‘Simplicity at its best’: Cantaloupe, Stockport, reviewed

It was once the most famous restaurant in Stockport town centre.

It featured an ornate curved glass front staircase that scaled the facade of the building, a kitsch interior that caught the attention of every passer-by, and offered exotic foreign imports with utmost authenticity.

It made the best Double Cheeseburger you’ve ever tasted in all of your nine years on earth, and the chlorine streams from the parking lot only added to the experience.

Now Stockport has begun to change well and truly, and with it have come trendy, well-intentioned and almost frighteningly tasty new places to eat and drink.

But what good is a place if it gets twenty delicacies and eighteen places to eat, but loses its soul? It turns out that if you don’t completely disappear from your own bank, a lot.

What about Cantaloupe, the latest to ride into town, hitching a single speed to a lamp post by the air raid shelters and hanging his paneled hat by the door?

To begin with, there is a pedigree. The CVs of chefs Joshua Reed-Cooper and Mike Thomas take the places, which started appearing towards the end of the last decade; a bit wordy New Mancunia from the songs Where the Light Gets In and The Creameries and a bit of an old twist on the French. Meanwhile, manager Dylan Tiernan spent time with a nosebleed at Climat.

Which means they’re more au fait dining types, which took us a while to get used to; single sided A5 menus that read ee Cummings’ shopping list and a wait-and-see approach to wine pricing. A waking nightmare for someone with a limited budget and a hungry stomach.

But that’s not a bad thing, Old Mancunia was still stuck in Sicily, crammed with ten fritto mistos under a fresco of Sophia Loren. We needed another soap star hangout like we needed a hole in the head. We needed restaurants that serve really good food.

So when I descended on Stockport’s Underbanks to meet my now 21-year-old friend Ali for a quick pint before dinner, Cantaloupe’s menu had only been online for about five hours. Perhaps not great for cutting a fun budget, but ideal preparation for the kind of European dining that Cantaloupe does; menus that are, as their Instagram explains, “small, concise, and thoughtful. They change—and will continue to change—based on what we get and what we feel we want and should cook.

I have written before about the virtues a is what we have bistro menu and how it creates a different, arguably richer dining experience, such as the request to paint a portrait with a wooden board and chisel instead of whole works. You might surprise yourself.

The rillettes had run out though, which was a shame, but no matter; you live by the menu board, you die by the menu. And it was 8.30pm (yes, very European). So after a couple of chilled, refreshing gin martinis (£9 each) and a light waffle (for under £10 Martini delight) we just ordered bread and butter (£3.50) which let’s be honest. everyone likes to eat while sitting.

The bread was fluffy, chewy and just the right amount of malty, the perfect base for the right, vein-clogging butter topped with sea salt. Also ideal for power washing which we immediately ordered – I didn’t want to miss that chicken.

Or should I say chicken in vinegar and applesauce (£21), just my kind of menu writing where your imagination runs wild. Al decided lamb, Cime de rapa (a type of long-leaf Italian broccoli), almond and anchovies (£23). To share, we ordered the braised cannellini beans (£4) and puntarelle, fennel, endive and bottarga salad, salted and salted fish roe (£7).

Each of these, both alone and together, was simplicity at its best. Anyone can do good PR with their Instagram captions, it’s another thing to deliver.

Chicken leg with potato and vinegar-cream sauce. That’s it. It really is that straightforward. I suppose I could try these ingredients in my kitchen, but then Keith Richards’ Blue Lena is technically the same thing as a Vauxhall Astra; it’s what you do with what you have. Cantaloupe had chicken, potatoes and vinegar and it did this; small, concise, thought out and executed Jackal-likes precision and thrives. Fantastic.

Al, meanwhile, was very impressed with the lamb, a dream with anchovies and almonds, and said that while he could have made the sauce a bit thicker, it was, to quote, “really banging”.

The cannellini beans were stewed to the point where they almost took on a whole new DNA, not so much in the hops and herbs as in all the crap. They were the perfect alternative to the sometimes similar potato or similar carb because they were filling and healthy, but the belly of each bean is filled with something deep and complex. With that in mind, it had to be a bottle of red with all of the above, and from an admittedly somewhat steep but ever-changing list, we chose the Cantine Amato Vibrazioni Nero d’Avola 2020.

The salad, meanwhile, was bright and lemony, lit with an unusual and obsessive tinge of anise, subtly put together, not overpowering but powerful. With all dark meat and even darker sauces, it’s good to balance it with a little light. I don’t really keep track of whether I eat healthy (which is a really good job), but this was the Swiss health spa of a side dish, especially before dessert.

I rarely rate when I have a dining partner, especially one who remembers my post-pesto and Pizza Express diet, but in this case Ali had no choice but to order the sorbets when I went to Mont Blanc (£8). A bit mean, I thought, so we split them up.

Instead of one sorbet, we chose both; clementine (€3.50) and dark chocolate (€3.50). The clementine sorbet had the true core flavor of the fruit as it clearly used the peels, achieving what a good fruit sorbet does; every bite makes your mouth water so you quench it with another spoonful and so on and so forth.

However, the dark chocolate was a standout. It reflected the ceiling lights just as much as the chrome bowl it sat in, and was a swirling ball of chocolatey oblivion. Again, I don’t add these things up, but if I did, I’d wear a hair shirt for the next six months just to accommodate a scoop of that stuff.

And finally Mont Blanc, where the eternal universe of things flows through the mind and the opioid dose of chestnut puree, meringue and whipped cream had us nodding like Coleridge on cheat day. I love culinary nostalgia when it’s done well, and this dessert is proof that reaching back to the past for inspiration can not only enhance a contemporary menu, but also give it a touch of timelessness.

If you can’t tell, I had a great time at Cantaloupe. Like the menu, I’ll put it simply; I had bread and butter, chicken, beans, salad, dessert and red wine and it was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.

It was even better than the legendary Double Cheesy, which I think is a compliment indeed.

Cantaloupe, 71 Great Underbank, Stockport, SK1 1PE

Cantaloupe is in the guides