Alderley Restaurant, Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

[david goodfellow]

The Alderley is part of the Alderley Edge Hotel in guess where?

Yes you got it in one.

Its not new to us, we used to dine here mostly on a Sunday lunchtime fairly regularly about a decade or so ago. At about that time, the Beckhams were Alderley Edges most famous residents. Since then however this pretty countryside fringed town has become more famous in its fight against property developers, speculators and premiership footballers who buy large houses with large grounds to knock them down to build even larger houses with all of the toys that multi millionaires demand these days. You know what I mean three/ four car garages and saunas and swimming pools, that sort of thing.

We were not here to look at houses, but to eat.

We dined here, fairly recently in fact, before this second visit. I say fairly recently, it may have been late last year ( or early this) when I found out chef Chris Holland had been awarded three AA rosettes, a really great achievement and well worthy of note if you intend on dining anywhere these days.

We were determined to make an early return as we were really impressed with the quality of food that came out of the kitchen, but needless to say were distracted elsewhere.

The dining room is formal, but bright, spacious and inviting, being housed in the conservatory at the end of the building.

Menus are full of the stuff we like to eat, beef, lamb, pork, plenty of game, good selection of fish, etc. The usual suspects really, but not always available in such abundance. The kitchen make it a bit difficult to choose, by offering a set lunch menu, a market menu, an a la carte, a vegetarian and a tasting menu, although of course the dishes do overlap some of the menus. There is also a lounge menu.

Bread was good, made on site and arrived warm at the table. Witness Cheese and Onion, granary and white. We liked the cheese and onion most and were offered more throughout the meal.

Herself started with Flame roasted Cornish Mackerel New season leek , apple and horseradish. I had a taste and enjoyed it. No complaints from across the table, so that was a seal of approval. One thing that stood out throughout the entire meal was how clean the plates were going back into the kitchen.

Its been an age since I had a cassoulet. This was "smoked" duck cassoulet, and it arrived rather theatrically in a small smoke filled glass container.

The main element of the dish was announced as, "Home cured Gressingham duck" with pickled blackberries. As a whole the dish ate rather well, although I could have quite happily just eaten a large steaming bowl of cassoulet with some crusty bread and butter, but thats just me perhaps.

We chose Pheasant and Beef as main courses but were intrigued as to the appealing sounding Roasted Monkfish Massalla, with brown shrimps, grilled leeks, saffron and tomato emulsion. We took this as a tasting, paid for, extra course.

We were glad to have tried this dish. The meaty monkfish had good texture. The little flavour bomb brown shrimp were excellent, still a bit of bite in the bok choy and some red lentils added their bit. All in all a good eat.

Back into classical mode now for my main proper.New season Pheasant at 58C. Quince puree and sloe gin. Fairly obviously it had been in a water bath for, well, can't even hazard a guess, but it worked. It was truly succulent.

The layer of corn rich seared fat did lift this to an even greater high. Taste wise, it was fabulous. It really was. The saucing was beautiful. Nicely presented too. Witness also some beetroot braised salsify.

A highly satisfying plate of food, and another clean plate to boot.

Across the table sat Guinness Cured Rib eye Filet, 48 hour braised oxtail. .

This was a veritable meatfest, an homage to beef no less. Generous to say the very least. Deep rich flavour, distinctive oxtail tower, again beautiful burgundy? sauce. Good to see crosnes on the plate too.

Again, a really satisfying and joyous plate of food.

More than my wife I was looking forward to dessert as I remembered them from our previous visit.

All we seem to be eating for dessert recently is souffles, whereas normally we would not eat them and had not done so for years.

The wife chose Hot banana Souffle with caramel icecream..

I had a bit of a harder choice as the Bramley apple "cloud", warm spice cake, granny smith ice cream was tugging away.

Eventually I settled for the more intricate sounding Liquid centre Mandarin and chocolate mousse, textures of tangerine, candied basil.

Both highly satisfying desserts and eye candy of the highest order. Me thinks we are going to be giving not only the mains a good seeing too on our return but also the desserts.

Service was friendly, efficient and unobtrusive. Just right really.

The wine list to me seems very user friendly with decent house wines (about four of each) at £17.95, and plenty of selection by the glass.

Not many miles from Manchester, perhaps twelve? as far as I'm concerned, apart from Aiden Byrnes Church Green nothing else springs to mind for food of this quality.

