The Flintlock at Cheddleton

The Flintlock at Cheddleton aims to bring relaxed fine dining with an emphasis on local, seasonal produce to this Staffordshire Moorlands village.

Opened just over a week ago in the building that was formerly Castro’s, I paid my first visit last weekend.

And from what I ate, I’d say The Flintlock is off to a great start.

At its canal side location for almost twenty years, it’s fair to say most locals, including myself, were surprised when the closure of Castro’s Restaurant in Cheddleton was announced at the beginning of this year. Family reasons were cited, and the adjoining Ocean’s Coffee & Waffle House, owned by the same family, would also close.

But it wasn’t long before any disappointment turned to excitement. News shortly followed that another family member, Thom Bateman, would be opening a fine dining restaurant on the site: The Flintlock.

Although Thom trained as a chef and worked at Castro’s as a youngster, he’d afterwards decided to move on to other things.

But he returned to his love of cooking in April 2019 when he set up an Instagram account: bboxfood.

Quickly gaining thousands of followers with his beautifully photographed dishes, there was huge anticipation at the prospect of being able to taste food you could previously only admire from afar.

THE FLINTLOCK AT CHEDDLETON

Of course, with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, the planned June 2020 opening for The Flintlock at Cheddleton couldn’t go ahead.

But in September it was all systems go with a new kitchen and refurbished restaurant.

Except, a few days after opening and with COVID cases on the rise, tighter restrictions were imposed on the hospitality industry. This included smaller group bookings and a 10pm closing time.

Starting up a new restaurant must be incredibly stressful at any time. But to have nevertheless achieved it in the current climate is doubly impressive.

ETHOS: LOCAL, RELAXED FINE DINING

As well as the draw of that fabulous looking food that kept cropping up on my Instagram feed, it was clear from the start that chef patron Thom was committed to using as much local and seasonal produce as possible. Precisely the ethos of Moorlands Eater!

I was particularly pleased to see that The Flintlock would be using two of my recommended local producers. These are top quality, high welfare meat from Dunwood Farm and exceptional handmade cheese from the Staffordshire Cheese Company.

Dunwood is just a few miles away and Staffordshire Cheese is virtually next door to the restaurant.

Although The Flintlock styles itself as a fine dining restaurant, don’t go thinking that means the place is stuffy and formal.

This is very friendly, casual fine dining with prices to suit a range of budgets.

MENUS

While Thom’s reputation is likely to bring diners from afar, I think locals and regulars looking for something special at a reasonable price won’t be disappointed either.

Wednesday to Friday evenings, alongside the à la carte menu of individually priced dishes, there’s also a Kitchen Menu. Changing regularly, this offers 2 courses for £20 or 3 courses for £24. A sample Kitchen Menu shows two choices per course. It might include starters like caramelised onion soup with Staffordshire cheese crouton, a main of cottage pie made with slow braised ox cheek, and panna cotta with strawberries for pudding.

As you’d expect, there’s also a Sunday lunch menu. This is £22 for 2 courses or £27 for 3 courses. Whether you like a traditional Sunday roast with local quality meat or something a little different, it looks like there’ll be plenty of choice.

I love that The Flintlock offers a Children’s menu with real food like soup or chicken and mushroom pie (£10/£13 for 2 or 3 courses).

FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER

When partner ID and I went along for dinner, it was a Friday night. This meant we could choose from either the Kitchen Menu or the à la carte.

We decided to go for the à la carte which, besides the usual starters, mains and desserts, also has a Snacks section.

Being rather greedy, and it being a new restaurant, PLUS our first evening restaurant meal together since lockdown in March (!), we decided to go for four courses. Snack, starter, main and dessert.

While we were making our choices, we were given complimentary bread and butter which went down nicely.

The bread was light and soft but with good flavour. There were a few little seeds and grains which added interest.

The butter was very good, having plenty of tasty chives in there.

SNACKS

There were two dishes in the Snacks part of the menu, and we decided to share them both.

First off, here’s the dinky little House Crumpet (£3) with Staffordshire rarebit.

The substantial but still soft crumpet was a delight. On top was a generous amount of melted Staffordshire cheese, nicely brown from the grill. The rarebit had a good tang to it, presumably due to some of the traditional additions: mustard and/or Worcestershire sauce.

Our second shared snack was a Pork & Black Pudding Scotch Egg (£7).

This sat on a blob of burnt apple ketchup with a pile of truffle celeriac remoulade alongside.

Neither entirely runny nor completely hard, the egg yolk was what these days is approvingly referred to as ‘jammy’.

