Chop House Winter Menu

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The Chop Houses (Albert’s, Tom’s and Sam’s) are a real Manchester institution and the city wouldn’t be the same without them. The modern British menu isn’t just a buzzword for them, it’s the real deal, and their palpable pride in our own native cuisine is something we should all get behind.

And piss off Lowry, it’s not your pudding, it’s mine

Albert’s is the marginally more food-focused of the three venues and executive chef Steve Midgely has scoured the land, not only for the best British food and drink producers, but for our much loved (and often poorly reproduced) traditional recipes.

We all know how the Italians like to wrap themselves in pasta during the colder months and how the Spanish immerse themselves in silky paellas, but we Brits are pretty much experts when it comes to keeping the cold at bay through the medium of comfort food.

This is positively an area of expertise for the Chop Houses who proudly carry the banner for our culinary heritage. Where else in town can you tuck in to a stovie, a slow-cooked corned beef hash or a proper old –fashioned steak and kidney pudding?

The Chop Houses are also where superstar sommelier and wine award judge George Bergier has chosen to stick his flag. He identifies with a brand that is proud of their country’s food history and has curated an impressive list of wine from around the world. Guests come from far and wide to enjoy drinking them on their own or to sample them along with his recommended food pairings.

Our team describe their favourites from the Chop House menus:

Bread and Dripping (£3) - This is rollicking British fare that would have kept redcoats marching for miles. If fat that's rolled off hunks of moo-moo is your thing, then ye-gads this is all in fine fettle. Your mitt becomes an automaton as it takes up the chunky sponge-like sourdough (from east Manchester) and thrusts again and again into the rich, moist goodness. Honestly you just can't help yourself. Ooh Madam. Jonathan Schofield

Scallops and Oxtail (£10.95) – I liked this dish on first read and first taste didn’t disappoint. It’s like the ultimate surf and turf, where perfectly silky caramelized scallops are served on a slow-braised Lancashire oxtail, vegetable and red wine ragout. The dish worked well as a whole in terms of rich balance of flavours and was less obvious a pairing than the more common pea and pancetta or black pudding scallop combo. Deanna Thomas

Stovie (£5.50) - This autumnal belly warmer is perfect for lining your stomach in preparation for a thorough examination of George ‘The Nose’ Bergier’s wine selection (for, you know, research). The origins of this dish are Scottish where ‘stove’ means to stew, but the one at Albert’s is more refined than the traditional bowls of meat and potato slop doled out by Glaswegian publicans of yesteryear. Albert’s stovie is a bread-crumbed potato cake flecked with ‘leftover’ ham hock and black pudding, served with a soft poached egg and grain mustard sauce. David Blake

Arbroath Smokie Pot (£6.95) - This is a Sam’s Chop House dish, where the tomato and cheese sauce is made with 12 month aged Quickes’ Cheddar. In this version a milder Cheshire stood in, which allowed the smokie to take centre stage. This really is the doyen of smoked haddocks – unique to the Scottish fishing port. Gutted at sea, the fish are then dry-salted in barrels and, after washing, tied by the tail in ‘pairs’ and hung on sticks to be smoked over beech and oak in a whisky barrel ‘pit’. A dampened hessian cover called a cloot maintains the moisture and in just over half an hour they are ready. Ready to be baked like this with a lacing of spinach and a breadcrumb topping. Oozily cheesy and as fragrant as a wood-burning stove. Autumn in a pot. Neil Sowerby

Flat Field Mushrooms (£6) - Fungus is a wondrous eukaryotic organism: meaty, flabby, earthy. These big flat field mushrooms are no exception and come bolstered by Welsh rarebit made with Rosary goat’s cheese. The dressing adds variety, but the walking-through-autumn-woods flaked almonds are clever addition that help bring out the best in the mushrooms. This is a good veggie dish perfect for the time of the year. Jonathan Schofield

