Greenhead House, Chapeltown, Sheffield

[Harters]

We’re not prepared to drive more than 60 minutes for a midweek dinner and Greenhead House just scrapes in. Of course, for that distance, there has to be something of a recommendation. And, in this case, it’s the restaurant’s entry in the 2013 Good Food Guide.

The building is a lovely 17^th century one and it would have been a shame if the interior was ultra-modern. It isn’t. In fact, the decoration and the furnishings have an air of the old fashioned. It reminded me of the sort of small hotel you come across from time to time on the outskirts of small towns – the lounge a little cramped with uncomfortable seating; the small dining room also having its tables just a little too close to one another. Lots of ornaments on shelves but everything immaculately maintained. You get the picture?

And there’s a bit of an air of the old-fashioned to the set menu (the only one on offer) which reminds me of the country house hotel style – a choice of four starters, followed by soup or sorbet, before moving through the short list of mains, desserts before arriving at coffee and petit fours. It’s a fixed price for the meal, dependent on your choice of main course – but all in the mid to upper £40s. And Neil and Anne Allen are doing something very right here – he cooks, she runs front of house in an efficient and very friendly way. She told us they’ve been there for nearly 30 years and they are still packing them in – all but one table was full.

The menu changes every couple of months and there’s always a salad starter which was my partner’s choice. Leaves, green beans, griddled courgettes, tahini dressing and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Fresh, light and pretty tasty. My own starter featured homemade crumpets topped with goats cheese. I liked the sound of this but it was a bit of a let down. Crumpet was very thin and overwhelmed by the cheese. Now, I like goats cheese and always hope that a restaurant offering will taste, well, a bit goaty. But it never is. It’s just bland and it was no exception here. There was drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of pine nuts to cheer things up a bit.

Our “middles”, as they were described, were a thick butternut squash soup, drizzled with a little truffle oil and decorated with croutons and, for me, a pink grapefruit sorbet. Both did their job well.

Grouse was served with the breasts off the bone, accompanied by the legs. Cooking here was bang-on pink. Alongside, a spoonful of bread sauce, a bacon wrapped sausage and gaufrette potatoes (or posh crisps, if you will). My partner was having the more girly dish of lemon sole – absolutely delicious and not overwhelmed by the garlic and parsley butter which came with it. Also on the plate, crostini topped with what was described as sardine and tomato rillettes. They were, however, nothing of the sort and you might be forgiven for thinking the kitchen had simply opened a tin of sardines in tomato sauce and mashed it up a bit. But they probably hadn’t. A dish of vegetables was served separately – plainly cooked carrot, broccoli, Jerusalem artichoke and duchesse potatoes.

For dessert, pannacotta was well made with just the right amount of wobble and came with spiced damsons. Not sure what was the spicing – perhaps a little ginger – but the fruit worked exceptionally well. I’d decided to be kind to my diabetes, if not my cholesterol, and ordered cheese – four decent slices of British ones (nope, can’t recall what they were, except for a Stilton). Mercifully, not fridge cold.

At this point, Greenhead House demonstrates the meaning of hospitality by offering “seconds” of desserts. They’ve always done it, apparently. Well, it would be churlish to refuse so we shared a lovely chocolate and raspberry tart. And then we were offered “thirds”, but declined.

We’d been well fed and had an enjoyable evening. Which is just what you want when you’ve an hour’s drive ahead of you to get home.