Given what I have said above, this place is highly recommended and we both genuinely cannot wait to make a return, especially as its less than an hour up the road from us.

Three course a la carte, just over £50 pp excluding service and drinks.

Extremely good value three course set lunch £23.95.

Six course Tasting menu £58.50.

Happy Eating.

[offcentre]

Do you exercise much David? I'm starting to get a little worried at how often you eat out

Thanks for another great report.

[Harters]

Thanks, David.

Literally just up the road, I've had this on the "to try" list for ages but have always been put off by their "Golden Triangle" pricing - and the lack of reading any reviews from someone who seems to like the food I seem to like.

Must get to it soon. By the by, I am a child of the Alderley/Prestbury/Wilmlsow triangle (born in Prestbury in 1950).

[david goodfellow]

Thanks, David.

Literally just up the road, I've had this on the "to try" list for ages but have always been put off by their "Golden Triangle" pricing - and the lack of reading any reviews from someone who seems to like the food I seem to like.

Must get to it soon. By the by, I am a child of the Alderley/Prestbury/Wilmlsow triangle (born in Prestbury in 1950).

I think you will be rewarded by your visit John. You could ease into it slowly by trying the set lunch or the market menu.

Be good to get your view on it.

Flavours were spot on for us. Hope they are for you.

[MaLO]

I lunched here towards the end of August.

I had been looking at the deal they do for dinner with wine and b&b, it used to be £200 but is more now (I think).

I thought it was quite good, although not so good that I would take up the offer.

[Harters]

The Alderley manages to avoid the footballers wives glitz that pervades much the village of Alderley Edge. It does this with a simple formula – cook good food, serve it up with skill in pleasant surroundings. It’s really not that hard, is it?

The hotel, like almost all the 19th century “big houses” in Alderley, is Victorian gothic but the restaurant is in a light airy modern conservatory. And, in an aspect important at my time of life if I’m going to be sat in one place for a couple of hours, the chairs are very comfortable. Service hits that difficult balance between formality and friendly approachability.

And the food reads very well on the three menus on offer. Although perhaps too great an emphasis on sous vide and espumas/foams for us. There’s a main carte with half a dozen or so choices at each course. There’s a decent looking tasting menu. And there’s a very attractive “market menu” priced at £35 (although we’d noted that the website has it at £29.95). It was this from which we decided to order.

Bread came quickly. White, wholemeal and an excellent cheese & onion. This was wolfed down and a restocking was offered and accepted. The amuse brought the almost obligatory cup of soup – a warm parmesan cream, topped with the first of the espumas (butternut squash) with a sprinkling of bacon on top. Good flavour but the mix of the hot and cold soon merged to become simply tepid.

For starters proper, there was a pressed veal terrine. A delicate flavour here that I liked, sharpened with a julienne of Granny Smith. A scattering of seeds and some micro-salad provided a texture contrast. My partner was enjoying a few salmon and shrimp fritters – good fishy flavour, crisp outer crumb. They sat on some wilted spinach. Alongside, a thick mousse like langoustine espuma and a blob of orange and saffron sauce.

Local beef three ways (although it had a more elegant menu name that I can’t recall) – medium rare fillet, some long braised stuff and a few nuggets of just cooked liver. There was wilted kale, a cep puree and sauté potatoes (swapped for the advertised mash). Oh, this was good. Very good.

I’d gone with the girly dish of roast hake. A lovely piece of fish that would have been lovelier if the skin had been crispy (or if it had been removed). There really is no real pleasure in eating flabby skin. There was wilted greens here as well, a thin tomato “broth”, a scattering of brown shrimps and a few dots of veg (cucumber?).

There was pre-dessert that didn’t really work for either us. Undercooked rhubarb seems currently fashionable and, hopefully, fashions will soon change. The slivers of the fruit topped with an unmemorable foam.

Puds were proper affairs. Banana soufflé was restrained in its use of banana but was, otherwise, a fine example of the soufflé makers craft. A caramel ice cream and few slices of banana worked well with it. I’d been intrigued by the gingerbread arctic roll - a thin roll of the cake encased ice cream. But the real stars here were the sous vide plums and an intense thick sauce of Poynton damsons. Really good.

And to finish, good coffee served in a “proper” pot. And OK petit fours.

A place to go back to, I think.

(PS: Chatting with the restaurant manager whilst we were paying, I mention egullet. He replies, probably inevitably, "We had that David Goodfellow in recently)