Restaurant review: Albion

 FACT: Crosby has a lot of churches. More churches, it has been said, per head of population than anywhere of comparable size in England.

It also has no end of hairdressers. If you need a wash and blow dry, or cleansing of your sins, Crosby is the place. Whether you confess your ungodliness to your priest or your stylist is up to you.

Here's another Crosby fact for you: in more than a quarter of a century that I have been properly acquainted with the place, there has not been a single really outstanding restaurant.

The front-of-house man was wearing standard UKIP-issue Union Jack dicky bow and braces and handlebar moustache, though he appeared far too civilised to give his vote to Farage

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No, no, I hear you cry, that's only your opinion. But, take it from me, it's the gospel truth.

There have been – are still – okay places to eat out in Crosby  A couple of good ones. But none to stir the heart, whet the appetite, dampen the pants.

What Spire is to Allerton, say. A neighbourhood restaurant so good there's no need to run the gauntlet of the last train home from town.

When Crosby was named one of the UK's best places to live there was one glaring omission from the list of reasons why – a bloody good restaurant. It's not like there isn't enough cash in enough pockets to sustain one.

Potato Potage

So when chef Steve Burgess, whose time running the Camp and Furnace kitchen did his reputation no end of good, announced he and a pal were opening a place on their home turf, Confidential wondered if Albion “could be Crosby's first truly remarkable restaurant”.

So is it? The answer, like that to many of life's great conundrums (is the human brain capable of truly rational thinking? Are nuts better than crisps?) is neither yes nor no. It is closer to yes than no, certainly, but not close enough for my liking.

Ironically, the thing that marks out Burgess's enterprise as interesting and different may be the very thing preventing it from entering the realm of the remarkable.

As the ancient name for Britain implies, Albion is dedicated to the history of these islands' cuisine. But when you consider that the turnip is probably the UK's most exotic indigenous vegetable, you start to see why the food culture of these fair isles had an uphill struggle from the off.

Invading forces made occasional contributions – the Vikings, for instance, gave us kippers, the grilling of which provided householders with a foolproof method for driving out unwelcome guests.

But in the main we collected new foodstuffs the same way we did everything else; we took over another country and made them give us theirs.

Acquiring the raw materials is one thing, knowing what to do with them quite another. It's been 450 years since Sir Francis Drake plundered the potato from the Americas, and 350 years since we considered it fit for human consumption.

Since then, while the French have created more potato recipes than ways to insult the English, we haven't got much beyond boiling, baking, bashing or dousing them in fat, although Wikipedia, in its list of “notable potato dishes”, does attribute the crisp sandwich to England – enough to make you swell with pride.

Britain has struggled back to its feet since world wars and rationing brought the reputation of the nation's cuisine to its lowest point but, outside of London and Ludlow, how many fine restaurants can we boast?

The great cities of Liverpool and Manchester have managed but a single Michelin star between them. And that was 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, the nation's domestic ovens – the true barometer of a country's cuisine – reheat supermarket pizza and crinkle cut chips.

Against this background, a restaurant devoted to the best of British food through the ages may reasonably be considered a challenging project. But it's a USP they have embraced enthusisatically and good on them for that.

Mutton is served

Dishes are prepared according to recipes ranging (I'm taking their word for this) from 1362 to 2014, with dates printed alongside prices on the menu.

In keeping with the History Of Our Great Nation theme, the décor features a Chesterfield couch, what appears to be a mock-up of a ruined Northumberland priory, and tables and chairs representing the 90s economy flatpack boom. The latter, which may actually have been chosen for their price rather than their historical value, would look better wearing tablecloths.

The front-of-house man was wearing standard UKIP-issue Union Jack dicky bow and braces and handlebar moustache, though he appeared far too civilised to give his vote to Farage.

Cumbrian mutton and treacle bacon turnover (1929, £6), looked terrific, the mutton encased in puff pastry and rolled in a slice of bacon but was ultimately rather heavy and bland, the meat dry and underseasoned. Even a cute, sweet-sour cucumber chutney could only cut through it so far.

Local potago potage (1175, £4) was a delight. Where this too could have been heavy going, it was deep and rich with a glossy smoothness and perfect little dumplings.

Pye

To follow, a good old-fashioned pie, so old-fashioned it was actually a pye, of the ham hock, chicken and leek variety (1362, £12). With well-made pastry and meat that was moist and tender, but far from characterless, what was there not to like. It came with two ginormous carrots, heavy with the contents of the stockpot, and a stout sauce I found oversweet but which my fellow diner thought fine. I'm right, though.

His fine-quality, precision-cooked, slow-braised beef shin (1979, 14.50) sat alongside “crispy potato” – a tidy lump with a browned top that had a strong suspicion of the Gallic about it – and Balmoral sauce, a Scottish recipe involving whisky.

Shin

If the sauce ought to have been richer, there was little to find fault with here, yet I couldn't help feeling the plate was missing something; another colour, another taste, a little vibrancy, perhaps. Pricing is very competitive but I'd pay a little more for a little more.

For pudding, “Poor Knights of Windsor” (1833, £5) proved an insanely heavy, unrelentingly sweet dish: big shards of cinder toffee, hot sherry jam and two fat slabs of eggy bread (never shall the words “French toast” be uttered within these walls).

On the other hand, my friend's Eliza Acton's baked rice pudding (1845, £5), flavoured with nutmeg and lemon zest, and served with "orchard jam" was a richly lovin' spoonful.

Poor Knights of Windsor

Some good things are going on here in terms of technique and finesse and there is reason to hope this is the beginning and not the end product, but it's a little inconsistent and, after all, a pye is a pie and so far there is not a great deal at Albion to surprise and delight.

I suspect that would require taking British cuisine to places beyond its comfort food zone.

People have been waiting to see if Albion would raise the bar for Crosby's restaurant trade. Well, I think they have, but it's yet to reach a height that will bring home any medals.

Follow AA Grill on Twitter @AAGrill

Albion, Coronation Road, Crosby, L23.  Tel: 0151 932 9460. Website and Twitter

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All scored Confidential reviews are paid for by us, never the restaurant or a PR company. Critics dine unannounced.

Rating:      15/20
Food:         7.5/10
Service:     4/5
Ambience:  3.5/5 

Venues are rated against the best examples of their kind: fine dining against the best fine dining, bars against other bars etc.  
Following on from this the scores represent:
1-5: Straight in the dog bowl
6-9: Get to the chippy 
10-11: In an emergency
12-13: If you happen to be passing
14-15: Worth a trip out 
16-17: Very good to exceptional 
18-20: As good as it gets