Curley's Dining Rooms

Curley's Fisheries has always had a café. It started off as a shed, then a slightly bigger shed, then a portakabin type shed, and then now it has reached the peak of its evolution in a newly built but beautifully complementing building which now contains Curley's Dining Rooms. The café always had loyal regulars, and always achieved good customer service, and word was spread far and wide about their great quality food, but with the opening of a very modern and stylish new airy and spacious dining room, offering traditional favourites as well as a great evening menu, and beer and wines from Bank Top Brewery, it's attracting new customers from far and wide, eager to see the changes, or try the new food they've heard so much about.

The dining room itself is a lovely open space with modern dark furniture and reclaimed church pews, with features including a large coal-burning open fireplace (amazing in the winter when accompanied by the under-tile heating!) and a baby grand piano, which is frequently played by a pianist, to accompany your meal. The windows facing water-side all open fully concertina-style allowing a semi al-fresco feel in the warmer summer months, and offering some beautiful views right the way to the Fylde coast. On a clear day, you can even see Blackpool Tower! I love the way the menu is presented as the "Daily Catch" newspaper, telling the story of how the café started and developed, along with photos, and then inside the menu is designed in a similar newspaper style. The menu offers a great variety of fish dishes as well as classic favourites, salads, hot and cold drinks, snacks, and desserts, all of which I'm happy to say are at pretty decent prices considering the quality of the offerings! The fish has a perfectly crisp batter, and lovely fresh hot chips, accompanied by a wonderful home-made tartare sauce and a wedge of lemon. The fish is presented on a gigantic fish-shaped plate, which as well as perfectly containing the very large fish offered, is a fantastically theatrical statement when it arrives.

I ordered the prime cod, which although my photo does it no justice, was colossal! There was a menu option for an 'extra large cod', which considering the size of the standard cod, must require the concertina windows to be opened to get it into the dining room, surely! As you can imagine, after this beast, I couldn't manage a dessert, but the cake cabinet at the front of the dining room only taunted me that I wouldn't be able to try what looked like some very tasty cakes! Bank Top Brewery providing the beer and wine means that if you don't quite fancy traditional chippy fare, you can still have a tasty and well prepared meal, and a pleasant evening, and equally if you wanted to simply pop in during the daytime for a slice of cake and a cup of tea, you'd get just as pleasant experience.

I'm making myself hungry simply remembering this visit. I really must visit again soon!

Curley's Dining Rooms

Wallsuches

Off Chorley New Road

Horwich

Bolton

BL6 6PP

(01204) 691 783

www.curleysdiningrooms.co.uk