The Bull and Bear at The Stock Exchange Hotel, Manchester
12 November 2022
As Sarah and Jane reach the 247th year of their healthy eating kick [see my previous complaining in Outlaw’s Fish Kitchen, 12 July 2021], it’s time to delve back through the mists of time when fun was a thing and we used to eat dishes other than homemade salmon salad. Specifically, fancy pub grub. I’m at the point where I would happily flay someone with a biro for a portion of fish and chips.
Jane and I visited The Bull and Bear last autumn. At the time of dining, it was Tom Kerridge’s only restaurant north of London, most notably joining his two Michelin-starred pubs in Marlow - The Hand and Flowers (**) and The Coach (*) - as well as his other five in Buckinghamshire and the capital. Now there are none in the North of England. Two days before our visit, Kerridge announced that he had agreed with the owners of the Stock Exchange Hotel (former Manchester United great Gary Neville amongst them) to close the pub so that he could focus on his other ventures and the hotel could host a restaurant with longer and more flexible opening times. The pub delivered its last dinner service at end of 2022, with bookings becoming like gold dust during the late November and December window. The sharp eyed will have noticed that there is no link to The Bull and Bear’s website at the top of this page (by design, not due to me being useless and lacking attention to detail, thank you very much) because, well, it don’t exist. I should also say that if you were having a look through this blog to find inspiration for your next dinner out, this entry isn’t for you. If, however, you’re looking for a bit of pub grub food porn, then come on in (and what took you so long?!)
It would be remiss of me to focus solely on the restaurant at the expense of the hotel housing it. The Stock Exchange is on Norfolk Street, just a stone’s throw from Manchester’s busy Market Street, and the site of the city’s old stock exchange. Build in the very early 20th century in the Edwardian Baroque style, the building is very typical in design of a number of buidings constructed during Manchester’s later boom days. The restoration of the Grade 2 listed building has been very well done, and the dining room (of both The Bull and Bear and its successor) is situated on the old trading floor. It’s very impressive.
Yep, it’s a hotel. Here’s the lobby.
The beautiful dining room on the old trading floor.
We had been due to eat with my mum and step dad, but a bout of illness found Jane and me going alone. We were expecting big, delicious ale house fare, and we were not disappointed. One nice touch was the flexibility around menu choices. Two were on offer, and we were allowed by the very lovely front of house staff to pick and choose from both, which expanded our choices considerably. The a la carte menu was the fancier and more expansive (and expensive) one of the two, and the ‘Classics’, or set menu, offered some really nice options on a price fix basis, meaning you could get some great food from the brain of a Michelin-starred chef for not too much money at all. And I wanted pie, damn it, so was pleased that the flexibility to dip into both menus was there.
Here I have to admit to a bollocks up on my part. I was absolutely convinced (like, ‘would have bet you a hundred quid’ certain) that I had taken a snap of the drinks menu too. I had not. In any other blog post this would not cause an issue, because I’d jump online and download a PDF from the restaurant’s website and you would never be the wiser. However, sod’s law dictates that I do it on the one occasion where that isn’t an option. I’ve scoured the online archives, and no one else has thought to share a photo of it either. So, here are my best recollections for what we drank. The photo below is of Jane’s prossecco with pear sorbet, which she really enjoyed, and imagine, if you will, a pint of B&B’s house IPA for me, because I was at the pub and was ordering pie. I’m going to really come up a cropper later on, because I ordered a glass of dessert wine with my pudding and cannot for the life of me remember what it was. I recall it being just alright, so don’t feel too badly that I am doing you out of a solid recommendation, but I still feel very embarrassed by the whole thing. A solid D- on the report card under ‘Drinks’ this time - see me after class for detention and flogging.
Prosecco with pear sorbet
Self flaggelation at an end, let’s crack on with the food, which we were much more organised about.
Jane and I were talking about our typical food preferences the other day and concluded that, as a rule, I’m much more open to choosing vegetarian and fish dishes than she is. Not that she doesn’t like those things but, as the old addage goes, you can take the girl out of Southern barbecue country etc etc. Not that all menu options have to include whole or part hog - it’s just nice if they do.
Saying that, there are nuances, fashions and moods, as there are with all things in life. At the time of our visit, and still as it happens, Jane was particularly partial to a piece of venison. So she erred towards the fancier menu for her starter and main led by that option. Where I was concerned, I was not to be swayed towards non-meat options at The Bull and Bear. I was in full on carnivor mode and, if some of the flesh could be wrapped in pastry, so much the better. So I veered off in the direction of the Classics. Pig’s head. Check. Beef pie. Check.
We agreed to collaborate a bit more on starters than we usually do, negotiating in advance (albeit a bit grudgingly on my part) to split everything down the middle. The first of our shared starters were a duo of delicious, buttery and tangy cheese scones with a creamy Marmite and mustard butter. The scones were festooned with additional mature cheddar, and were served just a little warm making them soft and pillowy on the inside and ensuring that the savoury and spicy butter would melt into them. They were wonderful, and reminded us of the cheese scones we’d shared at Rogan & Co during the previous month [see Rogan & Co, 2 October 2022].
We also ordered a portion of the fennel and chorizo beer sticks, which were chewy, and tangy and spicy with the aniseed fennel, making them a kind of mash-up between a licorice stick and the fanciest Pepparami you’ve ever eaten. It wasn’t clear whether there was any beer included in the process of making them, or whether they just go great with beer, but I can confirm that they paired very well with my IPA, so I’m erring on the latter.
