It’s hard work opening a hospitality business at the best of times, let alone downstream of a global pandemic, Brexit, worrying levels of inflation and “global political uncertainty” (wasn’t sure how to best phrase that without profanity). Still though people persist, for which I’m enormously grateful as should the rest of York be as the number of wonderful independent businesses in the city continues to grow. Latest among this number is Black Wheat Club from the lovely folk who’ve been feeding us incredible Galettes for years from their business on Shambles Market, Krep. Years ago Tom and the gang ran a polish pop-up under the “Mokosh” banner which really made me realise how much potential there was for them to launch something even more distinctive and delicious than the galettes and I’ve been bugging him to repeat the endeavour ever-since. Black Wheat Club isn’t a straight repetition of the borscht and pierogis that underpinned Mokosh, more a gentle redevelopment of a more conventional bistro/bakery with pronounced Eastern-European notes spliced through it.
Black Wheat Club is a deeply ambitious proposition which has taken a great deal of time and investment to transform what was a vintage shop on Fossgate into this new spot which is remarkably well realised as of day one, an impressive feat. There’s a sense of authenticity from the moment you arrive and are greeted by a spectacular display of foliage that embraces the door. That authenticity is underpinned by an obvious desire to do everything they possibly can themselves, with a bakery hidden away up in the higher floors of the building (getting the equipment up there is achievement enough itself) as well as in house production of cured meats, pickles, sauces, sausages, ferments and so on. That’s all very nice and admirable, but would ultimately be fruitless if the execution didn’t stand up.
I was lucky enough to receive some of the output of one of the test bakes a few weeks ago so I had little fear that the bakery side of things would stand its ground amongst the top-notch baked good offering York now enjoys, but the eat-in menu needed further investigation. On first visit, my head was turned by both salt-beef poached eggs and breakfast stew with cheesy poached egg, both of which sounding interesting without falling into irritating contrivance. The in-house cured salt-beef was predictably perfect in texture and underpinned the rich brown-butter hollandaise effectively, with a layer of sauerkraut further upping the ante. A scattering of diced, pickled cucumber finished things off while the in-house baked sourdough was robust enough to take all that. I don’t recall seeing breakfast stew on a menu before and the inclusion of leeks and swede with marjoram accented-sausage was enough to make ordering it a certainty. More of that house sourdough was a pleasure, and has entered regular rotation in this house amongst other amazing bakeries, while a poached egg added richness and cheese from Botton creamery seasoned everything neatly. The stew itself was rich and inviting without becoming too rich to function as a breakfast dish, a very strong start indeed. I’ve been back a couple of times already and sampled both the mushroom and celeriac morning buns, both marvellous creations that put the headline ingredient front and centre then amplifying them with pickled and herb elements, seriously clever and delicious creations that are sure to be a staple of York’s brunch scene for some time.
The foundations here are solid and well in place to develop that impressive initial offering into an all day menu pushing through into the evening. I make no secret of my admiration for Tomek & Marta who have put together something unique here, straight away impressive and with great attention to detail. Of course the concept will take a bit of bedding in to figure out staffing levels and so on but I can’t wait to see where things head from here.
