The Old Mill Smokehouse: Tempting Takeaway
The Old Mill Smokehouse in Leek, like many other restaurants having to adapt to the coronavirus restrictions, currently offers a takeaway menu.
I tried it last week to see if it lived up to the great food I’d eaten in the restaurant on my previous two visits. And I highly recommend it.
THE OLD MILL SMOKEHOUSE
The Old Mill Smokehouse opened towards the end of 2018 in the Grade II-listed Shoobridge Mill on Leek’s Haywood Street.
Owners Nathan and Bernadeta turned a building in a rather unloved part of town into an attractive, spacious venue.
Mind you, it wasn’t all plain sailing at first. Some talked of underwhelming food and poor customer service.
However, by the time of my first visit in April 2019 The Old Mill Smokehouse had been turned around, including having a new menu. I found the staff polite, efficient and eager to check that we were happy with our food.
That positive experience was confirmed by some amazing food and drink at a Whisky Night earlier this year. Among the real treats was this fantastic smoked chicken thigh stuffed with haggis and wrapped in crispy bacon.
So, when I heard that during the coronavirus lockdown The Old Mill Smokehouse would be opening up again for takeaway, I knew I had to take a look.
TAKEAWAY
At the time of writing, The Old Mill is open for takeaway 5.00 – 10.00 pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Other half collected ours but, if you can’t get out, check to see if you fall into the free delivery zone. The Old Mill did post that this includes Leek, Cheddleton, Rudyard, Bradnop and Blackshaw Moor, but best to double-check if this has changed in the meantime.
Orders can be placed via Facebook message or by ringing 01538 381550.
THE MENU
As you might expect, the takeaway menu isn’t the same as the full restaurant menu. But you can still get a taste of those smokehouse classics like chicken, ribs, burgers and brisket plus vegetarian choices.
Mains are split into Burgers and Bagels, and for these The Old Mill has teamed up with local baker Holy Bread.
Holy Bread makes handmade, artisan bagels in Leek and seems to be doing to a brisk trade with their delivery service.
For the burgers, the Old Mill has a choice of three Gourmet burgers on a brioche bun and three Gastronome burgers on differently flavoured baps.
Both Gourmet and Gastronome have two meaty and one veggie option. How about a burger topped with bbq pulled pork, or breadcrumb coated goat’s cheese with caramelised onion (both £7.50)?
On top of that, there’s six choices of bagel filling (two are veggie) including smoked brisket on a caramelised onion and Parmesan bagel (£7.00), and crispy halloumi, pineapple and basil on a beetroot bagel (£6.00).
There’s also the usual smokehouse sides like fries (£2.50) and slaw (£1.80) plus desserts (£3.50).
You can even collect or have delivered a selection from The Old Mill Smokehouse’s huge range of craft beers.
Amongst that little lot, here’s what ID and I pre-ordered for collection a couple of days later.
SMOKEHOUSE SHAREBOX
Wanting some of The Old Mill’s classics, from the Starters section of the menu we went for the Smokehouse Sharebox (£12.00). This includes chicken wings, smoked sausage, maple ribs, burnt ends, pickles and slaw.
When it arrived, we also found it came with a dressed salad.
When The Old Mill had rang earlier that day to confirm our order and take payment, they explained that they were out of smoked sausage. Would we be okay with buttermilk chicken as a substitute? A bit disappointing, but I suppose these things happen, particularly in the current topsy-turvy times.
As it turned out, the buttermilk chicken was very good. The meat within its light and crispy Southern-style batter was soft, tasty, moist and juicy.
The two chicken wings were meaty and came in a mild bbq sauce.
The burnt ends were four chunky pieces of slow-cooked beef brisket, this time in a darkly rich bbq sauce.
Also available as a starter on their own (£4.50), burnt ends are a cut from the fattier point of a smoked brisket which need longer cooking. The result was wonderfully tender, rich and full flavoured meat.
The little heap of maple glazed ribs was a juicy, porky delight with a subtly smoky edge.
By the way, if you see pink in your ribs or other smoked barbecued meats, don’t worry that they aren’t properly cooked! This is a quirk of the long and slow smoking process.
I thought that the Smokehouse Sharebox was great value and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Not only did it provide decent portions of tasty meat for two, it’s a good way of sampling mini versions of what you’ll eventually be able to get in The Old Mill when the restaurant can open up fully again.
