Parisian pastry

Curtis & Bell on North Street has swiftly taken the crown as Bristol’s finest patisserie. Martin Booth meets head chef Rob Curtis to find out the secrets of this most delicate of culinary arts.

Photography by Joseph Pymar.

It’s 7am and Rob Curtis has already been at work for more than four hours. With the only electronic machinery at his disposal a small Magimix, Rob creates delicate patisserie that brings a little taste of Paris to this corner of Bedminster.

As we speak, some of the fruits, chocolate and cream of this very early morning labour are carefully being positioned onto the refrigerated counter at Curtis & Bell.

A Black Forest gateau is the pick of the bunch today, made with layers of chocolate Genoese sponge, Belgian chocolate mousse and morello cherry bavarois.

But Rob, previously head chef at Byzantium, won’t be eating any of his creations. “I haven’t got a sweet tooth at all,” he laughs. “I’ve never had one. If I go out for dinner with my wife I only have a starter and main.”

Rob trained as a pastry chef after becoming hooked on the cakemakers’ art during a stint of work experience while at St Mary Redcliffe & Temple school.

25 years later and he is pursuing a dream by opening his own cafe, making everything himself in full view of customers and introducing North Street to tarts, meringues and eclairs usually only found in Bristol in the window of a Patisserie Valerie – mass-produced from a central kitchen in Nottingham.

Rob describes what he does as the antithesis to Patisserie Valerie, and proudly tells me that he uses no synthetic powders or stabilisers, making everything fresh in small batches.

“I think this gives the customer more of a satisfaction. They realise it’s fresh. You get the occasional person looking at the price (£3.75 for most of the chilled selections) and going, ‘that’s expensive’, but when you explain to them why I hope they realise.

“What you see is what you get with me. That table and that mixer. That’s it. It all offers people more of an appreciation of what they’re buying.”

Rob may not eat his creations, but he is a perfectionist in their development, even forbidding Bristol24/7’s photographer from taking a photo of one of the display items due to its resemblance to something not so edifying.

Rob changes what he makes on a daily basis, with a chocolate orange macaroon being made after a suggestion from a customer.

“It’s the ability to create something new that I absolutely love,” says Rob, leaning over the counter as the first customers start to drift in through the doors from North Street.

“You need imagination to piece things together that might not normally go together.

“No disrespect to bakers, but a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread. You just stick some things in it. What I do is a little bit more enticing.”

Rob leaves Curtis & Bell at 2.30pm each day in time to pick his children up from school. Then the alarm is set for 2am the following morning, ready to turn on the Magimix again.