The pork and black pudding surrounding the egg was very well flavoured. At the risk of putting some people off, I’m almost tempted to say it was slightly gamey. But please don’t be put off: it really was good.

The burnt apple ketchup may sound rather cheffy and modern. But think of it as concentrated apple sauce and you’ll see it’s a fine and sensible accompaniment to pork dishes such as this.

I thought the crunchy celeriac in its creamy but tangy remoulade dressing was a nice contrast to the softer elements on the plate. A hint of truffle came through just at the end and wasn’t overpowering.

STARTERS

CHICKEN TERRINE

My starter was Chicken & Black Garlic Terrine (£8) with fennel jam and pickled carrot.

A generous slab of the firm, slightly herby terrine was punctured by two enormously appetising shards of bubblingly crispy chicken skin.

For the uninitiated, black garlic is regular garlic which has been aged. This makes it incredibly mellow, so don’t expect a whack of garlic if you order this dish.

The subtle seasoning meant the flavour of the terrine was largely pure chicken. But none the worse for that.

I’m a huge fan of fennel, so the inclusion of fennel jam was one of the things that drew me to this dish. I enjoyed the aniseed-like flavour of the soft fennel which went well with the chicken. I did wonder though if the jam could have been a little ‘wetter’ to balance the plate.

The strips of pickled carrot brought more crunch as well as a little welcome acidity without being at all harsh.

All in all, a rather impressive starter.

BBQ SALAD

For his starter, ID chose BBQ Salad of Local Vegetables (£6.50).

The attractively plated dish came with a Staffordshire cheese dressing and toasted nuts.

Sometime watchers of the BBC’s Great British Menu, the dish reminded us both of Simon Rogan’s 2012 dish of grilled vegetables with a cheese sauce.

This particularly pleased ID as, fancying himself a bit of a comedian, he likes to pretend that he thinks Rogan (whose first restaurant is called L’Enclume) is actually called Len Clume.

So it gave him the opportunity to bring out his joke yet again: ‘This is a bit like what that Len Clume bloke did, innit?’

Joking aside, all the vegetables were expertly cooked with a good smoky flavour from the barbecue.

The Staffordshire cheese sauce had good robust flavour so was a great match for the smoky vegetables. So good, ID initially thought he might have liked more of it.

However, he finally agreed this might have upset the balance of the dish. So, judgment in the kitchen was right.

MAIN COURSES

There were six choices of main course on the à la carte menu. Three meat, one vegan, one fish and one vegetarian.

Prices ranged from £15 for gnocchi to £27 for dry aged Staffordshire sirloin steak.

DUCK

I went for the Duck Breast (£21) served with shallot tarte tatin, hispi cabbage, a sauce of Pedro Ximénez sherry, grated Dovedale Blue cheese and beetroot powder.

This was a beautifully composed dish and incredibly appetizing to the eye.

The duck was properly pink and juicy. The Dovedale Blue, one of my favourites from the Staffordshire Cheese Company, acted to season the meat with its salty, creamy tang.

If I had one quibble with the duck it was that the fat could have been rendered a little more so that the skin was crispier. As it was, I had to leave a piece of the skin as it was too chewy.

The glossy sauce, however, was perfect. Richly flavoured and with a decent amount of it too.

The little pastry tart filled with shallots was a nice touch. The pastry perhaps needed another few minutes’ cooking, as did the hispi cabbage whose stalk was very crunchy.

These points aside (and remember the restaurant hasn’t had time to get into its stride yet) I thought this a very good dish. Given the work involved, I’d say the price was pretty reasonable too.

HAKE

For his main, ID chose Hake (£19).

When it arrived, this dish smelled so good he passed it over the table to me so I could have a good sniff too. Of course, purely for the purposes of this review you understand, I had to have a few bites as well. 😁

Was it the most photogenic plate of food in the world? No.

Did the aromas make you just want to dig in? Yes!

The wonderfully fresh hake was perfectly cooked. The flesh was moist and the skin crispy enough to eat the whole lot.

The accompaniments were top notch too.

The curried scallops (three decent sized ones) had quite a spicy kick. The parsnip puree was as smooth as you like and with a flavour that even I, not much of a parsnip lover, enjoyed.

Against the soft puree, fish and scallops, were crispy kale and wood sorrel, bringing pleasant bitter notes.

All the elements were brought together by an exceptional wild garlic caper butter.

I don’t often eat fish in restaurants away from the coast, but this dish was an example of when it’s really good. At £19 I think it was excellent value for money too.

A dish of potatoes and vegetables was brought to the table to accompany our main courses.

