Butler Whites, Hull review: Five out of five for restaurant based in old fruit and veg wholesalers

You may have noticed that it’s almost impossible these days to read a restaurant review that doesn’t reference lockdown.

It’s inevitable, really, as months upon end of closure and restrictions had a wounding effect on all elements of the food service industry.

Every eatery reacted and adapted differently, with very mixed results. It feels wrong not to mention such a huge upheaval, especially when revisiting restaurants that were particular favourites before the pandemic.

Thankfully, though, I’m happy to report that Hull’s Butler Whites appears to have come through relatively unscathed.

Of course, I’ve no idea what’s gone on behind the scenes but front-of-house is still rattling away as efficiently as ever and the food remains a solid mix of the familiar, the unexpected and the carefully designed-to-please. If lockdown left the team at Butler Whites dented, there’s certainly no sign of it on your plate.

Butler Whites opened in 2016, in the gentrified Fruit Market, to ensure it was perfectly placed to take advantage of the City of Culture year.

This worked better than anyone could have anticipated and now – a mere six years later – it has become one of the longest-standing restaurants in the city centre. This has been achieved by keeping things simple and building a menu of customer favourites that is added to and re-jigged regularly and judiciously.

I remember eating, for instance, a Barnsley chop on my very first visit and there it still is. I can’t claim to remember if it was then served on smoked aubergine puree with two veg and a salsa verde sauce, as it is now, but I can say with confidence that it’s just as good as ever and the accompanying sauteed gnocchi taste just as amazing when dunked in the jug of gravy.

Similarly, I can’t recall if I’ve enjoyed the coarse pork terrine here before, but it’s exactly the sort of thing I would have had.

It was simply a marvellously balanced pot of compressed pork bits, herbs and spices served with a cracking piccalilli, an even better fennel salad and (as these things always are) too little toast. One more half-slice would have saved me scraping out the pot and eating the toastless remnants with a dessert spoon. Enjoyable as that was.

Also recommended from the starter section are the soft-shell crab bhajis. A heaped bowl of ginger ale tempura-coated chunks of crab flesh, onion, herbs and spices that look not unlike the Indian dessert jalebi. They’re extremely appealing and taste fantastic with a cold pint of lager. A Far East beach bar classic offered up on the chilly streets of Hull.

Back at the mains, Persian chicken features a large breast slathered in a sumac and spice marinade, roasted and served on giant couscous and charred veg. It’s a fine plateful, made finer still with a side of sauteed greens.

All the dishes are created by all of the kitchen team and always have the common thread of mild innovation. This dish has feta cream dressing that you can imagine the chefs experimenting with until they were all happy.

Looking at the walls while awaiting puds, it’s easy to imagine what this building was like back in the day when it was a fruit and vegetable wholesalers.

Dennis Butler and White & Son both inhabited the space and you can envisage all the floor space covered in boxes of bananas and cabbages and Mr Butler (or Mr White, or his son, for that matter) stalking the walkway that sits above what is now the kitchen.

Puddings are probably Butler Whites’ weakest point but they’re still ace so, as weaknesses go, it’s not too bad.

A choice of four classics, we went for a very welcome bread and butter pudding – which was hot enough to melt the dollop of ice cream perched on top – and the largest portion of tiramisu I’ve ever witnessed.

Technically, it was a chocolate orange and Baileys tiramisu and it may have been big but it still got wolfed before I even had time to check the description on the menu.

As you can probably tell, I like Butler Whites a great deal. I like the owners, I like the chefs, I like the staff. I also like the environment and, most of all, the food.

I’ve heard from some that they feel an air of insouciance exists in Butler Whites that rankles with them, but I know it’s actually a deliberately-fostered, casual attitude to nonsense born of the years of experience the owners and staff have in common.

This is a restaurant run by people who have spent their lives trying, failing and finally succeeding when they stopped worrying about what people thought of them.

There is the fire of indignation in the building and in these gloomy winter days – when there is little in the way of sunshine or cheer – the heat it generates makes Butler Whites a very cosy place to be indeed.

Butler Whites, 2-3 Humber Street, Hull, HU1 1TG. Tel: 01482 493557. www.butlerwhites.com. Open: Thursday to Saturday, 12-11.45pm; Sunday, 12-5pm.

Food 5/5

Drink selection 4/5

Atmosphere 4/5

Prices 4/5