The Bridge

The menu at the Bridge on Manchester's Deansgate reads like a dream. It's dripping with tasty phrases such as "thick buttery toast", "salted caper berries", "duck fat chips" and "runny heather blossom honey", yet it's completely no-nonsense. These words are simply stating the facts.

Certainly, chef-proprietor Robert Owen Brown, 35, who reopened the Bridge Tavern as a gastropub in January, is bent on cooking good regional produce in a comfortable environment.

"When it comes down to it, I think people ‘up North' aren't really into pretentious food or formal dining," he says. "They want to relax and enjoy themselves with great quality, gutsy food that reflects the area they come from."

No surprise, then, that he's aiming to showcase the best ingredients the region can offer and to concentrate on cooking seasonally. So, he gets Lammas cheese - "like Parmesan but not as hard, so it grills really well" - from North Wales, and makes his own mascarpone. His mussels come from Conwy, shrimps are sourced from Morecambe Bay and the black pudding is from its homeland in and around Lancashire.

Owen Brown likes to take time out of the kitchen to source ingredients, but it has to fit around his daily commitment of overseeing his four-strong brigade and - in his words - making new dishes "happen".

One of his best sellers is a seafood starter: a delicate, crispy Morecambe Bay shrimp pasty on a bed of lemon-cream dressed leaves, £4.95. Bury black pudding potato cake, £4.25, is a light potato mash made with butter and double cream, to which he adds the black pudding. It's then deep-fried and served with a soft poached egg and béarnaise sauce.

The à la carte menu changes every three weeks, and there are about six specials every day. These might include pan-fried saddle of hare, spicy meatballs and hedgeberry red-wine glaze, £10.95, or pot-roast wood pigeon on a bed of wild mushroom and thyme risotto, £7.95. There's also a two-course lunch with coffee for £10.50.

Although he's a Mancunian, Owen Brown isn't strict about maintaining a traditional British menu. To prove his point, he's planning to put a duck spring roll with rhubarb sweet and sour dipping sauce on the menu - needless to say, using local produce.

The Bridge
53 Bridge Street
Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3BW
Tel: 0161-234 0242