'Refined Italian fare to share': Little Blanchflower, Chorlton, reviewed

The Tuscan slow food movement hasn’t quite reached Chorlton. But then again, why would it? This is a cool cosmopolitan suburb, where tattooed arts graduates have house keys on carabiners swinging from their belt loops. This is a fast-paced place. You can get to the city centre in only eleven minutes on the Metrolink. You can get fresh pasta faster than you can say “piano-piano”.

In March last year, Claire Howells and her husband Phil opened Little Blanchflower over the soil where Campagna once blossomed and withered on Wilbraham Road; the third in their collection of bakery-come-canteens, after Sale and their O.G Alty Market site. Here the couple are capitalising on Chorlton’s European late-night dining scene by flexing their chefs’ dough know-how on a weekend.

The dishes arrive at breakneck speed. We’ve barely spat out our first olive pit.

Pulling up outside on a brisk January evening, the original Creameries tilling appears somewhat eclipsed by the adjacent scaffolding, advertising fresh cut Christmas trees direct from Scotland. Yet once through the door, there’s no sign of the post-festive pinch, despite LB’s ‘Recession Session’, offering 25% off this month’s dinner service. Us Brits do love a bargain, but reassuringly, we’re told at least three times that they need the table back by 8pm. Our fault entirely for arriving twenty minutes later than scheduled. There’s a reason the ITV Calendar Weatherman’s number plate spells  - M62 FOG.

Now, I’m not someone who likes being rushed. It stems from being chased down the stairs by my sister as a child. But everyone’s in such a fluster that our drinks choices are real stabs in the dark. The draught red wine’ll do. A 2021 Cote-Du-Rhone with tasting notes of blackcurrant and tobacco. What more could you want? I opt for their ‘Special’ cordial, because who doesn’t like feeling special? A beautifully bubbly blend of apple and rose.

The food menu reads like an Italian boyband’s Greatest Hits album. And there are no tracks worth skipping. Underneath is the mouth-watering list of pestos, pangrattaos, papardelles and raviolos – their corporate vision statement, in bold, is ‘Elevate Your Plate’. A mantra which I think has already been adopted by Tilda microwave rice pouches.

The dishes arrive at breakneck speed. We’ve barely spat out our first olive pip. Which, by the way, are those great glassy bottle green Nocerella kind. Perhaps they have convenience in common with Tilda after all. There’s polpette di pane, crispy golden golf balls with a dense cheese centre. The roasted tomato sauce could have done with a little more roasting, it hadn’t quite reduced enough to alleviate that acrid canned taste you sometimes get, but the snipped chives added a good hint of garlic.

Forkfuls of leek, the ends tinged with a pinky hue, fall softly in ribboned rings under a generous gratin scattering of spenwood and pine nuts. Pine nuts. Little Blanchflower must be doing all right. They’re three quid a bag in Asda. There are more nuts with the main event. Allergens everywhere. Namely hazelnuts, which feature on the nduja bucatini - fat worms wiggling through whipped gorgonzola and a smidge of honey. It packs a punch. Stronger on the gorgonzola side than the nduja, incongruously topped with cubes of Granny Smith.

The agnolotti are large, Quality Street shaped parcels on a sweet bed of butternut squash puree. It might be too sweet, and the filling is a little uninspiring, but the sage infused brown butter pools pleasingly beside the crunch of more toasted hazelnuts. We wolf it all down with haste - which could be testament to the cooking, or the fact that the plates went cold in an instant. The problem with pasta. Plus, there was zero time for them to warm under the glow of the pass.

At this point, the meal has not yet touched the sides, so we reach for the dessert menu with clammy hands. We also should have heeded the kind waiter’s proposition of two larger dishes per person, but to be fair he told us too late into proceedings. After we’d ordered. Late all round. We half expect the next cover to crash into our table, glaring eagerly as we lick our spoons with remorse.

I love it when a place does petit fours with coffee, but in hangry agitation, and clearly a thing for hazelnuts, I plumb for the dark chocolate and orange mousse. It’s not that dark. But the flavours and textures are spot on. Chewy hazelnut praline meets burnished segments of blowtorched satsuma. It’s not Terry's, it's mine. Although the caramelised white chocolate and blackberry cremeux is also fantastic, with a real nostalgic condensed-milk vibe. The bowl is liberally coated with sliced almonds. There must be a sale on at Grape Tree.

We shuffle out without sight of the 8pm booking. But despite being on the clock, I’d book again for more refined Italian fare to share in Chorlton. 

Note to self - must add punctuality to my list of New Year’s resolutions.

Little Blanchflower, 406 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton, M21 0SD