Cheers! Best-read pub reviews of 2019
It’s a land of limited phone signal, giant portions and old-school puddings up at The Black Ladd in the hills near Shaw.
The traditional country pub with its rustic ceiling beams (there’s even a potted history of the pub carved into one of them) and flagstone flooring is busy every day of the week, and a true local gem.
We found a menu reminiscent of school dinners before Jamie Oliver got his hands on them. What a throwback!
Uppermill is a village bustling with bars, cafes and restaurants, but few are as busy weekround as The Waggon Inn pub.
It’s been sensitively modernised both in decor and in food offering, proffering vegan curries and battered halloumi alongside more traditional pub fare.
The cheese and onion pie had a crust so golden it looked like it had ‘crashed headfirst through a St Tropez tanning booth’, and a giant chocolate brownie with a caramel sauce.
But visit during set menu hours and you can get three courses for £20, which is seriously good value for the food on offer. Particularly noteworthy (though the menu changes seasonally) was the sea buckthorn posset with meringue, and the oyster mushroom papardelle.
It took us three goes to get into the The Airport Pub, such is its popularity - but it was worth the wait. Kind of.
The plane-spotting paradise also serves a full menu of American-style burgers, wings, pizzas and ribs.
While the slow-cooked barbecue ribs were tender, sweet and sticky, the burgers were dry and the coleslaw deemed ‘pallid’.
Still, where else could you nurse a pint while watching Airbus A380s swooping down to land?
At The Old Original, portions are so hearty that we were left ‘so full our lung capacity is compromised’.
It’s all about thick-cut chips, slow-cooked meat, and friendly, familial service at this charming pub.
One of our favourites of the year.
Close to Daisy Nook Country Park, and with its own climbing frame in the beer garden, The Woodhouse Gardens is a dream spot for families.
The burgers on the Garden Menu (you’ll have to order from this to make use of the beer garden) are ‘succulent but not soggy’, and the children seemed happy with meals from the Little Diners menu.
But when it comes to ordering dessert - a cookie dough and honeycomb stack - things took a drastic turn for the convoluted.
The Midway shouldn’t be as successful as it is. It’s located on a strangely industrial pocket of Stockport with only a small housing estate nearby, but has built itself a solid reputation nonetheless.
Here you’ll find the best fat chips outside an actual chippy, ‘halloumi Jenga’, and a free bottle of wine chucked in with the two course menu.
Cartmel sticky toffee pudding is well worth an order too, and with a staff who are happy to accommodate various requests, it’s hard to find fault with this pub.