Score 9/10
Telephone 01142350101
Address 289 Abbeydale Road South, Dore, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Open Lunch, Weds-Sun, noon-2.30pm (3pm Sun); dinner, Tues-Sat, 7-9.30pm
As the first forkful of scampi sidled gingerly into his mouth, my friend's head snapped still in surprise, then began to oscillate gently in ecstatic bemusement. "I can't believe it," he whispered. "I didn't give the place a chance. When the waitress said, 'Is there anywhere you'd like to sit?' I wanted to say Melbourne. Or Belmarsh. Anywhere but here. This is bizarre."
I took the point. Seldom in my years striving doughtily at this journalistic rock face have I come across a hidden gem quite as deeply buried and half as gleaming as Moran's - a self-styled wine bar in a single-storey building (a unit, really) on an unprepossessing parade in an affluent suburb of Sheffield, separated from an insolvency practitioner only by a furniture store with which it shares its entrance. There are restaurants you could live nearby all your days and have a lifetime ambition never to enter, and this one reminded us of a midwest US diner in the 50s. So dismal were expectations that, had I been an escaped prisoner, I'd have been singing Return To Zenda.
An early hint of the miracle about to unfold came from the patience of lone waitress Leila, whom we drove round the bend for two hours. Thank Christ my friend ordered a Campari, and that we asked her to adjudicate a dispute about whether the walls are lilac or aubergine. Had she not taken us for lovers, she'd have mistaken the Jewish uncle inquisitiveness, which unearthed the fact that her father came from Palestine, for being hit on by a pair of middle-aged porkers. It can't have been easy, yet she kept smiling through the pain.
If there could be a more unlikely presence in a glorified Yorkshire shack than a half-Palestinian serving goddess, it's cooking of the highest quality. This is one of those precious restaurants in which the chef, Bryan Moran, cooks not for riches or glory, welcome as these would be, but because he loves to cook. However unworthy of his talent the setting may be, he and his wife, who runs the front of house, have tarted up the room pretty well, given the limitations of the location, an oppressively low tiled ceiling and a tiny budget. A colour scheme of aubergine (lilac indeed, the silly queen) and burnt orange may not be to all tastes, but like Leila it imbues a glacial space with a dash of warmth and character.
The menu, meanwhile, franks the general form by verging on the weird, mingling the ultra-earthy and traditional with the slightly voguish and fancy. But who gives a stuff about coherence when everything tastes so glorious? Both starters came from the more ambitious end of the spectrum, and both were brilliant. Five little gonads of soy-marinated monkfish scampi were superbly fried to a crunchy, greaseless finish, the subtlety of the fish neatly complemented by a red pepper salsa and lime mayonnaise. My starter also had an oriental twang, a sesame seed-dotted duck leg slow cooked to a crispy exterior, the meat pink and flaky within, and accompanied by a zingy spring onion salad.
The main courses, from the menu's traditionalist wing, were better still. "This may be the finest fish and chips I've ever had," said my friend, a veteran of fabled Leeds chippies Bryan's and Bretts, of his stunningly fresh cod in a light, beer-infused batter and golden chips. "And the peas, oh my God, hand-mushed peas. Taste the peadom. Taste the homemade tartare. Magnificent."
The only flaw in my steak and kidney pie was that the suet crust didn't reach the top of the bowl, making it tricky eating even for someone with less bestial table manners than my own. But the meat below was impeccable and suffused with a majestic red wine gravy. Vegetables were great. As were both puds, a white chocolate cheesecake prettily presented with raspberries and a berry sorbet, and a delicate lemon posset above a Pernod jelly of such perfectly counterbalancing richness that it hinted at a touch of genius.
The chef popped out to receive our grovelling thanks, and told us they hope to move one day to a handsome pub that would showcase his cooking better than this converted showroom. Raising the money won't be easy for a while, you suspect, unless some smart investor happens to be reading this, but however long it takes, the Morans will not be joining the tide of failed restaurateurs making the morose trek to the bankruptcy guy next door.