Award-winning pub is a real front runner
HOW do you tell a good pub from a bad pub? You could turn to the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) database to see who’s keeping the dream of the traditional British pub alive.
Or you could simply assess its merit by looking to the number of bums on seats at the bar.
On both counts, The Flying Horse in Rochdale is setting itself out as a very good pub indeed.
Just past midday on a Sunday there’s already a row of cable-knit-clad elbows lined up along the bar.
A man bearing a striking resemblance to Ricky Tomlinson steadily sees off four pints in the space of an hour with his son.
There are also a few families, sitting in front of tiled fireplaces and working through plates piled with burgers and pies.
The hop-covered ceiling has been upgraded for Christmas with assorted baubles, and a mannequin in a lurid skiing onepiece stands in the window, keeping watch over the striking Rochdale Town Hall - where Cillian Murphy and co. are often spotted filming Peaky Blinders.
The Flying Horse was recently named by CAMRA as the best pub in Greater Manchester for the second year running we went to see what all the fuss is about.
●●WHAT’S cooking?
IT’S a menu of meaty, pub classics at rock-bottom prices here, with burgers starting from £7.45 and other plates including rag pudding, fish and chips, and steak and ale pie.
We share a portion of garlic mushrooms (£4.25) to start us off, which waft a strong garlic mist over us as they’re placed on the table. “Rather you than me,” our waitress ominously warns - a bizarre move when these turn out to be perfect, golden mushrooms beneath a tangle of watercress.
The intensely buttery sauce they swim in is speckled with oregano and thyme and we scrape up every drop with a spoon - unusually, they don’t come with bread.
Next is a three cheese and onion pie (£6.95), served with fat-cut chips and a choice of beans, garden peas or mushy peas.
I go for beans, because a slightly wobbly patron at the bar tells me to, and he seems like a regular.
My well-meaning friend is correct, of course, and the heady combination of buttery pastry, oozing cheese and sugar-laden baked beans is a nostalgic and reliable winter lunch.
The flamenco burger (£8.95) is less conventional. It’s a chicken fillet topped with spicy slivers of chorizo and manchego cheese, sandwiched in a brioche bun.
All normal enough. But what’s that? There’s a slice of grapefruit impaled on a spike above the bread. Why? Nobody knows.
The first thing my dinner date does is whip it away from his meal and discard it on the table with a pained look on his face.
A pretty garnish, maybe, but no one has ever put raw citrus fruit and bread together successfully. Thankfully, what’s inside the bread is much better, and a punchy purple slaw on the side hits the spot.
●●CAN I get a decent pint?
APPLAUDED by CAMRA (the pub first made CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide in 2002 and since then has doubled its beer offering), there are cask ales galore at the Flying Horse.
There’s a strong northern flavour, with the majority of the dozen hand pulls hailing from Greater Manchester and Yorkshire, and Heywood’s Phoenix Brewery having a permanent spot behind the bar.
Not a single pint comes in over £4 - we settle for half-pints of Seven Brothers session IPA and a Saltaire Blonde, both priced at £3.40 for a pint.
●●SHOULD I save room for dessert?
WE only have room for one dessert to share between us, and based on the chocolate pudding (£3.95), the jury’s out.
The pudding itself is tardark and moist, as it should be, but when piled with sweet vanilla custard, a zig-zag of saccharine chocolate sauce and two wafer sticks, it’s so sweet that even wasps would think twice before tucking in. The sticky toffee pudding might be a better bet, or the ever-changing cheesecake special.
●●ARE you being served?
YOU order your food at the bar, which is a smart move in a pub with such a lengthy and rotational beer selection.
The staff behind the bar are clued-up on both the food and the drinks, but service in the restaurant itself is nervy.
We’re barely halfway through our meal when a waitress comes and wordlessly takes the crate of condiments away, leaving us staring at piles of dry chips.
She’s back again ten minutes later, clearing the table while one of us is still eating.
It’s well-meaning service but seems almost fidgety on a relatively quiet afternoon in the restaurant area.
●●WHAT’S the damage?
OUR bill comes to a tiny £27.50 - that’s for two mains, two half-pints of local beer, one starter and a pud to share.
It really is good value for money for such large portions of unfussy pub grub.
If you come during the week, you can get two selected mains - including meat and potato pie, fish and chips, or linguine carbonara - for a tenner.
That deal’s available Monday to Thursday.
●●THE verdict
THE Flying Horse does everything you’d want a pub to do.
It’s clearly at the heart of the local community, getting stuck into local events such as Feel Good Festival and The Magnificent Seven Rochd’ale’ Trail, and it’s almost constantly busy as a result.
The food’s simple and homely, and even with a few bizarre exchanges with the staff we’re oddly endeared to the whole place.
●●The Flying Horse – the Rochdale pub named one of the best 16 pubs in the country in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide