30 Apr at 8:55 AM

The Dish We Had to Recreate: Inside Cor, Bristol

Why Cor’s Famous Cannellini Beans Are Bristol’s Most Comforting Dish

Some dishes are so unexpectedly good that you spend the rest of the meal wondering how something so simple can taste so extraordinary.

That was exactly our experience at Cor in Bristol. Known for celebrating seasonal ingredients with Mediterranean influences, Cor has built a reputation for letting exceptional produce speak for itself. While every plate arriving at our table looked stunning, there was one dish everyone told us we simply had to order: the now famous cannellini beans.

We visited Cor to experience the restaurant for ourselves, meet chef and owner Mark Chapman and, most importantly, find out how a bowl of beans became one of the dishes we couldn’t stop thinking about. As it turns out, the story behind them starts not in Bristol, but in Paris.

At first glance, it doesn’t sound like the kind of dish that steals the show. Beans? Really?

Then we tasted it. Creamy, deeply comforting and packed with layers of flavour, it was the kind of food that reminds you why simple cooking often delivers the biggest impact. Rich without feeling heavy and elegant without being complicated, it’s a dish that’s impossible not to love.

Within a few bites, we knew we had a new mission. We had to recreate it at home. What we didn’t know at the time was that chef and owner Mark Chapman had once done almost exactly the same thing.

A Restaurant With Heart

Cor is a 42 cover neighbourhood restaurant run by Mark and his wife, who opened it around three and a half years ago. The name tells you quite a lot about what they wanted it to become.

“Cor means heart in Latin. And we are a family run restaurant literally through and through.”

Getting there involved a considerable leap of faith. Mark laughs about doing the classic thing of having very little money and remortgaging their house to make the restaurant happen.

And rather than defining Cor through one particular cuisine, Mark drew on the different kitchens that shaped him as a chef.

“I couldn’t decide if I wanted to open a French restaurant because I’m trained in French. I’m trained in Italian. And trained in Spanish food. So I went with something that really sits around them all, which is the Med.”

That Mediterranean influence runs throughout Cor, balanced with an emphasis on seasonality and local sourcing. For Mark, buying locally means better ingredients, greater sustainability and supporting the surrounding community. But he’s equally realistic about the fact that Mediterranean cooking in Bristol can’t rely exclusively on British produce. Cor therefore brings the two together: local farmers, butchers and producers alongside specialist ingredients sourced from the Mediterranean.

From Australia to Bristol

Mark’s own route to Bristol began a long way from the Mediterranean. He’s Australian, and food entered his life early. His first restaurant experience came at Kingfisher Cafe on Australia’s east coast, where his mum was the restaurant manager and a teenage Mark started out washing dishes.

“I was a kitchen assistant, a KP doing dishes. And my mum was the restaurant manager there. And I just naturally fell into it.”

That eventually led to a four year chef apprenticeship and training in Australia’s one, two and three hat restaurants. After moving to the UK, he continued his career in Michelin starred kitchens.

Bristol, though, wasn’t initially chosen because of restaurants. It was love.

“Coming to Bristol was actually for my wife, or my now wife, who was studying law in Bristol.”

What started as a move for his partner became somewhere Mark wanted to put down roots.

“Bristol’s just great. It’s independent. It’s community led. It’s in the country, but it’s also a small city. It’s just a fun, great city to be in.”

Eventually, the ambition he’d had since his teenage years caught up with him. He wanted his own restaurant.

“I’m a chef through and through. I’ve been since I was 14, 15 working in kitchens. I always wanted to open my own restaurant.”

Or, as he puts it rather more simply: “I wanted to work for myself. And finally live the dream.”

Then Came the Beans

Among everything we ate at Cor, there was one dish we already knew we wanted to try. The cannellini beans. And yes, they’re worth ordering.

They’re rich and creamy while still tasting remarkably fresh, the kind of comforting bowl you instinctively want bread alongside so you can mop up whatever is left. What makes them even better is that their origin is exactly the kind of food story we love. Because Mark did precisely what we were about to do to him.

He ate something brilliant in a restaurant and went home determined to recreate it. Mark and his wife were visiting Paris when they managed to get a last minute table at Septime after somebody didn’t turn up for their reservation.

“We got on the waiting list, got in and just had the most amazing tasting set menu.”

One of the dishes stayed with him. The beans.

“Those kind of beans were inspired by the dish and I went home and just recreated it because it was just so good.”

There was something wonderfully full circle about hearing that. Mark ate a bean dish in Paris that he couldn’t stop thinking about, went home and created his own version. We ate Mark’s beans in Bristol and immediately wanted to do exactly the same thing. So that’s what we did.

The Beans We Couldn’t Stop Thinking About

Cor’s cannellini beans were one of the dishes we’d been looking forward to trying, but we weren’t quite prepared for how much we’d like them. They’re everything you want from comfort food: creamy, warming and deeply satisfying, but with enough freshness and flavour to stop the dish becoming heavy. More importantly, they make the humble cannellini bean feel like the main event.

And that’s what got us thinking. These weren’t based around an impossible to find luxury ingredient. Cannellini beans are sitting on supermarket shelves up and down the country. Surely we could create something inspired by this at home?

So before we’d spoken to Mark about the origins of the dish, we headed into the kitchen and gave it a go.

