Earle, Hale, Reviewed By Gordo

ONE thing that Gordo gets asked the most is what's his favourite restaurant? It's a difficult one to answer, particularly in the North West and especially in Manchester, a city in the grip of new restaurant fever. 

Earle is a good example of solid, new age British cooking, with emphasis on big, fine, stand out flavours.

There are many different cuisines well represented across the region; to choose between Punjabi and Szechuan is difficult when confronted with well-executed dishes of both areas. 

Gordo loves them both.  

Earle

Then of course there are the ingredients. Steak? Gaucho, RBG or Smoak at Malmaison?  

The latter's wing rib of sirloin from Frosty the Butcher, an eye watering £70 ( but you can feed three) could be said to have been the best. But then again, what about Gaucho grill’s amazing wet-aged striploins, or RBG’s rib-eye - a company that's gone to the length of owning their own herds, slaughtered in their own abatoir?  

So, what is Gordo’s favourite restaurant? It’s a hard question to answer; probably the best way is to think about favourite courses, then think of the restaurants that served them. The restaurant might forgotten, but the dish makes you remember it. 

One gaff that slipped from Gordo’s mind was Earle, owned by Channel 4’s TV chef, Simon Rimmer, over in Hale. 

It came to mind when thinking of good training chefs across the region, commented on in Gordo's review of 2013. Although not mentioned, it needs to be said that Simon is - for an un-classically trained chef - responsible for creating some brilliant chefs who have gone on to their own success across the region. 

Toward the end of 2008, Gordo had the dish of that year in Earle, a brilliantly seasoned, cooked and plated rose veal escalope. It's one of those dishes he can still close his eyes and see, smell and taste.

Capers were involved.   

Earle -season 08

Remembering that dish determined where he was having his Sunday lunch on a grim butcher's steel of a day in January.

Earle is essentially Simon’s idea of what an English/French brasserie should be. It has 'appetizers' which are listed before starters. Crispy veggie black pudding with grain mustard mayo (£3.50) is surprisingly good, a favourite dish of this and Mr Rimmer's other, hugely successful, veggie gaff in West Didsbury, Greens.  

As it was a Sunday, the set price menu was the way forward, with a few extras, as always. The price? One course, £12.95, two £16.95 and three £20.95. 

Make sure someone in the party has a double first in maths if you want to figure out the pricing structure. Otherwise, take your time and have an aperitif whilst you go through the menu, it’s a good one, confusingly written. 

Gordo had to be different and ordered a couple of appetisers on the day, crispy fried whitebait with lemon aioli (£5.75) and honey glazed pork chipolatas, spiced tomato ketchup (£6.75). The whitebait were crisp and crunchy, all the way to the bottom.

Whitebait

An invisible dusting of cayenne pepper or something else a bit warm didn't destroy a great savoury, fresh-fishy flavour. 

The chipolatas made Gordo grin, good pork well seasoned and spiced sticky with honey attended by a great tomato dipping sauce, truly a star.

This is where Simon’s experience with vegetarian cooking wins out, having to create great dips and saucing just to make the vegetables taste nice. 

Chipolatas

The wingman on the day, Lottie Moore, chose the pan-seared haloumi, warm caponata salad and roasted red pepper coulis.

Gordo isn't keen on haloumi, mainly because it always seems to him that it should be flattened out a bit more and used as roof tiles. She was delighted with it. Good for her. 

The whole roasted baby chicken, bread sauce, duck fat roast potatoes, carrot and swede mash, French beans, cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire pudding and roast gravy. 

Bloody hell, that took longer to write than eat. 

Chicken main

Two mistakes. It wasn't a poussin (baby chicken) but half, or thereabouts, of a teenager. Good, but no one told Fatty about it. Then it arrived with no bread sauce. Gordo, bottom lip quivering like a girl, reminded the waitress. It was there in no time. But COLD.

Very naughty. It wasn't good when it arrived the second time either, hot but with the consistency of sticky rice; breadcrumbs added to hot milk. Bland. It appeared that the milk hadn't been steeped with bay leaves, let alone a couple of cloves, an onion and seasoning.

To be fair that was the only bad thing that happened, the chicken was great, with the legs moist, breast with flavour and crispy skin. The gravy had fun with a pretty darned good Yorkshire whilst the vegetables and roast potatoes, normally an afterthought, were on top form.

A vegetarian main course was also ordered; honey glazed feta, spinach and pistachio filo layered pie, roasted beetroot, rocket, sun blushed tomato salad, red pepper jam and cinnamon tomato sauce.

To be fair, it did have the word PIE in it.

Veg pie

Well, well, it turned out to be a really great idea; Lottie ate most of it, here are her thoughts. 

'A favourite on the menu, and of the waitress, the puff pastry spinach feta and pistachio tart was the star dish for me. Loved the nuttiness and kick of flavour you get from the cheese with the spinach balancing out.

Evident that they do the vegetarian dishes justice, novel that I'd opt for such. Red pepper purée added some moisture to the dish and was a welcome addition, with spicy tomato relish. I usually like a sauce but these paired quite nicely and was more than enough. Refreshing salad on the side, too much red onion for me but that’s a personal preference; maybe could have done with a couple of new potatoes thrown in there.'

Finally, a pudding. Winter spiced apricot bread and butter pudding, Baileys crème anglaise. A tad on the heavy side this one, but not done to the point of being sullen as many are. Very good flavours. Loved the Baileys crème anglaise, wouldn't mind that on a good syrup pudding. Ooh, there's a thought.

Bread and butter pudding

Service is young but assured, with a smile and not overly familiar as in some of the larger local chains.

Earle is a good example of solid, new age British cooking, with emphasis on big, fine, stand out flavours. Lots of thought is put into what goes together.

Gordo would be happy to sit at the bar and have a few beers with those ‘appetizers’ on the way home if he lived there, whilst a family celebrating a birthday would be happy. Not a bad place for a first date as well.

Gordo, five years on still likes the place. Go. You’ll get your money’s worth. Don’t be worried if you miss Rimmer. He’s looking a bit shifty with that beard these days.

Simon Rimmer and his new range of beards...er beers...

ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE. 

Earle, 4 Cecil Rd, Hale, Altrincham, WA15 9PA. 0161 929 8869 

Rating: 15/20 (please read the scoring system in the box below, venues are rated against the best examples of their kind) 

Food:  7/10 (Chipolatas 7, Whitebait 8, Haloumi 7, Chicken 6, Veg pie 8, pudding 6)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 3.5/5.