We went to the sticky walnut to celebrate my partners birthday. It’s a lovely little intimate place.
It was a special celebration and the food matched up to the occasion.
The waiter who looked after us had a good knowledge of all the dishes and described in detail when we asked him about the menu.
The food itself was absolutely fantastic.
We have eaten at a few Michelin star restaurants and the food here was as tasty as any food we have eaten in these, if not more so.
The best compliment I can give, is that all four of us will be back to the Sticky Walnut to try something else if we can get past the fact that we all loved what we have already eaten on the menu.
This restaurant is absolutely fabulous. The staff were attentive, friendly and efficient. The food was amazing from start to finish. As a vegan I let them know in advance and I arrived to a menu that had choices. I could have eaten it all...the bread and olives were the best I have ever had and that was just to begin. The whole meal was absolutely amazing. I will so be going back (when I can get booked in!) thank you our evening was brilliant. I will be recommending this wonderful restaurant to everyone I know. X
I love this place, never fails to satisfy, 3rd time there and will definitely return. Had the early bird menu this time, well worth the money, can not speak more highly if the place
Pork Terrine, Chicken Liver Pate we’re our starters - absolutely loved both of them, the flavours and textures were perfect.
Celeriac Risotto & Pork for mains - both absolutely perfect, presentation and contrast of flavours were beautiful - I had pickled vegetable squares with my risotto and it balanced the dish so well.
Desserts - honeycomb Ice cream, fig and almond tart and coconut rice pudding - yes we had an extra dessert (because we couldn’t say no to the honeycomb Icecream!!)
Everything was fantastic and the gent who served us was great, talkative and helpful when suggesting dishes.
Safe to say we tried everything from bread nibbles to coffee and truffles. Can’t fault a thing. Thanks everyone
Brilliant food from start to finish! Hands down the best meal I’ve had in Chester - lived here five years and only just got round to checking it out! Don’t leave it as long as me before you try! Lovely and efficient staff too!
Fantastic food, great menu! Would love it more if the staff explained the dishes as they presented them to you. Highly recommend!
We celebrated our wedding anniversary at Sticky Walnut after a recommendation from a friend. A really lovely evening, great menu, great food, great service - will highly recommend and definitely be back😊
We have eaten here twice. Both times we have not been disappointed. The food is amazing. Praise to the fantastic staff. Friendly efficient and knowledgeable. We will be back to try the Sunday lunch!
I was celebrating my birthday with my family and it was a truly lovely meal, friendly staff and a great experience. Will certainly be returning.
An amazing find. Beautiful food, great service and excellent value. We had the early bird menu and were really impressed. Book well in advance to avoid disappointment😃😃
Thank you so much for a lovely birthday meal last night! Food was delicious - shame we had no room for desert! Thank you Sticky! ���
Sunday Lunch at the Sticky Walnut.
Perfection on a plate!
The best Sunday Lunch I’ve had 👍
Exceptional, one of the best meals I have had. We were booked in a restaurant opposite that took our booking and then had no food to serve- the Sticky Walnut came to the rescue and took us straight in. So glad we ate there, the service was perfect, friendly but professional and the food out of this world. Thank you
Eaten at the Sticky Walnut twice and both times the service has been great and the food a total triumph. My favourite place to eat when visiting Chester. Highly recommended.
Lovely atmosphere, friendly efficient staff & excellent food! What’s not to like? Will definitely go again .
Visited Sticky Walnut for my birthday yesterday. The pâté lived up to the expectation and the beef dinner was to die for! Can't wait to come back!
Went to sticky walnut hubbys bday excellent food , excellent environment and lovely staff 👍
Lovely meal last night with superb service. Would definitely recommend it and it's intimate atmosphere
Another great lunch today, service, ambiance and above all food spot on!
Full on a Monday lunch must say a lot!
I love this restaurant! I booked for my boyfriends 30th Birthday and the staff and food were 5* couldn’t of been more special! Thank You �
This was our first visit to the Sticky Walnut and we enjoyed everything about it - the service was great, the food and drink was delicious and the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. We'll definitely be back.
Fantastic restaurant in Hoole, been a couple of times and the food and service have been first class.
Called in at short notice had really nice table, staff excellent and the food 🥘 unbelievably great!
