REVIEW | The Garden, Hale

I SUPPOSE for those familiar with dialectical method, it comes as no surprise given the strong hold so-called ‘dirty food’ has had on our palates over the last few years, that the opposing force has arisen and its name is clean eating.

...it seems like some of the staff have been hired more for their ability to do an Ardha Matsyendrasana than pick up dirty dishes

The white knights that come to save us from triple-fried donuts and baconnaise are a phalanx of glossy haired bloggers with great teeth and shiny coats, brandishing their spiralisers and their vitamixes in the fight against evil gluten.

These days healthy eating isn’t an exercise in who can wear the scratchiest hair shirt but instead, according to these ladies (and it is mostly ladies), all about loving yourself and ‘getting the glow’. Whatever the glow is, it photographs beautifully, accompanied by shots of sunset beaches and thoughtful, if sometimes misattributed, inspirational quotations in fluffy handwriting.

It’s easy to mock the wellness trend but credit where credit is due - as well as making healthy eating look more presentable, the flavour, believe it or not, has improved too. Now that fat is back in the fold and everything is smothered in coconut oil or avocado, healthy food does taste much better than when it was mainly just lentils seasoned with superiority.

 

The Garden

So it’s strange that, with a few exceptions, Manchester seems to have landed firmly on the dark side of the force. It’s curious, given the amount of blog pages and recipes books devoted to ‘Uh-MAZ-ing’ juices and ‘insanely delicious’ things to do with chia, that there aren’t more clean-eating spots around the city. But where there is wealth there is health so it’s no surprise that Hale at least boasts its own ultra-instagrammable plant-based diet ‘n’ yoga-lifestyle café named The Garden. There are bowls and teas and cold-pressed juices in jam jars with names like ‘I am Thriving’ (at £4.50 a pop someone is thriving) and, yes, there's a ‘let food be thy medicine’ quote scrawled across the wall.

In a canny bit of experiential cross-marketing, you can go to a yoga class and get a breakfast jar and hot tonic at The Garden for £16. I’m tempted but decide to do the usual and go for lunch instead. If I thought I was going to be able to partake of healing, peace-out vibes by mere osmosis then I was dead wrong. I get there just before noon and it’s already super-busy. There is an outside nook that is all but abandoned and when I get there it becomes obvious why as the train rattles past. I do not feel relaxed.

Still I #staypositive and #brave and order from the lunch menu, while the takeaways fly out of the door. A waitress bearing a substantial-looking garden burger drifts past but I stay on my chosen path and order a rainbow bowl (with extra salmon) and an earth bowl with chicken (also extra) as the dishes with the cleanest sounding names.

 

The 'Rainbow Bowl' with salmon and the 'Earth Bowl' with chicken

The rainbow bowl (£8) was basically a layered salad (with quite a bit of cabbage) and was as earnest as that sounds, though the ingredients were of obviously good quality. The accompanying matcha salmon (£4) was firm and flaky with green tea notes that were subtle enough not to scare anyone, but it was a little bit on the dry side.

My favourite dish was the earth bowl (£9) with maca-marinated chicken (£4). The earth bowl was in fact a warming vegetable tagine with chunks of aubergine and cauliflower, topped off with a zesty citrus yoghurt. It sounds simple but was very good indeed, the kind of dish I wish I could make for a comforting weeknight supper, though fail miserably due to my veg being neither perky nor life-affirming enough. The chicken was doused in trendy maca, reputed to be ‘nature’s viagra’. I can’t say it had any particular effect in that direction though it did taste good. The quinoa which came with it was as larval as ever, but bearable.

After all the health stuff I felt it perfectly reasonable to order three deserts. First up was the buckwheat pancakes (£5) from the kids menu, served with berries and maple syrup. The buckwheat made the pancakes heavier than usual but nothing the maple syrup couldn’t handle. Even the most E-number-addled child would like these.

The raw cheesecake

I don’t know how they managed the raw cheesecake (£6) - the texture and height (normally faux-patisserie comes out on the flat side) was pretty impressive. It was a good wedge as well, the creamy slab shot through with a kick of lime. There was however, a slight aftertaste reminiscent of old cupboards. Still if you are desperate for a clean cake and don’t mind being haunted by the ghost of spice racks past, then you could do worse.

The ice cream sundae (£5, main image) was also made from some magical combination of non-dairy products. We chose a scoop each of coconut, ginger and vanilla, as the desired maple and pecan was out of stock - as a waitress floated over to tell us fifteen minutes after we ordered it. It looked pretty enough and passed the taste test (in that my friend had no idea it wasn’t the real thing). The vanilla and the coconut were on the bland side but the ginger had a fiery punch.

So, though it defies all expectations, the food at The Garden is not at all medicinal (in taste at least) but actually pretty decent considering they have voluntarily abandoned 80% of what usually makes food taste good. Yes, some of the pricing seems iffy, and yes, it seems like some of the staff have been hired more for their ability to do an Ardha Matsyendrasana than pick up dirty dishes. Never mind, they all looked great in their vintage Levi’s, draped fetchingly on tanned hipbones, just so. This is Hale, what else did you expect?

The Garden, 154 Ashley Rd, Hale, Altrincham WA15 9SA. Tel: 0161 941 6702

Rating: 12.5/20

Food: 6.5/10 (Salmon/Rainbow bowl 6, Chicken/Earth bowl 8, Ice-cream 6, Pancakes 5, Cheesecake 5)

Atmosphere: 3/5

Service: 3/5