And what of the pig’s head, you ask? The pig’s head was really good. It was served shredded and fried in a crispy batter shell, and was soft and sweet. On the side was a fantastic, spicy and sweet/sour date brown sauce, crunchy and fresh celeriac remoulade and a stick of crispy and salty pork crackling. The balance of these elements was particularly lovely, which I really appreciated when I managed to get a bite containing all four of the main elements.
On reflection, despite my very slight grumpiness about having to share my pig’s head, doing starters this way was absolutely the right thing to do. The three elements created the sense of really good, elevated pub snacks - think door-stop bread and butter, Pepperami and pork scratchings. I was very happy with my beer and the snacks, and could have ordered more of both and whiled away the evening in ‘Saturday night down the pub’ contentment. But not on this occasion. We had mains to contend with.
Cheddar cheese scones with marmite butter
Fennel and chorizo beer sticks
Crispy pigs head, date brown sauce, celeriac remoulade
Jane’s venison dish was right up her street for a number of reasons. Firstly, there was the fact it was venison which we’ve already talked about. I’ll draw your attention to the photo below to admire the blush on that bad boy - this piece of loin (the bit that runs parrallel to the spine of the deer) was perfectly cooked and melt-in-the-mouth tender. It was served with Indian spice, both in the cooking of the meat and in the fantastic sweet and fresh spiced celeriac mash it was resting on. It was served with a rich and meaty gravy and a cooling minty yoghurt reminiscent of a good raita. Those spicy and cooling flavours were replicated in the side salad, which was actually a Doner kebab complete with flatbread and more spiced venison, which was delicious. This was a really well thought out dish, showcasing elevated pub grub done really well. Jane loved it, and I admit to this being one of those slightly frustrating occasions where I wish I’d ordered it myself.
Tandoori spiced venison, butter crushed celeriac, minted yoghurt, ‘Doner’ salad
My own dish absolutely hit the spot in satisfying my need for a meat pie. I was really pleased to see the beef and blue cheese combo in this one - I’ve got a real soft spot for Stilton generally and beef and Stilton together, and the balance of tender, earthy meat and sharp, rich cheese in this one worked very well. The hot water crust pastry was a nice touch too. Often seen in things like game-filled picnic pies, this lard-based type of pastry is less commonly used in meat pies of this style - you usually see either butter-based short crust or puff pastry - but creates a crispier overall finish, and also means that you can construct the pie in a free form fashion rather than needing to use a tin. I thought the presentation of this pie as quite fun - meat and cheese handgrenade, anyone?
The pie was served with mash potates, a rich and sweet onion gravy and wilted spinach. The gravy was really good, but I thought the potatoes and greens were a bit of a let down, being a bit too smooth and wet to stand up to the pie. Fortunately, we’d let our lovely server talk us into ordering an additional side of B&B chips, which she said were really good and she was right. They were possibly the biggest chips I’ve ever eaten, and were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, and had evidently been cooked in some kind of animal fat making them delicious. A couple of these with the pie and gravy worked really well.
Beef and Stilton pie, mash potatoes, onion gravy
The B&B Chips
On to dessert, and Jane was in the mood for custard. Of course she was. The regular reader will know that Jane and custard have a special relationship which makes the one between the the US President and the UK Prime Minister pale in comparison [see Barnacle, 26 February 2022]. For the non-British reader, on a cultural point its worth noting that after leaving school your most consistent supplier of custard is the pub, where its typically served with everything containing a snifter of sugar, and The Bull and Bear wouldn’t really be able to claim to be a pub in any sense if you could obtain some custard at some point.
The B&B’s custard came with the apple crumble souffle, which was light and well risen, containing chunks of fresh apply and icluding a crumbly, oaty topping. The custard itself contained a good glug of Calvados, that sweet, spicy and floral apple brandy from northern France, which complimented the apple in the souffle really well, and there was also a bit of vanilla ice cream to provide a bit of contrast in temperature. Despite not being a huge fan of souffle, Jane enjoyed this dessert because it provided so many of the things she likes - apple, crumble, custard, ice cream. And there is something inherently impressive about a well risen souffle, isn’t there?
Apple crumble souffle, Calvados custard, vanilla ice cream
Look at the rise on that!
I jumped ship in menu terms for dessert, choosing a kind of death by orange chocolate thing, or orange chocolate delice if you want to be specific about it. I really love the combination of orange and chocolate, and with Christmas just around the corner I was starting to get into the festive spirit and upping my orange chocolate intake for the festive period. Back to specifics, a chocolate delice is essentially a very dense, rich chocolate mousse, and this one was topped with a hard chocolate disk containing crispy puffed rice and served with a scoop of salted milk ice cream, which was fabuolus. The bold level of salt cut through the very rich orange chocolate, and the snap of the chocolate disk and puffed rice created some interest in texture terms.
Chocolate orange delice, puffed rice and salted milk ice cream
Dinner for two at The Bull and Bear came out to around £150, which included tip. Evidently, this is the pricier end of the spectrum for a pub dinner, and there were a couple of areas where elements could have been improved. But it was possible to eat less expensively if you stuck to the Classics menu, and overall the dishes were pretty special.
So long, Tom Kerridge - hope to see you in the North West again one day. Were glad we made it to the Bull and Bear while you were in town.
And what about the toast sandwich?
Jane - The celeriac served with my venison. Fresh but showcasing the delicious Indian spices really well, with was the perfect accompanyment to the fabulous venison loin.
Sarah - The salt milk ice cream served with my chocolate dessert. A really bold hit of salt with a smooth and creamy texture. It was really something.