Ramsons, Ramsbottom (near Bury)

[Harters]

You can see why Chris Johnson’s Italian-flavoured restaurant won the 2008/9 Good Food Guide “Readers Restaurant of the Year”. It’s a small stylish place suitable for a celebration meal but with sufficient informality for a mid-week dinner. Chris is an old-fashioned “mine host” who welcomes customers with a complimentary dry sherry or (genuinely) freshly squeezed orange juice. From then, to the handshake on leaving, you are left in no doubt that this is his gaff.

There are a number of discount deals to be had, either through newspaper offers or by Ramsons own “loyalty card” and, midweek, dinner centres around a shortish menu. Five courses are offered – appetiser, first course, main, cheese and dessert. £40 buys you three courses; additional ones add £7 each. There are four or five choices at each course. With only one of us drinking alcohol these days, wine choices by the glass are often pretty limited. But not at Ramsons. Chris will open any bottle from his pretty extensive list and charge you 20% of bottle price per glass. My wife left it to him to choose her a white, red and a dessert wine. Pretty good choices, she reports, although not spectacular, except for the dessert wine – Brachetto – red, sweet and fizzy – an upmarket Lambrusco if you like.

An amuse of smoked salmon blinis were, as always, a nice introduction to a meal. Appetisers were scallops and crab. Good scallops, quickly seared with a little celeriac puree and saffron sauce – a belter of a dish. Similarly, crab with a quenelle of avocado mousse was well flavoured, although a couple of discs of “wild rocket jelly” added nothing, but green, to the plate. We favourably contrasted this food to crab and scallop dishes we’d recently eaten at Northcote.

First courses were very fixed in the Italian style. Risotto with lemon and samphire – a light fresh dish with the samphire adding a bit of texture. Pumpkin and mascarpone tortellini was, on the other hand, soothingly rich, a few deep fried sage leaves and a drizzle of lemon oil perking it up still further.

At this point, main course vegetables or salad are brought to you as a separate course. We’d chosen veg – a bowl of carrots, cauliflower, green beans – simply prepared and tasting very much of themselves.

On to the mains. Loin of jersey beef, horseradish mash and caramelised shallots. What’s not to like, particularly with the mash having had a good dollop of horseradish? The other plate – loin of St Asaph lamb, cooked to just medium, came with a small and very unctuous piece of long cooked breast (this was the star for me), onion puree and a little of the roasting juices.

Pre-dessert was a lovely and classic lemon posset – rich and sharp.

Panna cotta with apricot puree was light and just set. Roasted apricots formed the other dish – their sweetness contrasting interestingly (and successfully) with a salt shortbread and almond cream.

Service had been spot on throughout from Chris and his young staff. In the kitchen Abdulla “Nas” Naseem had turned out consistently good and enjoyable food. The bill, with drinks and coffee, came to a very reasonable £125. This is a place well worth visiting and you probably need to get along there sooner rather than later – Chris is nearly 70 and must be thinking of hanging up his corkscrew at some point.

[marc at fraiche]

You can see why Chris Johnson’s Italian-flavoured restaurant won the 2008/9 Good Food Guide “Readers Restaurant of the Year”. It’s a small stylish place suitable for a celebration meal but with sufficient informality for a mid-week dinner. Chris is an old-fashioned “mine host” who welcomes customers with a complimentary dry sherry or (genuinely) freshly squeezed orange juice. From then, to the handshake on leaving, you are left in no doubt that this is his gaff.

There are a number of discount deals to be had, either through newspaper offers or by Ramsons own “loyalty card” and, midweek, dinner centres around a shortish menu. Five courses are offered – appetiser, first course, main, cheese and dessert. £40 buys you three courses; additional ones add £7 each. There are four or five choices at each course. With only one of us drinking alcohol these days, wine choices by the glass are often pretty limited. But not at Ramsons. Chris will open any bottle from his pretty extensive list and charge you 20% of bottle price per glass. My wife left it to him to choose her a white, red and a dessert wine. Pretty good choices, she reports, although not spectacular, except for the dessert wine – Brachetto – red, sweet and fizzy – an upmarket Lambrusco if you like.

An amuse of smoked salmon blinis were, as always, a nice introduction to a meal. Appetisers were scallops and crab. Good scallops, quickly seared with a little celeriac puree and saffron sauce – a belter of a dish. Similarly, crab with a quenelle of avocado mousse was well flavoured, although a couple of discs of “wild rocket jelly” added nothing, but green, to the plate. We favourably contrasted this food to crab and scallop dishes we’d recently eaten at Northcote.

First courses were very fixed in the Italian style. Risotto with lemon and samphire – a light fresh dish with the samphire adding a bit of texture. Pumpkin and mascarpone tortellini was, on the other hand, soothingly rich, a few deep fried sage leaves and a drizzle of lemon oil perking it up still further.

At this point, main course vegetables or salad are brought to you as a separate course. We’d chosen veg – a bowl of carrots, cauliflower, green beans – simply prepared and tasting very much of themselves.

On to the mains. Loin of jersey beef, horseradish mash and caramelised shallots. What’s not to like, particularly with the mash having had a good dollop of horseradish? The other plate – loin of St Asaph lamb, cooked to just medium, came with a small and very unctuous piece of long cooked breast (this was the star for me), onion puree and a little of the roasting juices.