Top notch! Had mackerel starter, lamb main and Jamaica dessert. Each course was amazingly presented and tasted awesome. Thank you for a wonderful anniversary meal x
Friendly, efficient staff. Delicious and beautifully presented food. Well done, guys!
Great food great place lovely people what more could you want.
Great place to eat...food tastes so fresh & delicious... will be back
Excellent food and service, we had the chateaubriand which was delicious. My only complaint is the chairs aren't that comfy but won't stop me returning!!
I cannot rave on enough about this place, our 3rd visit now and it just gets better every time. Amazing food and the staff, well if you want to see how customer service should be done then look no further. Absolutely 1st class so big thanks to you all, we look forward to our next visit.
The food was delicious, the atmosphere was great & the service was excellent. A really lovely evening.
Fantastic food...excellent service. 2nd time we've been and there most definitely will be a 3rd!
Vibrant, vivacious and busy restaurant with an innovative and ever changing menu.
Staff were friendly and welcoming , a young team but they knew their menu and drinks also. What a choice , had problems deciding but we were not disappointed. Beautiful flavours and well presented.......
I would totally recommend visiting Sticky Walnut, not only is the food scrumptious. The is lovely venue with a good ambiance and the staff were friendly and helpful....
My grandmother used to live in Hoole. It wasn’t very cool then; as kids our dining highlight was lunch in the Morrison’s cafe. We haven’t changed much – my sister and I still bicker incessantly after a few hours in each other’s company, and my dad still thinks it’s hilarious to wind everyone up – but luckily Hoole has. It’s now got some decent drinking holes, a hip barbershop doing a roaring beard trade, and the place we are here for – Sticky Walnut.
These are genuine questions myself and my husband asked each other while dining at Sticky Walnut a couple of weeks ago. . The menu at Sticky Walnut in Chester, chef Gary Usher’s first location in the north, had sounded slightly more appealing to me than that of the much-closer-to-home Hispi, so off we hopped on a train.
I’m not sure what I expected of Sticky Walnut, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t what we got. I don’t want to it to sound like I wasn’t happy; on the contrary; the small team here delivered an almost flawless meal from start to finish. It’s just that the place’s reputation conjures something more exuberant and flashier than the reality of a small bistro in a suburb of Chester. The décor is basic; bare tables and chairs, a blackboard, and a bookshelf adorned with some serious cookbooks. Staff wear jeans and aprons, looking and acting like they enjoy being there. It’s all a bit of a revelation to how dining can be with the stuffiness completely removed. As much as I enjoy donning a suit and tie to have dinner at Le Gavroche, I’m enjoying being here on the basis that they don’t care who I am provided I am not being a twat.
Took my wife for a birthday lunch as getting an evening booking difficult. Very interesting menu. Staff very helpful and efficient. We each had 3 courses and choose different dishes. All were very well presented and tasted great. Would have any of them again. We plan on booking an evening meal.
For all Chester's undoubted charms - the stunning medieval "rows", the Roman ruins, the zoo with its walk-through bat cave (a particular favourite of mine, that), it's probably fair to say that few people have ever made a special effort to visit this picturesque North West town for the dynamic food scene. OK, so there's the Grosvenor hotel which, over the years, has hosted a succession of high-falutin' chefs and I'm sure is very nice but a quick look at the menu tends to suggest it's the kind of star-chasing fine-dining that you'd find at any number of 5* hotel restaurants rooms up and down the country. Without wanting to denigrate Grosvenor chef Simon Radley's achievements, there's nothing particularly Chester about a £100/head tasting menu of Anjou pigeon with morels, and turbot and artichoke.
A little interview I did with chef Gary Usher of Sticky Walnut and Burnt Truffle fame along with the recent photo shoot. BACON: I was a bit surprised. when I first met you as you weren't really like I expected from your twitter. 'bantz' and rants. In the early days especially was it that you let out your understandable frustrations and stress on twitter?
GARY: Yes. In the early days I wrote many responses on Tripadvisor and deleted before sending because I didn't want potential guests to think I was arrogant. Instead I took the piss on Twitter with all the people who loved us.
My first proper blog post, and what better way to start than the Sticky Walnut in Hoole (nr. Chester), currently one of Cheshire’s most talked about restaurants. I must admit that I was a latecomer to the Sticky Walnut and only heard about it last year through a friend. After checking out the menu online I added it to the list of places to visit.