Our Attempt at Recreating Cor’s Cannellini Beans

We wanted to recreate the feeling of the dish. Something creamy and comforting, but still fresh. Something that felt special enough to serve to friends but could be made using ingredients from an ordinary supermarket. Most importantly, we wanted the beans themselves to remain the star.

Make our Cor inspired cannellini beans →

Only after we’d attempted our version did we get the opportunity to sit down with Mark. And that’s when we discovered the story had come full circle.

From Paris to Bristol… and Bristol to Our Kitchen

We asked Mark where his cannellini bean dish came from. The answer took us to Paris. Mark and his wife had visited Septime and managed to get in after joining the waiting list when another diner didn’t make their reservation.

“We got on the waiting list, got in and just had the most amazing tasting set menu.”

Among that menu was a bean dish that stayed with him. So Mark did what any food obsessed person does after eating something they can’t stop thinking about. He went home and tried to recreate it.

“Those kind of beans were inspired by the dish and I went home and just recreated it because it was just so good.”

We couldn’t help laughing when he told us. Without knowing the story, we’d essentially repeated it. A dish in Paris inspired Mark to go home and create his version. His version travelled to a table in Bristol, where we ate it and went home wanting to create ours. There’s something rather lovely about that. Good food travels.

Not necessarily through recipes written down and followed exactly, but through ideas. You eat something memorable, take a little inspiration from it and make it your own.

Mark’s Top Tips for Better Home Cooking

Once we’d confessed that we’d already had a go at recreating his beans, there was one obvious thing left to do: get some advice from the professional.

And Mark’s tips weren’t about expensive equipment or complicated restaurant techniques. Most were surprisingly simple things any home cook can adopt.

1. Control your temperature

When we asked about one of the biggest mistakes home cooks make, Mark’s answer was immediate:

“Temperature control.”

Heat matters. Whether you’re trying to get proper colour on something or cook it gently, understanding what your pan and ingredients are doing can completely change the end result.

His related advice is to make sure whatever you’re cooking is at the appropriate temperature before you begin, rather than taking everything directly from the fridge and immediately putting it into a hot pan.

2. Read the whole recipe first

This piece of advice came with a story we won’t forget. Mark told us about a test likened to a martial arts exercise. He was given a recipe and, like most of us probably would, started working his way through the instructions.

The catch was hidden right at the end. After following all the steps, the final instruction told him to throw the dish away. The real test wasn’t whether he could cook the dish. It was whether he’d taken the time to read and understand all of the instructions before starting.

He hadn’t. Lesson learnt. “It’s really important to read the recipe.”

It’s something Mark still carries into the kitchen today.

“You must read it and must understand it and then crack on because then it would be much smoother and streamlined.”

It’s a brilliantly simple lesson and one that applies just as much at home. Before you chop anything, heat a pan or start improvising halfway through step three, read the recipe from beginning to end.

Check the timings. Check what needs preparing in advance. Check whether something needs to rest, marinate or come to room temperature. And, perhaps most importantly, check that the final instruction doesn’t tell you to throw the whole thing in the bin.

3. Taste. Then taste again.

This might be our favourite.

“Just keep tasting at every step.”

Don’t wait until the finished dish reaches the table to discover it needed more seasoning. Taste while you cook. Adjust. Taste again. A recipe can tell you quantities, but it can’t taste what’s in your pan.

4. Spend a little more on the basics

Asked which ingredients can elevate home cooking, Mark didn’t reach for anything particularly exotic. Good quality butter. Good seasoning. Salt and pepper, including white pepper.

And when it comes to olive oil, he recommends looking towards southern Italy or Andalusia in southern Spain. They’re everyday ingredients, but when there are only a handful of components on the plate, their quality becomes much more noticeable.

5. You don’t need a kitchen full of gadgets

We asked Mark which piece of kitchen equipment he’d save if the place was on fire. His answer?

“Chef tongs.”

Although for a home kitchen, one of his recommendations is even simpler: “A good sharp bread knife that never gets blunt.”

The takeaway is reassuring. Better home cooking doesn’t necessarily require filling your cupboards with professional equipment. Learn to use a few good tools properly.

Food Is Meant to Be Shared

There was another part of our conversation with Mark that seemed to capture what we’d experienced at Cor.

Talking about a visit to a vineyard with his wife, he remembered being seated at one huge table alongside people from different countries, cultures and backgrounds, all brought together to experience the food and wine produced there.

“All cultures, I think, have a foundation of food and eating around the table.”

It’s a simple thought, but perhaps that’s why it resonates.

Some of our best memories around food aren’t really about the technical complexity of what was on the plate. They’re about who was sitting opposite us, where we were and how the food made that moment feel.

Why Cor Is Worth a Visit

There is obviously far more to Cor than one bowl of beans. But those cannellini beans managed to encapsulate much of what we enjoyed about the restaurant. They’re comforting without being boring. Thoughtful without being pretentious. Familiar ingredients transformed into something that makes you curious about how it was made.

And now that we know the story behind them, we like them even more. Mark ate an unforgettable bean dish in Paris and went home inspired to create something of his own. Years later, we walked into Cor in Bristol, ate his version and did exactly the same thing.

We’d already made our attempt before we knew any of that. Which somehow makes the story even better.

Want to see how we got on?