I’m not a huge fan of this as I prefer plates to be complete and wouldn’t have missed them anyway. However, I understand many people will expect them, especially if having fewer courses than I had. So The Flintlock has probably made the right call again.

The potatoes were undercooked though, and the vegetables could perhaps have been improved with a bit of butter.

DESSERTS

By this point, you’re probably wondering how on earth we had room for desserts. But we did.

There was a choice of five, all at a very reasonable £7.

A STAFFORDSHIRE PUDDING

It didn’t take me long at all to choose what I was having. That’s because, in a huge coincidence, I’d only become aware of Staffordshire Yeomanry Pudding just the day before.

On a nostalgic whim, I’d bought an old cookery book, Farmhouse Kitchen. This was a tie-in to a 1970s TV programme I’d watched as a child. Full of traditional British recipes, I’d spotted ‘Staffordshire Yeomanry Pudding’ while flicking through. Being a relative newcomer to Staffordshire, I’d never heard of it and meant to go back and have a proper look.

But here it was on the menu of Staffordshire’s newest fine dining restaurant. How could I resist?

Described on the menu as ‘raspberry jam and duck egg custard tart’ I didn’t know quite what to expect. To be honest, when it arrived, I thought it looked a little sad. Perhaps it was that droopy point.

But one mouthful and I was hooked!

Beautifully tart, fruity jam combined with rich, creamy custard with just the right level of sweetness.

If you wanted to quibble, you could say the pastry was a little underdone. A crispy base to all that lovely softness would have been great. But the flavours were so good I’ll happily forgive that.

In a neat combination of the cheffy and the everyday, alongside the tart was ‘sweet woodruff squirty cream’.

I’ve only eaten woodruff once before, in a sample of woodruff panna cotta given to me by the proprietor of Goldstone Hall.

Some say woodruff tastes of honey, others hay. I certainly can’t describe the flavour. But I love it and thought it a nice addition to the cream.

From appearances, I doubt the tart would be considered ‘Instagrammable’. But, in the all-important, real-life flavour stakes, it was bang-on.

CHOCOLATE CAKE

A chocolate pudding fan, ID chose Pear & Chocolate Cake.

Suitable for vegans, the cake was rich and dark. The slivers of pear inside were softly baked, although those on the plate were rather hard.

Freshening things up was a pear sorbet. However, we both agreed our favourite bit was a coffee toffee sauce.

The combination of coffee and toffee was a great one: the coffee giving contrasting bitterness to the toffee’s sweetness.

Added to that, bringing crunchy, textural interest were fab crystallised pistachios.

If a light, spongey cake is what you’re after, then this dessert probably isn’t for you.

But if it’s bold flavour, then I think you’ll be happy.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

In ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t write a review of a restaurant that’s been open barely a week. I much prefer to let them find their feet, for things to settle down and any problems to be ironed out.

But, in these COVID times, we aren’t in ordinary circumstances, are we? Things can change very quickly and businesses, especially in hospitality, need all the support they can get.

The Flintlock has completed a mammoth task in opening a new restaurant in the current climate.

Thom and his team have created a welcoming, unpretentious space that both locals and foodies prepared to travel can enjoy.

Committed to using some of the best produce the Staffordshire Moorlands has to offer, but at reasonable prices, I think The Flintlock is off to a great start.

Through his Instagram account, Thom Bateman no doubt attracted lots of followers who enjoyed his beautiful images of food without ever having tasted it.

But, from what I’ve eaten, I’d say this is no case of style over substance. He’s proven that he knows the importance of great tasting food, not just great looking food.

On a base of already sound cooking, I think that over time any rough edges or the few quibbles I’ve mentioned will disappear.

With the restaurant less than 15 minutes’ walk from my home, I’m planning on becoming a regular and look forward to seeing how The Flintlock develops.

I hope you’ll go along too to support and enjoy this exciting addition to the Staffordshire restaurant scene.

Highly recommended.

UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED, ALL IMAGES ©MOORLANDS EATER & NOT TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION

ACCESSIBILITY

I’m not aware of a formal access statement for this venue and the following is my subjective impression only. Please note, however, that I’m not mobility impaired so you may wish to contact the venue directly to check whether it meets your own requirements.

There appeared to be numerous steps to access all the dining areas, although not the bar through which you enter the building. There are separate female and male toilets on the ground floor with standard sized cubicles.

If you’ve visited this venue and can provide more information useful for people with disabilities, please leave a comment below. If you’re the owner of this venue, I’d be happy to update this post with any further information about accessibility.