To start, people who work in the kitchen had put breast and leg from a quail in a bowl with a carrot purée, choi sum and some dukkah (which is a mixture of nuts, herbs and spices from Egypt (where the Pyramids are). Around this they had poured a vegetable ‘nage’, which is a type of poncy broth.
![Zomato]( "Recensione")
Perfect local bistro. It's smashing! The chef trained at Chez Bruce (this is his first solo venture) and it shows. Both the room (pretty, bustly, cosy, casual, romantic) and the food are like a simpler, gutsier, more informal and British CB, and it's the same sort of 'perfect local bistro' but for a younger, Northern and less loaded crowd.
Salad of roasted beets, carrots, pumpkin seeds, sticky walnuts and ricotta to start. There was a kick of something fiery in there too. I then had a melting shin of beef in an unctuous sauce with a parsnip/celeriac/mustardy cream and truffle chips, and himself had a HUGE slab of rolled and stuffed pork belly with excellent crackling on lentils with bacon. Creme brulee and a good cheese plate (Beaufort, Gaberon, Munster and Fourme d'Ambert with walnut bread and quince) to close.
All just as they should be. Only thing that was a teensy bit off the mark was the speed with which the food arrived (service was otherwise excellent). We got our starters literally 5 minutes after ordering, which smacked of being pre-plated. And then our mains 5 mins after the starters had been cleared. They were obviously done to order but it would have been nice to have more of a breather. We were the first to arrive, so the kitchen will have had time to do our table...but it felt like they wanted to get our order out of the way asap, so we were pretty much done within an hour. At a lunchtime that would have been fine, but on a wintry Friday night you want to linger a bit...
Anyway. It's a nicer problem to have than the flipside, so we will definitely be back, but maybe just ask them to take their finger off fast forward..
We finally made it to Sticky Walnut one Friday night. Being based in Chester it is out the way for us being south of in-between Manchester and Liverpool. With Mr Nom working in Wrexham one week he suggested we make a booking. However with it being just after rush hour on a Friday evening it was quite a horrendous drive from Manchester whilst Mr Nom cantered in from nearby Wrexham. For starters I chose flamed mackerel, apple salsa with lemon, fennel and couscous which sounded enticing and it delivered. The apple was tangy and the lemon and fennel couscous was really fresh which worked beautifully against the fish. Nr Nom chose the crispy lamb’s tongue with chickpeas, goat’s curd and green charmoula. The shin of beef main was so tender, I wasn't too keen on the elderflower, but the crispy pa rsnip crisps added lovely texture and crunch to the dish, contrasting with the soft and juicy beef. With no quail wellington on the menu Mr Nom ordered the grouse was from the specials board whi
"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." *
This quote popped into my head just as I was polishing off the tart at Sticky Walnut. It seems wholly appropriate as everything is as it should be here. The pork belly is the pork belly by which all others shall be judged and found wanting, usually. Gelatinous, rich and unctuous, oozing with lovely fat and with the satisfying crunch on the crackling. Like all sensible people, we're not scared of fat, we all know that's where the best flavour is. Large convivial Christmas groups all around us are tucking into turkey. (They have to put it on, people demand it in the festive season). I'm sure it's good here, as good as the naturally bland, dry bird can be but it can never in a million years touch the simple beauty of this pork belly. If there's a better example of this dish in the UK I'd love to know where it is.
I'd still like to sneak in a little lunch at Sticky Walnut at some point over the next few months. They're in need of money too; £100,000 to be precise. You might have seen on twitter that they're raising money via Kickstarter for their new restaurant Burnt Truffle. If you've not already given, please send them a few quid if only to shut them up going on about it. If it's only a tenner, even I managed to promise them that.
So for the want of having nothing else to post, (apart from past Spanish reviews and nobody is interested in those,) here's some of my favourite Sticky Walnut dishes from the last few visits.
When you waste as much time as I do on twitter (mainly looking at pictures of food and dogs etc,) you feel as though you 'know' people even though you've actually never met them. So when Marina O'Loughlin glowingly reviewed the Sticky Walnut in The Guardian a few months back, quite a few of us Sticky fans were well chuffed for the whole team. It wasn't a feeling of, oh she likes somewhere we do. I think it's because if you follow chef Gary Usher's entertaining tweets all the time, and his ups and downs, it seemed like a real life event that we felt we were somehow part of, like a narrative that had a happy ending for a change.
