Pip at Treehouse Manchester

Sunday Lunch: Everyone’s favourite low-waste chef, Mary-Ellen McTague, is behind the Sunday roast at Pip, the ground-floor restaurant at Manchester’s Treehouse Hotel. 

Starters are light but clever – a spring vegetable broth with pea and wild garlic dumplings, Isle of Wight tomatoes with yoghurt and sourdough crumb. Then there’s smoked mackerel with rhubarb ketchup, designed to be dashed together and swirled up into a delicious mess. 

This is why Pip stands out: the ideas are smart and the execution is deft. It’s a few steps above tea at your mums, unless your mum’s a Michelin-trained chef, and in which case why are you here? Go visit her instead, stock up on leftovers. 

But starters, schmarters, it’s all about main event and we’re gripping our knives and forks like hungry Bash Street Kids. 

We’re not disappointed. The porchetta is nicely laid out, rippled with time-honoured woody herbs and topped with a crunchy crackling hat. Oh, and a swoosh of smoked apple sauce on the side that’s as delicious as it is pretty. 

However, the dish of the day award has to go to the chicken. If you have to be reincarnated as a chicken, make it this chicken: a confit herb fed chicken, plump and beautifully cooked. The chicken is crisp and even a little charred around the edges – this is a good thing. The meat itself is full-flavoured and tender – it was a happy chicken, and I’m a happy man eating it. The circle of life. 

The sides and trimmings for both are as good as it gets – well enough of them, all delicious, and the truffled leek sauce that goes with the chicken is a thing of beauty. 

You really don’t need dessert after this, but get them anyway. The strawberry and fig leaf trifle is a clever take on the traditional trifle – it’s all the flavours you know and love, dismantled, rearranged and whipped up into a creamy, cakey, strawberry-led creation, with an old-school syllabub on the side. What’s not to love? 

If you prefer a darker finish to your weekending meal, the flourless chocolate cake is a solid, tightly-packed slab of brownie-style excellence, with a toasted white chocolate crumb and a blob of fennel cream. It’s a meal full of subtle flourishes like this, and shows exactly why the Treehouse Hotel gang were so keen to invite Mary up to stay. 

Restaurant: Pip is the in-house restaurant at the long-awaited Treehouse Hotel, headed up by Bury-born chef, Mary-Ellen McTague.

The venue is worth a visit in its own right, whether for coffee, cocktail or cooked meal. It bears no relation to the average hotel restaurant – this is a beautifully decked-out space with a human touch. Nothing stuffy or sterile here – less about the money, more about the Monet. 

That means a nature-led design, full of lush foliage, candles and elegant artwork. It’s modern with a nod to tradition, much like the menu. Mary has long been a champion of low-waste cooking and seasonal ingredients, and Pip delivers the goods. 

Some of her classic dishes make an appearance, meaning you’ll have the privilege of trying the split pea chips and mushroom ketchup – a thick stack of crunchy-on-the-outside, fluffy-inside chips with a swirl of eye-rollingly rich mushroom ketchup to dip them into. It taps into long-forgotten childhood memories while adding all-new, far-out elements.

It’s part of a multi-layered menu, covering snacks, small plates and large plates. Feeling hungry? Pick one from each, otherwise just pluck out one or two appealing-sounding items. 

We heartily recommend the fish dish from the large plates. Caught that day and cooked with sea vegetables and cockle broth (and a dash of bergamot, for intrigue), it’s a dazzling array of aquatic cuisine, showcasing the finesse of the kitchen crew. 

Other thumbs-up courses include a moreish potato, truffle and wild garlic soup, paired with some of Mary’s famed sourdough bread and Killeen goats cheese. For meat-eaters, squab ham and mustard leaf, bolstered by a zingy lemon thyme granita. 

The chicken dish is artfully laid out, with an elaborate structure of chicken slices, a swoosh of celeriac and a nicely balanced rhubarb and roasting juices jus. But the miniature dark meat pie is the showstopper – drop it in one for a potent trip into chicken leg land. 

The Treehouse hotel might have been a long time coming, but some things are worth the wait. Especially when they contain dishes as memorable as these.