FOOD REVIEW: This is what we thought of the Sunday dinner at the restaurant of a popular Sheffield hotel

We selected Restaurant 1584 at Whitley Hall Hotel on Elliott Lane, Grenoside for such an auspicious occasion.

Located within the grounds of a 16th Century ivy-clad mansion, and surrounded by beautiful Sheffield countryside, it is hard to imagine a more picturesque location for a meal out.

My dining companion and I visited on a Sunday, which meant we selected dishes from their special Sunday menu, comprised of a number of traditional crowd pleasers such as roast serloin of English beef and smoked salmon.

To start, I opted for garlic and white wine mushooms, while my dining companion chose the pressed ham hock and parsley terrine.

The creamy sauce the mushrooms were bathed in was rich and delicious, and really elevated the taste of the mushrooms. It came with a single slice of crusty bread, and was elegantly presented.

My dining companion described the terrine as having a good texture, and was served not too cold. It was served with sweet yet sour piccalilli with crunchy glass onions and cauliflower.

Moving on to the main courses, my dining companion chose the roast serloin of English beef, and I selected the Quorn casserole with herby dumplings.

All roast dinners served by Restaurant 1584 come with a Yorkshire pudding, garlic and rosemary roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, carrot and swede mash and buttered cabbage.

The casserole included Quorn mince was really delicious and hearty, and the herby dumplings were well cooked and really soaked up the layers of flavour from the casserole.

Although it was cooked medium-well, the beef was really tender.

Little touches such as fennel seeds in the cabbage, a touch of mustard in the cauliflower cheese and the rammekin of good quality horseraddish helped to elevate what was already a good quality meal.

The red wine we chose to accompany the meal was a Malbec and a Shiraz, and the latter was particularly tasty.

We dined prior to indoor hospitality resuming and so were seated outside under the marquee, which was fairly warm thanks to the four heaters in place, and it was lovely to dine with the tranquil sound of the babbling stream and birds chirping in the background.

A robin could be seen darting in and out of the marquee, hoping to pick up a few crumbs from diners, and one of the hotel’s peahens caused a bit of a stirr when she strutted into the marquee, only to be shooed out by a member of staff a short time later.

The service at Restaurant 1584 was excellent. Staff were attentive and friendly, but not overbearing, and everything was extremely well organised and it felt Covid secure.

With two starters, two mains, three 175ml glasses of wine and a 10 per cent service charge the meal came in at £62.98, which, given the quality of the food, the beautiful surroundings and brilliant service, is very reasonable.

Now that Restaurant 1584 is able to welcome diners inside, they have extended all of their menus, which is great news for diners.

They offer afternoon tea for £20 per person, as well as a “let’s do lunch” menu, which is available Monday to Saturday between midday with two courses for £15 and three for £18.50 and a garden menu that is available between midday and 9pm, Monday to Saturday.

Whitley Hall Hotel is a popular wedding venue, and during lockdown they have worked to improve their function suites and have created outside ceremony areas, as well as more outdoor seating and outside bars for both of their function rooms.

They have also launched a brand new events styling consultancy called “Forever Yours’ which aims to cater for all event styling, floristry and stationery for the big day.

General Manager Angela Tunnard said: “We have expanded our offerings to make things as easy as possible for our bride and grooms by having everything under one roof.”

She added: “As you can see although our doors may have been closed for a few months we have certainly not been sitting idly by and we cannot wait to welcome all our lovely guests, past, present and future back through our doors and get back to doing what we do best.”

Visit https://www.whitleyhall.com/restaurant1584 to make a reservation, or for more information.

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