonnato.”

I knew about panisse, the sort of chickpea-churro thing, but salame rosa was new. I yield to no man in appreciation of mortadella, but it is a processed product. It takes machinery and industrial might to get challenging chunks of pork into a smooth emulsion and set into a sausage. Salame rosa, though, a more rustic, craftsman-like, less minced version is therefore massively appealing. Folding great sheets of it like silk handkerchiefs and posting them past my teeth might just be the most life-affirming act of meditative self-care I’ve managed all year.

At some point prior to my visit, the staff must have drugged and kidnapped me, transported me to a Black Site and made me spill my every food desire before wiping my memory and dumping me, starving, back on the mean streets of Stroud. How else could they have puntarelle alla Romana and mousse de canard all together on the menu? How else could they have tasted so good? At every turn, I found myself nudging my compatriots and pointing at some new wonder as it arrived. “Sweet mother of God! Frisée aux lardons! Behold the egg! Look! There are pommes allumettes with the steak tartare. Nobody’s done that since disco.”

In the end, they had to calm me down with a couple of fat lamb cutlets and a dirty big dollop of thick bagna cauda. I hunkered in a corner like some half-mad prisoner, dipping my chops and wiping my beard with the back of my hand. Maddened with greed, I made a lunge for their half poussin, near buried under a mound of buttery girolles, but my companions had wearied of me and stabbed me in the hand with a fork.

It’s a long way back from Stroud. Three and a half hours in which to dream of what’s been consumed. Because I was driving, I’d been unable to explore the excellent wine list, and I’d had to leave just as everyone else was lining up for dessert. Juliet’s has already achieved notoriety for its tarte tatin, which needs to be ordered, waited for and shared by the whole table. With a sharp, lightly fermented cream. In great steaming wedges.

I know, because as the wipers struggled with slick, greasy rain lashing the windscreen and the traffic ground to a halt near Milton Keynes, they sent me pictures. The bastards.

Look, I obviously judge everything through the lens of food and my grasp of political history is shaky, but this is certainly the most radical thing I’ve ever done in Stroud. It’s a three minute stagger from the station, which is itself 90 mins from Paddington, which Michelin would consider “worth the detour”. Above all, though, this dangerously pinko business of equality among chefs might just be the Only Way Forward.