Food reviews

Geales

Geale’s
It’s all stylish fonts, super starched linen and shades of grey at the new Geale's. Gone are the unpretentious wooden tables and the homely no-décor look, replaced with a masculine black leather banquette and recessed lighting vibe, an Art Deco inspired look that’s lovely if a touch ambitious for the slightly poky space.
The original wooden menu is still up on the wall, offering options that seem plausible until you read down to the 15p cover charge and realise that it’s a decorative piece of history, nothing to do with the current kitchen. The real menu comes in an elegant leather folder, its content not much changed from its ancestor, aside, obviously, from being vastly more expensive, even allowing for three decades of inflation.
It was busyish on our midweek lunch visit and we were sent upstairs to eat in the quiet first floor dining room, away from the downstairs action. We started with six juicy oysters, served on ice and flawless. Then an hour passed with no trace of our main courses and we began to feel a bit forgotten. A chippie this may be but fast food it ain’t. Still, cod and chips, when it arrived, was classy, with good crunchy batter and juicy fish, while the mushy peas were just right, if you like that sort of thing. But it was doubtful whether my single salmon and leek fishcake justified its hefty £14 pricetag, nice though it was, made of shredded leek and salmon (no potato) and perfectly formed. An extra £2 for a modest side of new potatoes made this a pretty pricey lunch, and if I were of a bigger appetite it wouldn’t have satisfied me at all. Masculine though the décor may be, these are positively girlie portions. The long wait disqualified us from trying the appealing-sounding nursery-style puddings, so we left slightly hungry, slightly miffed.
Pendle Harte