The Marble Arch pub on Rochdale Rd, just on the fringes of Manchester’s Northern Quarter is a real institution. Famous for its artisan real ales and onsite brewery as much as its drop dead gorgeous Victorian architecture, the pub also boasts an impressive food menu. I’ve been meaning to try the Marble Arch’s fayre for ages now, and now I have I can firmly say that my meal here has to be one of the finest I have tried anywhere in the city (ranging from the delicious cheap eats of the Rice & 3 merchants through to the fine dining experience of Michael Caines @ Abode).
The Marble Arch’s menu is firmly in the best of British tradition – a great selection of timeless classics including full roasts, pies, fish & chips and burgers, as well as an inspired speciality cheese selection. The prices are more on the restaurant end, but completely worth it and, given the quality of ingredients, practically a bargain. I had the rib eye steak and chips, served with grilled mushrooms and tomato and very impressive mushroom and peppercorn sauce. The steak was cooked to utter perfection, the chips were a beautifully golden and crispy, and the sauce was to die for. Everything was clearly made fresly from scratch The sauce in fact was the real star of the show – a complex blend of various kinds of mushrooms, brandy, cream, garlic and no doubt various other ingredients that I’m not aware of. The perfectly cooked simplicity of a dish like this really shows the chef has some serious confidence and ability.
At £16.50 this is on the upper edge of the price bracket for pub grub, but had this been a £30 meal at a formal restaurant I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid – this is the kind of food that puts some of the region’s so-called fine-dining-cum-gastropub institutions to real shame.