BURGERS
Although I’ve told you about our ‘starter’ first, we actually ate it as our second course.
That’s because we’d ordered burgers for our mains and thought they’d be best eaten straight away while the Sharebox would be fine keeping warm in the oven for a bit.
I did wonder how our burgers would fare on the trip from Leek though. Would they be all squashed and unappetizing?
But I needn’t have worried. In a strong, cardboard box that could go straight into our compost bin, both burgers looked absolutely pristine when I opened them up.
ID and I had both gone for the BBQ Smokehouse Burger (£8.50).
As well as a lightly seasoned minced beef patty from the local butcher, cooked medium, the menu says this comes with pulled beef brisket.
Actually, rather than pulled, the brisket came in a wonderful big slab. I thought this was preferable, allowing the beef’s wonderful properties to shine through: dark and sticky outer edge, that tell-tale smoke ring, then soft and incredibly flavoured meat.
Also on there were tangy Staffordshire cheese, plenty of tomato, lettuce and onion as well as bbq sauce. Rather than swamping the individual flavours, that sauce brought everything nicely together.
I should also give a shout out here to that treacle and oat bap from Holy Bread.
All too often, burger buns are a disappointment. At one end of the scale, they’re floppy, useless disintegrating things that barely hold everything together. At the other, they’re just too much: by the time you’ve worked your way past the damned thing you’re too full to eat the meat and the rest of the goodies.
But these were the perfect, quality partner to a sublime mix of meat, cheese, salad and sauce.
SIDES
Of course, you can’t have a burger without sides, so ID and I shared a few to go alongside the red cabbage slaw and pickled gherkin slices that came with the Sharebox.
FRICKLES
First off, here’s Frickles (£2.70). That’s fried pickles to the uninitiated.
There were about half a dozen of these big, whole gherkins in a light, crunchy batter.
With their tangy edge, I think Frickles are a great contrast to rich smokehouse foods and couldn’t imagine not ordering them every single time.
FRIES
The Fries (£2.50) I’d say were more like chips. Maybe we could’ve done with a few more?
As I wrote in my review after my first visit to The Old Mill Smokehouse, their fries are “pretty standard, none of your double or triple cooked affairs. Nothing to shout about, but nothing at all wrong with them either”.
I’d say that still holds true.
BBQ PIT BEANS
We also ordered a side of BBQ Pit Beans (£2.50) which come as a veggie or meat version. I’m not sure what meat they might include should you ask for it, as we went for the veg one.
This was one of the sides I’d been surprised that I liked when I tried it on my first visit as I’m not a huge bean fan.
As last time though, these had a good smoky bbq flavour. There wasn’t any variety in the type of bean this time (all haricot, I think) and the sauce was less chunky.
But I still thought these were very good, just different from before.
With that fantastic burger at its heart, I was extremely pleased with my choice of stonking main and sides.
Considering the really good quality meat, expertly cooked, as well as that handmade, artisan bun, at less than £14 per head, I’d consider it good value too.
DESSERTS
You won’t be surprised to learn, after that lot, we had to have a bit of a rest before we could tackle the two desserts we’d ordered.
First off was Alan’s Chocolate Brownie (£3.50).
This was a rather nice example of a brownie, properly gooey in the middle. It came with a generous portion of whipped vanilla cream.
So you can see what you’ll get, I plated the desserts separately for the photos, but we actually divided them up to eat half of each one apiece.
I ate mine with Staffordshire’s cacao gin liqueur Chocao over ice, albeit with an extra slug of gin 😀.
While ID is the chocolate fiend, my favourite of the puds was Caramel & Apple Slice (£3.50).
I loved the crisp pastry with its filling of custard plus tart apple, topped off with a layer of caramel.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you already love the The Old Mill Smokehouse and are hankering after some of your favourites, then I think you’ll appreciate the tempting takeaway menu they’ve developed.
But maybe you were one of those early visitors who didn’t go back after a disappointing experience? All I can say is, after having eaten The Old Mill’s food three times now, I’m happy to recommend it and hope you’ll consider giving it another go.
If the The Old Mill Smokehouse is new to you, then I hope you’ll try their takeaway menu too.
Besides the opportunity to eat some fantastic smokehouse food, you’ll be helping to keep another local, independent business going through these difficult times.
Then, when this is over, we can all enjoy the full bar and restaurant experience at this great venue run by people who really appreciate quality food and drink.
Highly recommended.
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