BAR of the Year in the 2016 Manchester Food and Drink Awards, Albert’s Schloss refuses to rest on its laurels. Some might say it is straying from its Germanic culinary template, but the arrival of a Sunday lunch offering just adds to the jollity of the self-styled ‘Bohemian pleasure palace.
It helps that co-owners the Trof Group have perfected the Sunday lunch, in particular at Gorilla, and the same chef team and meat supplier, WH Frost of Chorlton, are on board at the Schloss. Prices too are keen, just £15 for the trio of mains.
One of these is a Mushroom and Butternut Squash Strudel veggie option; the other two competing for best meat roast in the city centre. I ordered the 28 day dry aged, 15 hour slow roasted topside of Lancashire beef. Ample portion, thinly sliced, I’d have prepared it pinker but it was tender and tasty.
Very fine but pipped by my partner’s rack of Cheshire pork, which came as a vast cutlet, firm textured with proper crackling. Both were accompanied by roasties, greens, a slick of carrot puree and fleshy Yorkshire puds, each holding a pool of gravy (perhaps, too much, but a matter of taste). On the side, a small pot of slightly feeble horseradish and apple sauce. We paid extra for a box of wonderfully gooey cauliflower cheese and wolfed the lot.
Resisting for once the unpasteurised Pilsener Urquell tank beer, and seasonal mulled cider, we accompanied the roasts with a light-bodied yet savoury Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir) from Furst in Germany’s Franconia region – a bargain at £27 a bottle. If you want to go red by the glass look no further than the Chateau Pineraie Cahors, which is £6.50 for 175ml and £9 for 250ml. It displays all the plummy inkiness of Malbec from the French region it originally sprung from before Argentina acquired bragging rights.
The perfect palate cleanser before roast and red was a starter of Classic Prawn Cocktail (£8), pictured below. Gruss Gott, the Schloss is nothing if not eclectic.
Albert’s Schloss, 27 Peter Street, Manchester M2 5RQ. 0161 833 4040. Book a table online here, or by calling 0161 833 4040.