Pre-dessert was a lovely and classic lemon posset – rich and sharp.

Panna cotta with apricot puree was light and just set. Roasted apricots formed the other dish – their sweetness contrasting interestingly (and successfully) with a salt shortbread and almond cream.

Service had been spot on throughout from Chris and his young staff. In the kitchen Abdulla “Nas” Naseem had turned out consistently good and enjoyable food. The bill, with drinks and coffee, came to a very reasonable £125. This is a place well worth visiting and you probably need to get along there sooner rather than later – Chris is nearly 70 and must be thinking of hanging up his corkscrew at some point.

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wow thats freaky i was just thining of visiting ramsons, thanks for the review i will make my way there for sure this week now while i can escape the clutches of the kitchen

[Harters]

I'll be interested to hear your take on it, Marc. Very different cuisine to yours, of course (and I'm looking forward to visiting you again - probably December).

As an aside, Chris mentioned last night that Mary-Ellen McTague is leaving. Story is reported today by Manchester Confidential, she's off to open her own place in Prestwich. She was formerly sous-chef (and "development chef") at the Fat Duck.

[marc at fraiche]

I'll be interested to hear your take on it, Marc. Very different cuisine to yours, of course (and I'm looking forward to visiting you again - probably December).

As an aside, Chris mentioned last night that Mary-Ellen McTague is leaving. Story is reported today by Manchester Confidential, she's off to open her own place in Prestwich. She was formerly sous-chef (and "development chef") at the Fat Duck.

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is that the lady chef who opened the heathcote branch london road? or am i getting mixed up?

yes will report back looking forward to it, its nice to eat something different, as i have done the modern gastro this week, it will give a nice contrast

[Harters]

A quick Google tells me you're right.

I like London Road, not least for being literally just up the road (even though it's firmly in "footballers wives" territory). I knew they'd had a woman chef but hadnt made the connection.

[Harters]

deleted (posted twice)

Edited August 13, 2009 by Harters (log)

[thom]

Unforgivable was that fact that in all my year's as a Mancunian food-nerd I had never darkened it's doors.

There is a huge amount to say about Ramsons, both the restaurant itself and my experience last night, but today is a busy day so excuse me if keep things (relatively) brief and leave much of the detail for people to discover in their own time on their own visits.

Essentially Ramsons is Chris Johnson - the small, bearded chap whose picture is all over the website, and whose heart and soul runs through the restaurant. It's a small place, maybe 30 covers, and has a cosy, informal ambience with nooks and crannies and small leather boothes, as you might expect from a neighbourhood restaurant with ambition.

After that it all gets a big unexpected. The cuisine is Italian (though none of the team are), meaning it also has a dedicated wine-list of Italian wines which has to be seen to be believed (this is Chris' MAJOR passion and it shows), and the food is classic, clever and detailed. You begin to see why this place has scooped so many awards (GFG, the Northern Hospitality Awards etc).

So what did we eat? Ohhhh... lots of things, we had the tasting menu so the dishes came thick and fast. Standouts, besides the delicious bread, included immaculate scallops with a julienne of apple and apple puree, a ballotine of phesant with pork belly and braised lentils, two cheese plates (one English, one Italian) which were a delight - each English cheese had it's own accompaniment such as quince paste or home-made pickles and jellies - an outstanding chocolate fondant and an impressive slice of custard tart with nutmeg ice cream (the more so impressive as the guy doing pastry is 16 - yes, sixteen).

And the wine? Oh the wines... Anyone who knows me is well aware that I have little or no formal wine knowledge but that doesn't mean I'm light on appreciation. Equally anyone who knows Italian wines will know that it is a specialist area, with a plethora of grapes unknown outside Italy, and it can take a lifetime to get any sort of handle on the subject. On this basis if you want the detail of what I drank then call up and ask Chris...

But what I can say is that after starting with what I assume was a fine pink prosecco we left ourselves in Chris's capable hands and had a Soave which held up to both the fish and the meat courses and a freakishly atypical Lambrusco, which saw us through the meal start to finish and even danced daintily around the scallops. It was an impressive show of wine-selecting (nothing so crass as wine-pairing!) and Chris being Chris we also got an school-teacherly guide to the finer points of the art of wine-tasting and an insight into the machinations of dealing with small Italian family vinyards.

The ten course taster was £60 a head (though I think we might have had an extra course in there somewhere) and we spent about £50 in total on wine. I have to be honest, I'm not quite sure why this place hasn't got a Michelin star. Maybe it's the quirkiness? Maybe, God forbid, it's Chris himself (who is the first to admit his constant chatting to diners can annoy, as he is a passionate man of strong and contrary opinions!). I don't know, but it's a neat little space, with excellent food, a compelling menu, and a wine-list stimulating enough to make the most jaundiced wine-buff skip with joy - what else can they do?

Having broken our Ramsons duck we shall certainly be back.

Cheers

Thom

Edited February 15, 2010 by heidih
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[ajnicholls]

My last experience of this place was OK at best. Shame as I was really looking forward to it. 49th best restaurant in the UK according to the Good Food Guide. Not a chance in my book!