I was a fan of Sticky Walnut before I'd even visited. This is because chef Gary Usher is one of the most entertaining, funniest people that I follow on twitter. He always seems to be on the edge of a minor breakdown and anything can push him over the edge (usually a Tripadvisor review). Rather like Basil Fawlty thrashing that car, it's actually really funny reading their twitter feed and as a punter you get a real insight into the madness of running a restaurant. It was the wittiest response I've ever read (to a petty minded and stupid review as they tend to be), that first caught my attention a few months ago. It was the first time I can recall where a restaurant actually draws your attention to a bad review but flips it on its head by making a joke out of it and showing you how absurd many TA 'reviews' are.
Going for the lamb double whammy I had ‘Chargrilled Rump Of Lamb, Green Beans, Pearl Barley, Dressing’ for my main course. Rump of lamb is my favourite cut and this was exceptional, an extreme charring on the outside gave loads of lovely caramelised flavour while the inside remained pink and juicy. Served on pearl barley – a hugely underrated grain – with green beans and a meaty jus to bring it all together.
Wanted to come here ages ago, so for our anniversary we stayed in the lovely Chester and throughly enjoyed our evening at Sticky Walnut, highly recommend this eatery. Many thanks to all the team, who clearly run very smoothly together. 👍
A gem of a find during our 2 night stay in Chester. I booked it a month ago after reading reviews.
Delighted to have celebrated our wedding anniversary here
Both menus are really good. I had the 3 course bistro menu ( red Thai fish cake, sticky chicken thighs and honeycomb ice cream,) my husband had the a la carte.(lamb rump and baked yoghurt)
Definitely worth a visit if you like good food and service!
We had a great experience from start to finish ! The service was great and the food was fantastic . We could see the chefs hard at work from our table. Went for our 5 year anniversary and had a brilliant time .
I booked a table for my 30th birthday and I loved it!
It was a very nice small restaurant with great service a lovely atmosphere and amazing food.
The item I wasn't too keen on was the spring roll which I thought was a bit naff.
Otherwise, everything else was great and they even catered for my vegan wife.
Oh, and their absolute best dish was their truffle chips, best chips I have ever had!
Fabulous food and service. Everything tasted wonderful. But it was the extra touches... the 'happy anniversary' and the 'do you I require a taxi?' not expected, but very welcome ... lovely evening, and can't wait to return. Thank you 😊
Nice, varied menu. Struggled to choose. Delightful birthday meal. Will definitely be back.
Great service and nice staff.
The food was very good, the chicken liver paté was amazing. Nice portion sizes and fair prices
My first time here after wanting to go for years and boy was it worth the wait. We chanced a visit at lunch time for my birthday treat. We had the 3 course lunch (£40 or 2 courses for £35). The sharing sirloin steak was an additional £30.
It was such high quality and they didn't scrimp on portion sizes either 👍. My dog even benefitted with the bone 🍖😁.
A fantastic little bistro with a great lunchtime menu. We try and stop of for lunch on our way to Anglesey for our holidays. It's one of the highlights
Had an amazing lunch, warm atmosphere, felt comfortable and clean. Great service and a very, very reasonably priced lunch considering the quality of ingredients and cooking. Would highly recommend and definitely visit again when back in the area.
Lovely find while visiting Chester. Top class service down to every little detail. Interesting dishes which a fine balance between homely and gourmet. Would visit again!
Spent a lovely evening in SW well worth a visit
The best meal I have ever had in Chester! Exquisite flavours and friendly staff would highly recommend! Compliments to the chef X x
A lovely dining experience. Fabulous food in an unstuffy atmosphere. My starter ranked as one of my best tasting dishes ever.
Lovely food. Great service. One of the best places in Chester. 3 courses and wine approx £110. Book well in advance at weekends.
Wow the food was excellent, our waiter Adele suggested the duck confit and was be of best I have had. Newish menu staff are brilliant
Very nice meal as always last night at the Sticky Walnut, remains one of the top restaurants in the area.
Always delish and a delight! Our starters were really great. If I ordered again I'd definitely go for the belly bacon over the sea trout. The latter was very nice but the bacon was next level. We had the ham hock to share for our main, which fell off the bone and had plenty of parsley sauce. Very nice wines by the glass too.
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