Liverpool Life: Restaurant Review: The Little Manor, Thelwall

Thelwall’s Little Manor has had quite the facelift. Emma Johnson finds it looks good on it

THEY do say you can have too much of a good thing. Take rice pudding for instance. I like it – on occasion – but I would not like to have to live off it for any length of time.

Yet that is precisely what I found myself doing after I tripped over on my way back from holiday and broke my jaw in two places. Dramatic I know.

Thankfully I was lucky enough to avoid the discomfort and indignity of having to have my jaw wired shut and am fully healed now (I think). But for the best part of a month I was reduced to living off calorific mush, so to speak.

Needless to say eating out was off the cards for a while – what adult wants to ask for their food to be puréed?

It was during my “confinement” that I came to hear about the new-look Little Manor in the Warrington suburb of Thelwall.

The Little Manor is quite the piece of Cheshire history. Originally built back in the 17th century for the Percival family (their crest still adorns the walls) it passed from family to family over the next few hundred years before becoming the Cottage Restaurant and Guest House in 1950.

Its fortunes ebbed and flowed in the following decades. The name was changed to the Little Manor some time in the eighties and during the nineties it was a popular hangout for well-heeled Cheshire set types.

My husband and I had not been there for some years but on hearing of its refurbishment, under the ownership of the Brunning and Price pub group, and always on the look out for a good gastropub near home, I resolved to check the place out as soon as my jaw was back in action.

That opportunity came on Saturday evening (on the advice of a pal we had booked a table but you don’t have to, if there are none free they run a waiting list from behind the bar) and found the place bustling – a mix of couples and big groups some dressed up and out for the night, others still out from the afternoon judging by the jeans and wellies.

There is nothing revolutionary about the Little Manor refurb – country pub is the look, with fireplaces, stone floors and pub paraphernalia aplenty. But where so many chain pubs feel fake, there is a pleasing air of authenticity to the design.

We ordered a bottle of wine at the bar (Le Campagne Viognier £18.95) from a very reasonably priced yet varied list and were shown to our table and handed menus.

I was disappointed to see they were paper ones but perhaps that is because the chef likes to change the offering regularly. Judging by the number and variety of dishes on offer they are certainly not short on ideas in the kitchen.