The Old Gate is an old favourite even though it’s only been open since last October. Since
the demise of Moyles bar, restaurant and hotel in the floods of 2012, the Old
Gate has cornered the market for quality beer in Hebden town centre with a
serious approach to sourcing an intelligent selection. They have also built
their reputation on good food. It’s not cheap pub food but it seems to be well
cooked and it was therefore inevitable that I would review their fish and chips
at some point.
It’s a big old pub. The pub which was previously on the
site, which had gone through many unsuccessful reincarnations since being
converted from two houses many years ago, was rumoured to have been built on an
Indian burial grave and therefore this new venture was never going to be a
success. However, the new owners ripped out the old pub and started afresh with
a long bar in the back of the pub and big open-plan L shaped drinking area with
a mix of bench and more traditional pub seating including the obligatory sofas.
I have a problem with sofas in pubs. As it’s so open-plan and so busy it can
get incredibly loud downstairs but at least this is a catalyst to get me to go
home!
Upstairs is given over to eating most of the time and
there is an event space for comedy nights etc. the space is well set out into a
mix of table sizes and has its own dedicated staff to get your food and your
beer. On the first weekend of the Hebden Bridge’s arts festival we had friends
from Manchester along with their two children along with a mutual friend from
Blackpool and by far the easiest place to accommodate 7 of us for lunch was
around one of the tables upstairs. The space is quite quiet at lunchtimes and
therefore ideal for the children to be children and space enough so that no one
was shoved into a corner as can be the case in some many pub-restaurants.
I went for the beer battered haddock, twice fried
chips and mushy peas at £11.
The presentation was interesting as the battered fish sat
on top of the chips, the mushy peas came in a mini saucepan and the tartare in a small shallow dish not too dissimilar from a ceramic dipping dish . I don’t agree with fish being on top of the chips as it just
makes the chips sweat but this does seem to be the norm. Normally I wouldn’t
like the gimmick of the iddy biddy saucepan but for some reason I quite liked
its cuteness. However, I did have a downer on the dipping dish as it just
didn’t sit right with the other elements – and the colour was wrong as well.
The fish was excellent. Big chunks, great flavour and
well cooked. The batter was delicious and crisp and the various light and dark
brown hues of the batter was appealing. The chips were clearly twice
cooked. They looked a fantastic deep brown, had a crispy outer and a soft
scrumptiousness inside.
The cute saucepan contained some really well seasoned
mushy peas which packed a really good flavour punch. The tartare was the only
disappointment of the meal, and not just because I had clearly taken issue with
its container. The mixture was too fine and green and had an overly acidic
taste to it. Not pleasant at all and a shame in the context of the quality that
came from the rest of the dish.
The meal came with a good chunk of lemon, a salt cellar
and a good vinegar dispenser. The whole thing was washed down with a pint, or
two, of Magic Rock’s excellent Curious .
