“A place to be very proud of”: Next Door, Frodsham, reviewed

Restaurant recommendations can sometimes be a godsend, as planning where to visit for the coming months can feel like running a war room, pushing counters and characters around the flat Northwest. Today we visit Trafford. Next week Warrington.

I was sitting in Harcourt in Altrincham in January and I was chatting to someone in the bar about my job and he asked if I had been to Frodsham. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t heard much about the place beyond, which was once under the yoke of Liverpool’s Djibril Cissé, lord of Frodsham Manor.

Fortunately, this handsome market town is now associated with a much more prestigious and highly rated name; Next Door, a family-owned restaurant on Main Street.

When a neighborhood restaurant has a cult following and locals beam with pride, you know they’re interested

Housed in a wood-framed 18th-century building that was long a butcher shop run by owner Vicki’s family, Next Door is an equally intimate affair, with Vicki serving as sommelier and husband Richard as chef patron. The beams are older than most nation states and the interior of the place is very stylish. Dating back to the 17th century, the effect should be impressive enough, but thanks to fine-tuning to the interior during the last few months of closure, it’s now subdued to look at.

The same approach has been carried through to the menu, which is modern in the way you might have come to expect; less is more. None of the manifesto-length ingredients or dish descriptions, much of the lunch menu was a series of well-balanced quartets.

A basket was brought to the table with two small loaves of bread, that torturous appetizer temptation that is too hard to give up. These were canola oil and poppy seed breads, beautifully sweet from the oil and poppy seeds and perfectly fluffy on the inside. The portion of salted butter was more than generous, but I’m sure I would have found a way to finish it off more.

I took my mum for a late lunch on a Friday – the menu was a manageable three courses for £35 – and for starters I chose salted salmon, monkfish, scallop coral and egg yolk. It’s a familiar face on menus, of course, but when salted salmon is done right, it’s certainly one of the titans of this type of dining; a star ingredient that elevates everything around it without having to shout too loudly.

It arrived in a neat little arrangement, the ingredients nicely dressed and the size of an appetizer that, even the right amount, only makes you greedier in that slightly sadistic way that only a chef could contemplate.

It was zesty but not lacking in significant punch and flavor, no easy feat for a subdued fish like salmon. Meanwhile, my mother chose the salt-cured carver duck with “bitter leaves, aromatic spices, fruits, nuts”. Again, I like the simple statement sending in the menus because you’re not sure which configuration it will all appear in. You can just trust the process, and you should. This was just as delicious if not more so than the salmon.

With menus like this, if you’re a table of two, you’ll often end up choosing between you so you’ve seen most of what’s on offer. I chose venison with anise, turnips, sage and swede. Mom went for North Sea cod with smoked eel, salad and young leek. It covers it almost from land to sea.

I have to say, Mom may have won the battle with the starter, but I definitely won the war. The venison was utterly beautiful, and the anise gave it an earthy, sweet and addictively unusual flavor, one of those wonderful ingredients when put into real food and allowed to show off its distinct, slightly confusing flavors. The turnip and swede complimented it very well with their rootiness and of course there was an extra little pot of jus. After all, you are here to enjoy yourself. The cod was also very nice, but the venison was something a little special.

Dessert could have gone like a chocolate sponge, but chocolate desserts never pull me right away. Lemon balm brulee with basil ice cream and polenta, though. There are just too many interesting ideas out there for me not to dive into them.

When we first sat down, a couple who were just leaving were obviously so excited about this dessert that they just had to suggest it. That was all the encouragement I needed.

What a delicious, well executed gem of a dessert. The brulee was lightly lemony but still had a strong lemony character – no wince-inducing posset – and the polenta crisp could be packed and multiplied so I could eat endlessly. But the basil ice cream was an absolute delight. I understood why the couple used to feel the need to talk. Keep me converted.

On top of that we had a glass of Kloovenburg chardonnay from South Africa (£11.50). Well, mom had two. I drove (bloody Cheshire). It was an absolute blast of interesting, intersecting notes, all balanced into something really well chosen. A great sign of the level of thought owners Vicki and Richard Nuttall put into this place.

When we left and went a few doors down to a wine and cheese shop, we got to chat with the owner, who was a fully paid student at Next Door, as many seem to be. When a neighborhood restaurant is the talk of the town and the locals are beaming with pride, you know they’re on to something.

Next Door has already impressively racked up the usual accolades – three AA rosettes, Michelin and Good Food Guide labels, but the real testament to its food’s reputation lies in the fact that some random guy in Altrincham suggested I go there when there was plenty close to home restaurants.

Forget the Lords of the Manor and the fact that Gary Barlow grew up here, Frodsham has been given a new and more than deserved place of local pride; make a trip to Cheshire and book a table at Next Door.

Next door68 Main St, Frodsham WA6 7AU

Next Door is in the guides