Sam’s Chop House, Leeds

Having been invited by the folks at Leeds List, last night Dan and I took a trip over to Sam’s Chop House to sample the food they have on offer. We’ve visited before but have to say it was years ago and wondered whether it had changed much.We did see some of the other blogger reviews online prior to our visit, ranging from scathing to indifferent and we really didn’t want that to cloud our experience.

We arrived a little before 7pm to a very quiet bar – there were a handful of diners but the atmosphere seemed eerily quiet. Shame really as the building and the interior surroundings grand and it was sad that it was pretty much standing empty.

We always like to sample to ales before be dine so we purchased a couple of pints of Rudgate IPA and perused the menu for a while. Ale lovers note that the bar has come interesting craft beers and also has an array of gin / whiskies. Something that they perhaps need to shout about a bit more.

To go with our meal, we chose the Granfort Pays d’Oc Cabernet Sauvignon Languedoc-Roussillon, France, 2012, which was delicious and paired well with both starters and mains.

New dates coming soon

We’ve been busy planning some new supperclub dates that will take us well into 2014. Yes we know it’s a good few months away but we all need good food to look forward to!

Below are dates for events in Feb, March and April 2014. We’re planning on closing the Manor over summer 2014 for some much needed renovations, so be sure to book if you want to experience the full Manor treatment while you can. Tickets for events make a great Christmas present!

Tickets will go on sale on this site at midday on Friday 1st November 2013. We thought we’d let you all know the dates and themes in advance so that you have a little time to sort your diaries and get friends together. The dates will be as follows:

22 Feb 2014
This will be a Nigel Slater Kitchen Diaries II themed afternoon tea at £20pp

14 and 15 March 2014
These dates will be a Tom Kerridge pub food themed supperclub complete with paired ales from Ilkley Brewery at £40pp.

12 April 2014
This will be a Rick Stein’s India themed supperclub at £30pp

Bookings will be taken from midday on 1st November, don’t miss out!

Ooh la la – The French by Simon Rogan

You may or may not have seen some mutterings on Twitter that it was my birthday last week. To celebrate becoming yet another year older and not necessarily wiser, we took a trip over to Manchester to sample Simon Rogan’s new offering The French, headed up by head chef Adam Reid. Having opened earlier this year to rave reviews, I booked our table back in June and eagerly awaited our visit.

The French itself is housed in a beautifully opulent dining room within the hotel. Old meets new in the Victorian interior fused with Scandinavian furniture – a nod to the styling in Rogan’s other restaurants.

The restaurant offers two choices during the evenings, a six course menu or a ten course. Being the greedy guts we are, we obviously went for the ten course feast and then really pushed the boat out with ten paired wines – the majority of which were white, all of which matched beautifully and our sommelier was on had to answer any of our questions.

However, to really start the evening off, cocktails were the order of the day for our aperitifs, which were brought over from the French’s sister restaurant Mr Cooper’s House and Garden. Beautifully crafted, we sipped and chatted away whilst the canapes arrived.

As usual, I am not going to bore you with long winded descriptions of each of the dishes, I managed to take some decent photos so I’ll let these seduce you into dining there instead!

November 2013 Menu – Bonfire Afternoon Tea

The nights are drawing in and the weather is becoming increasingly colder. We’ve devised some Autumnal warmers to keep our guests cosy at the Manor next month at our Bonfire themed afternoon tea.

Bonfire night favourites coupled with seasonal ingredients, these treats will ensure our guests’ Saturday afternoon starts with a bang. Homemade breads, pastries and cakes full of big flavours are on the cards so we suggest our guests skip lunch and dinner!

What are your favourite afternoon tea treats?

Dinner at the Manor turns two!

Two years ago I hit the big 3-0 and as part of a ‘things to do before I’m 30’ list I thought I’d copy the likes of London and start up my own supperclub. It seemed far too a frightening thing to do all by myself and so I partnered up with my baking champ friend Sticky Pinny. People either thought we were bonkers for inviting strangers into my house and charging them for food, or they were completely intrigued by it. Now over 26 events, around 500 guests, and about 4000 plates of food later we’re still going strong and celebrating our two years as Leeds’ longest running secret supperclub.

Last year to celebrate our first anniversary we got blog readers to vote for what we should cook based on some of our most popular dishes from the past year of cooking. This year, however, we thought we’d give our own recipes a go. Readers will know that usually we base our events around a single cookbook in order to give them some use away from our cram packed book shelves! Anyway it’s our birthday so we thought it was our turn to shine!

October 2013 Menu – Dinner at the Manor turns Two!

How time flies when you’re having food fun!? Dan and I have been running Dinner at the Manor now for almost two years! It seems like yesterday when we opened up the door to our first guests. We were hooked!

To celebrate, we’ve created an extravagant 7 course menu (with a few added surprises!) that we feel epitomises mine and Dan’s cooking styles. This is the first time we’re going it alone without a cookbook and cuisin to rely on, exciting and scary at the same time! The food will be fun and hopefully something different for our guests old and new!

Get the champers and party poppers out, it’s going to be a party!