Rochelle Canteen

Rochelle Canteen has been trading behind a wall on Arnold Circus since 2004. The way in is a door marked BOYS, cut into the brickwork of the old Rochelle School, and what waits on the other side is a walled garden, a canteen room and a tented terrace along its edge. Margot Henderson started it with one long sharing table and a box for a till. The menu is short and rewritten daily, classic and modern European with its roots in Britain, and dishes come to the table on platters for guests to help themselves.

For a private event the whole Canteen goes to one party, up to seventy seated across the indoor restaurant and the heated, tented terrace. There is nothing smaller to book: no private room inside, and no table seating more than fourteen. The walled garden alongside can be taken as well, arranged separately. Furniture, tableware and the brown kraft paper the Canteen dresses its tables with come as part of the hire, with linen, alternative glassware and florists arranged on request.

One condition shapes every evening here. The Canteen sits among houses and its licence does not permit amplified music, so a sound system is out; an acoustic musician for arrival drinks can be agreed in advance, up to three players. Private hire runs at weekend lunchtimes and Wednesday to Saturday evenings, ending at ten.