A lively, unpretentious place that serves up European and Asian flavours with skill and Scouse swagger
Arriving in Liverpool on a wet Thursday night with a migraine and an empty stomach, I was reminded why I love the place when I reached Belzan. Full disclosure: my father is a Scouser. Some of my earliest food memories are of funeral teas in Toxteth, Lion bars from a push-along mobile shop with no engine and, in later years, a whirl around Huyton’s glamorous, two-storey Asda. Truffled celeriac, crayfish emulsions and tonka beans were not regular features in Merseyside dining back then, although the collective psyche has, to me at least, always felt aspirational.
As a child, I was more inspired by Margi Clarke than by Madonna, and Liverpool’s food scene – from The Art School to Mowgli and throughout the Baltic Triangle– has flourished on its own terms, not London’s. And now this all-day “neo-bistro” on the Smithdown Road is doing pork collar yakitori and scallops with mango and masala, and it all feels wholly natural. There are raw juices, shakshuka and matcha lattes in the morning, croque-madames and Corpse Bride cocktails at lunchtime, and a dinner menu of seasonal, often local produce that’s just brimming with Scouse swagger and European as well as Japanese splashes. Plentiful shareable plates of butter beans in beef dashi sit alongside barbecued savoy cabbage with chilli, ginger and soy, and mushrooms with ponzu custard. Belzan pulls off a rare thing that many restaurants try and fail to do: being relaxed as hell, but also a little challenging, too. Calves’ liver fried in Pedro Ximénez sherry isn’t for everyone, and while Claudja Barry’s Love For the Sake of Love playing dreamily is my idea of heaven, maybe you’d prefer silence. Likewise, the unisex loo, which, with irony, is indeed for everyone but won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
Continue reading...