Clockworks
Vicky Andrews
Clockworks in Wolstenholme Square is a bar, restaurant and live music venue with an industrial vibe, based in one of the city’s oldest surviving warehouses.
If you know Wolstenholme Square then you probably think of nineties trance blaring from the basement of the former Cream nightclub, but this was originally a posh tree-lined residential square established around 1750. By 1900 it was mostly industry and warehouses but those were wiped out by Blitzkrieg bombing, and post-war rebuilding was drab and functional.
The surviving corner buildings went on to become various different venues including a bar, a nightclub and even an art gallery at one point, but never quite found their true purpose. Then, just as these Georgian buildings were due to be demolished for good, two friends stumbled upon the site. Jordan Bergson and his mate Callum already knew the building from a few parties back in the day and decided to save it from its untimely fate.
Jordan is fiercely passionate about his kitchen and the food is often a little indulgent, but always comforting and tasty, the way food should be
Clockworks opened in 2017 with the aim of serving simple but well-cooked, quintessentially British comfort food. Jordan is fiercely passionate about his kitchen and the food is often a little indulgent, but always comforting and tasty. The way food should be. They make everything from scratch, use only the finest ingredients and never cut corners on quality.
Breakfast includes the ‘Mr Benedict’; house ham hock, pickled chillies, paprika hollandaise, and poached eggs served on toast. For the ultimate hangover cure, try ‘The Butcher’ with back bacon, sausages, stornoway black pudding, potato scone, eggs, roast field mushrooms, grilled tomato, baked beans and farmhouse toast.
An afternoon favourite is the sharer boards which include some of Jordan’s specialties, Stornoway bon bons and home-made pork scratchings. There’s also an epic vegetarian board with buffalo cauliflower, roast garlic hummus, olives, spiced honey nuts, frickles and flatbreads. And if you don’t know what frickles are, then you just haven’t lived.
Clockworks is open all the way through from morning to night. It’s a great spot off the beaten track to grab a cosy pint or cocktail, and you’ll often find live music happening outside the front in Wolstenholme Square. It’s worth dropping by just to see Cuban sculptor Jorge Pardo’s Penelope, one of the largest sculptures in the city.