Mutton Chop House Curry (£14) - A pub curry rarely promises authenticity but Albert’s take on the dish, as so often, surprises by going the extra mile in the kitchen. It helps if you have a Sri Lankan sous chef in situ. Step forward Mervy Hettiarachchige Don. Merv for short. The spice master. Nobody else in the team can crack this exotic recipe with its mix of 20 freshly ground varieties. Beyond the usual suspects, coriander, cumin and the like, we detected star anise, curry leaves, cassia bark and the coconut staple that Sri Lanka shares with Southern India. So it’s spicy but balanced, with none of the coarseness of generic curry shop pastes… oh, and it’s slow-cooked with tender cubes of Cumbrian mutton. Steamed basmati rice, poppadums and Albert’s home-made chutney complete the tropical treat. Neil Sowerby

Lemon Pickle (£16) – Fish dishes in restaurants tend to be a bit, well, restauranty. What I mean by this is that they can be a little bland and even a bit too tidy and polite. This whole west coast lemon sole tasted like the kind of dish my nana and my mum used to cook; pan-fried with a bit of nut brown butter (cooked slowly until the milk solids turn gently golden) cut through with the odd salty green caper. At Albert’s, the whole fish is served on the bone, but the firm white flesh is easily prised away from its framework. The clever bit was in the addition of lemon pickle which meant that every other mouthful of soft fish was enhanced by a bit of a sticky, zingy, sweet and sour surprise. Deanna Thomas

Braised Beef in Ale (£14) – Finesse has its place but sometimes you just need heft and weight in your grub. An excellent horseradish mash on this Sam's Chop House dish props up so much ale-enriched braised beef you sigh just looking at it and then dive in. The blade of beef is slow-cooked for eight hours apparently and gratefully falls on to the fork. It's lovely stuff indeed and exactly suits the profile of what you assume a Chop House would deliver. Right food, right place. Jonathan Schofield

Spiced Sea Bass (£18.95) - A hearty, full-flavoured winter fish dish whose origins hail from the British Empire, what what. The crispy-skinned, pan-fried fillet of sea bass has had a jolly old roll in hand-ground toasted tikka spices until it takes on some real flavour. The fish arrives swimming in a warm bath of softly braised puy lentils with puréed cauliflower. Lightly-fried fresh spinach adds a bit of fibrous vegetable texture, while a drizzle of minted yoghurt imparts a slightly acidic uplift, what what. David Blake

Orchard Fruit Crumble (£6.00) – I love it when I’m pleasantly surprised by a pudding I wouldn’t normally choose. I have a theory (gathered from my years as a pastry chef) that there are two types of dessert eaters; chocolate lovers (me) and fruit lovers (other people) so I never usually even glance past the chocolate dessert on a menu. This combination tasted like the sum of hundreds of years of good traditional British comfort food and a world away from badly executed school crumbles. At the bottom, a layer of cinnamon-spiced baked Bramley apple and pear, with plums thrown in slightly later so they don’t lose their best characteristics. The whole thing is then covered with a perfectly crisp and chewy flapjack topping, served with a jug of proper vanilla-flecked custard. Deanna Thomas

Mr Lowry’s Rice Pudding (£6.00) – Of all the boozy dates that have passed my way, the ones on this warm and creamy traditional vanilla rice pudding are some of my favourites. Like your average mother-in-law on Christmas day, they’ve been given a proper soaking in brandy and orange before being thoroughly dipped in dark chocolate. And piss off Lowry, it’s not your pudding, it’s mine. David Blake

And the wines...Chop House wine buyer George Bergier provided three wines to match the food. The scallops and oxtail and the spiced sea bass were partnered best by Kleine Zalze Vineyard Selection Chenin Blanc 2015 (£25) from Stellenbosch in South Africa. Ripe layers of peach fruit and well-integrated oak handled the respective rich sauce and sweet lentils well. The second wine, a young (2014) but classic Chablis from Vauroux (£34), fresh and taut with green apple flavours, lime and crisp acidity, fared best with the lemon sole and, surprisingly, with both the Arbroath Smokie Po and the Field Mushrooms.

Then supple, plummy, smoky, discreetly oaky Chateau Nicot 2012 (£26), from Bordeaux’s Right Bank didn’t allow itself to be overwhelmed by the mutton curry but this honest Claret’s true marriage was with Sam’s Braised Beef in Ale. Neil Sowerby