The Counter House
Ian Jones, Food and Drink Editor
Hold onto your hats, Sunday roast fans, there’s a new champ in town. In our ongoing mission to find the city’s best Sunday lunch, we’ve found ourselves at The Counter House in Ancoats, enjoying one of the best week-ending feasts we’ve had in months.
The Counter House is one of Cutting Room Square’s most impressive spaces. Smart art decorates the walls, high ceilings, tasteful decor – nothing too showy or distracting. Not to mention the staff and fellow diners are cheerful, friendly and a pleasure to be around. Everything just fits perfectly.
The same goes for the Sunday roast menu. Sure, you can add a few wildcards if you must, but at its core, this is a traditional end-of-week feast, made with the finest ingredients known to Ancoats and executed perfectly.
That said, we recommend adding a few small bites. Not enough to ruin your appetite, but to show off the range of the Counter House menu. The padron peppers are a great example: chargrilled rather than the more everyday roasted peppers you find at most places, with a little pile of Korean chili and lime salt to dip them in. It’s a cute little flourish that makes all the difference.
The crispy cauliflower bites are on a whole different level. They’re a textural miracle, with melt-in-the-mouth cauliflower inside, a crunchy coating, plus a marvellously well-balanced dip made with sweet chili, soy and honey. One of the city’s best vegan snacks? I’m calling it.
But it’s the roasts you’re here for, and while vegans can enjoy a superb-sounding sweet potato, baby spinach, black bean, chickpea and red onion wellington, Sunday carnivores looking for a solution to the day-after-the-night before, will want one of the two meat options: lemon, thyme and garlic half roast chicken, and the dry-aged Lancashire roast sirloin of beef.
The chicken is blessed with strips of gloriously crispy skin, while the meat is full of those bold, citrus-heavy flavours we all hold dear. The beef is so soft, and so tender that it practically dissolves on the tongue, flooding the tastebuds with the flavours from the nigh-on unbeatable meaty, herby gravy.
All options come with the same high-grade sides: crispy roast potatoes, soft, salty carrot and swede mash, strips of nicely crunchy savoy cabbage, plus roasted parsnips and carrots, and the biggest Yorkshire pudding you’ve ever seen, perched on top of the lot.
The Sunday roasts at The Counter House don’t try and reinvent the wheel, and nor should they. It’s all about a traditional preparation, made with the best ingredients and cooked properly. The price is pretty reasonable for this part of town, and it’s a great place to kick back and while away a lazy Sunday afternoon. What’s not to love?
