Pastiche Bistro
This little restaurant, tucked away on Lendal in the shadow of Marzano and new pizza joint Tuscany, is named very appropriately. Pastiche is a poor imitation of York’s classier restaurants and cafes, but crucially fails to offer up good, honest food at a decent price. A true hodgepodge of gourmet food aimed at a tight-fisted clientele. The result is bizarre combinations of fashionable ingredients, in mediocre portions and a set menu in which everything costs extra, so the supposed £10 a head becomes meaningless.
I strolled into the bland bistro on a Friday night, paid £2.50 for a glass of average house white and surveyed the menu. Out of about six starter options the only ones that appealed costed extra. The starter arrived in a flash, as to be expected when there were so few options and so few diners. The salad was uninspiring and tasteless, the pate slightly better. Our mains followed in swift succession. The tuna was over cooked, the chorizo overpowering, and the bacon in the other dish non-existent. We were both left unsatisfied, so we turned to the dessert. I ordered cheesecake, in the foolish belief that cheesecake was a formula very hard to tamper with. How wrong I was! Presented with a blob of melted ice-cream supposedly masquerading as vanilla and butterscotch cheesecake, I promptly returned it to the kitchen.
Wild horses couldn’t drag me back. If you want a nice meal out go to Bari on the Shambles; for cheap food go to the pub. Just don’t go to Pastiche Bistro!
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