Debut Restaurant, Norwich

Debut Restaurant, within Norwich City College, is an absolute diamond in the rough for the Norfolk restaurant scene. The restaurant itself is run by the college's internationally renowned hotel school, therefore the chefs which will cook and plate up your food, and the young men and women that wait your tables are, in fact, students of the catering and hospitality courses. Of course the students are kept a close eye on but I personally think the slightly 'rough around the edges' style service just adds to the feel of the meal and all three times I have visited Debut the food has been outstanding.

Debut Logo

Debut restaurant is actually open Monday to Friday for lunch (excellent value at £9.90 for a three course meal) and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings for their 9 course dinner tasting menus (priced at an unbelievable £21.50). Although I have attended for one of these evening meals, I will blog tonight about the wonderful Festive Tasting Menu - a 9 course feast both for the eyes and our taste buds (costing a brilliant £25 including a welcome cocktail).

Bread Plate

We were told to arrive at 7pm for a 7.30pm start, and the restaurant - which is decorated beautifully with modern interior design and bold print, looked really lovely with the mixture of modern and traditional Christmas decorations. Bread was first bought to our table, which was lovely as we were starving! It wet our appetite, but then unfortunately it was a good 25 minutes until our 'welcome' cocktail and canapés arrived (in fact our wine even arrived prior to the cocktail). It really wasn't a problem, and the time then soon passed by, would have been nice to have had these a little earlier though - purely because we had hardly eaten anything all day in preparation!

Smoked salmon and caviar blinis

Vodka Cocktail

The cocktail arrived which was lovely, extremely sweet - a little like sherbet, and was soon followed by a mini spoon with a lovely mouthful of smoked salmon, cream cheese and caviar on a blini. Classic combo, it was never going to fail to impress, we did make a additional comment that the salmon portion on each was extremely generous too, which, considering the value of the meal, we were pleasantly surprised about!



Butternut Squash and mixed seeds

Next came our amuse bouche which was a lovely thick soup of butternut squash topped with mixed seeds which gave a lovely nutty flavour with quite a festive feel. The soup was piping hot and had bags of flavour. Alongside this the service had finally settled into itself a little and the next few courses were delivered swiftly and beautifully presented.

 

Smoked Eel, apple textures and horseradish snow



The third plate was the fish course which consisted of a smoked eel pate, textures of apple (an apple jelly, and a sweet apple chutney) and horseradish snow. This was one of my favourite courses, really flavoursome, and fresh with the sweet apple complementing the earthy eel and hot horseradish flavours.

Confit Pheasant, roast chestnuts and butter sprouts

The first of the meat courses was confit pheasant, and a little pheasant croquette, accompanied by a lovely chestnut, pancetta and sprout goodie pile! The pheasant was delicious, so tender and went wonderfully with the classic Christmas combination of salty pancetta, nutty chestnut and sweet sprouts. The croquette was a lovely addition and added a crispy crunch to the plate however we commented that being quite potato heavy it could have done with a touch more seasoning for it to really pop off the plate.

Mulled wine sorbet

The palette cleanser followed as a fresh sorbet which zinged with the distinct flavours of mulled wine. It was a lovely course which really got you into the festive spirit and was absolutely essential to ready our taste buds for the main event which was to follow.

Duo of beef

The other contender for my favourite dish without a shadow of a doubt was the main dish which was a duo of beef (roast sirloin and a port ragu meatball). This came with a perfectly cooked fondant potato, squash puree, caramelised onion and a wonderfully rich morel jus. I even asked for extra gravy, it was just so so tasty! The sirloin was cooked absolutely brilliantly, very pink, which meant it retained all of its flavour and kept extremely tender, and the meatball was a lovely addition, something that I'd never thought of doing before but added a lovely rich depth to the dish. All of the plates on our table were so clean they look as though they had been in the dishwasher already - a real testament to the quality of the food these young people turn out of the Debut kitchen.

Apple, calvados espuma

Feeling rather full after our excellent main course the pre-dessert was a wonderful way to kick-start our appetite for the sweeter courses. Consisting of a wonderfully sweet apple and cinnamon compote and topped with a tangy apple brandy flavoured foam, it just melted in your mouth and was like a little cloud of heaven on my spoon, really delicious!

Chocolate marquis, orange ripple ice cream

Our dessert was the final plate of food to arrive at our table and it was a heavy chocolate orange marquis accompanied by an orange ripple ice cream and strawberry puree. For my personal taste (and full belly) it was a little too rich, but would have been absolute heaven for a chocoholic, and it didn't stop me from polishing off most of the plate anyway!

Christmas pudding chocolates

To accompany our tea and coffee a little plate of petit fours completed our meal with style and finesse. Each was shaped and decorated like a little Christmas pudding and was filled with the rich pudding flavours of dried fruits and alcohol! A perfect end to an absolutely excellent meal!

Matched wines

Worth mentioning is that we also ordered matched wine package which include a white (for the eel course) a red (for the pheasant and beef) and a dessert wine. All were really good wines, especially the dessert wine, which I think I could have possibly drunk by the pint full! The three wines were £11.95 and was a really nice touch, despite arriving at the start of the meal instead of being bought as each course arrived (a thing we thought would have looked more professional, but admittedly could have given the new floor team too much to think about).

All in all I personally think Debut Restaurant is a total hidden gem in Norwich. If you look past the occasionally slow service I actually think the floor team are great, we all have to start somewhere, and they are certainly in the right place with excellent tuition and real life experience. Just be a little patient and friendly, and you'll have a wonderful evening with some of the best quality food I've tasted.

http://debut.ccn.ac.uk/restaurant-home