S. Worthen | Weblog

Location: 62 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, downhill from the Catholic cathedral, uphill from the Adelphi

It's an innocuous Georgian townhouse in a quiet stretch of Mount Pleasant Road, not too far up from the Adelphi hotel. The chalkboards outside advertise that, up the steps, is a restaurant. austengirl recommended Heart and Soul for groups, and a group we had, the BSHS Strolling Players and I. In a comfortably large room tastefully done up in neutrals and enlivened with artwork, the eight of us gathered along a spacious table to eat.

The menu presented all sorts of good choices, from the pizzas and pastas made in-house to a variety of interesting mains tied up in two- and three-course bargains. Even the pizzas and pastas were, with the dish plus a glass of house wine coming in at UKP 7.50. The appetizers were appealing, but desserts were even more so, so we agreed to hold out for them. I resisted the blue cheese and parma ham pizza, and instead had my third risotto of the week, wild mushroom and madeira. It was wonderful, rich, sumptuous, but not overpowering.

Let me tell you something important: I really like sticky toffee pudding, but most of them dissapoint me. At Heart and Soul, I ate the second-best sticky toffee pudding of my life. It was full flavored, with light cake unctuously suffused in lovely toffee sauce, dense without being too sweet. It was a pleasant. So too was the bite of J's grapefruit and campari sorbet, the tart cutting refreshingly through the sweet of mine. L's cherry ice cream was understated and confident and creamy.

Heart and Soul is lovely, accessible, reasonably priced, comfortable, and offers very nice food indeed. You should try it too.

P.S. The woman working front of house says that, for the sake of all Liverpool, currently lacking an independent one, austengirl needs to open her own bakery. Well?

Location: The Racquet Club, Hargreaves Building, 5 Chapel Street, Liverpool

It's lunchtime on a weekday, and I'm sitting alone at a white linen-covered table in the high-ceilinged elegance of what was once an exclusive Victorian sports club, now a hotel with restaurant. Ziba is the restuarant and bar portion, with plenty of staff but not a lot of custom at this particular mealtime.

I've been compulsively ordering risotti lately, so I consciously resist it this time. I begin with a delicately earthy watercress and potato soup. Cooked watercress reminds me of cooked lettuce, no bad thing, but it loses its distinctiveness in the process. In theory, the smooth soup has truffle oil in it. If it does, it is exceedingly subtle. I can't detect it, but am entirely willing to believe there's mushroom in the stock.

Pan-fried hake, not quite caramelized by the heat, is perched on a friendly, substantial bed of feta-flecked mash. It comes with a wondeful pile of cooked cherry tomatoes. Sadly, I think, these are the best tomatoes I've had all year. That's not really saying a lot about this year's tomato standards in my life.

Dessert is my second sticky toffee pudding of the week, decent, but it doesn't hold a candle to the previous one. The cake itself is good, but the sauce tastes of sugar and not much else; no caramelly or toffee goodness suffuses it.

Ziba is a perfectly decent restaurant, competent, useful in its hours, with reasonably-priced multi-course offers and competent, reasonably-social service. Its portions are generous and the atmosphere pleasant; but for what it was aiming at, I felt it could have done better.*

* I think of this as the "Cornish restaurant problem". I planned last year's trip to Cornwall around hotels with restaurants listed in the The Good Food Guide. The hotels were all great; the restaurants all had the right pretensions, but none of them quite lived up to our hopes. None were as exciting as we expected.

Location: 12 Stanley Street, Liverpool, centrally located

The stairs at Delifonseca go in two directions from the main door. Downstairs is the deli, Liverpool's only by all reports, and a pretty good one at that. I was tempted by unusual mustards, vinegars, and chocolates. Upstairs is the restaurant, which also helps provision the deli with sandwiches and salads. Apparently, sandwiches are half-price after 3 pm.

I met austengirl there for lunch yesterday. They have perhaps fifteen tables, not large, not too small, and mostly occupied on a weekday at prime lunchtime. The substantial menu was supplemented by a whole variety of specials up on the chalkboard. I couldn't remember ever having a Po'Boy before, and roast beef is one of their specialties, so I tried a bit of New Orleans in Liverpool. The beef was decent, although I'd been hoping for something richer, but the handcut chips and salad it came with were excellent. austengirl had the muffaletta, but they don't just serve food from New Orleans! The menu had a whole variety of world sandiwches, Thai salads, English pies.

For dessert, I had a lovely, gently warm hazelnut cake with Cheshire chocolate ice cream. My first thought when it arrived was "Nutella!", but really wasn't. austengirl had high praise for her pecan pie: it was about as good as the one she makes herself.

Service was friendly, if occasionally slow, but that was partially our fault for bouts of indecision. The atmosphere is pleasant, a little more upscale than café, but not intimidatingly so. If I lived more locally, it would be a very easy place to drop in on a regular basis for lunch, afternoon snacks, or dinner. An article in Restaurant magazine, combined with hobbitblue's endorsement, brought me there, but I would happily go back without prompting. Next trip to Liverpool, then?

Location: 40 Hope Street, Liverpool, about halfway between the two cathedrals, in the Hope Street Hotel

( A really good wild mushroom and shallot risotto... )

Service was friendly and usually helpful, ambiance was pleasant, and as hotel restaurants go, it's mighty fine. Overall, it serves classy comforts, improving on classics more than blatantly innovating, and that's okay. It's accessible enough to be a good local restaurant, if you had the budget for it.