Well worth a detour

Liver and bacon

THEY don’t care much for fashion and foodie fol de rols at the Omega at Abbeydale, I’m thinking as I glance down its two short menus. In fact I could have eaten most of this any time in the last 40 or so years.

The carte has roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding, fish and chips (dressed up as cod goujons) and, gloriously, calves liver and bacon. Sixties’ school dinners have failed to dampen my appetite for this. The TDH offers roast rump of lamb or fillet of plaice with a herb crust.

The monkfish with a cauliflower and gently curried lentil puree might not have been seen pre-Fanny Cradock (for it was she who made the fish popular) so this is perhaps the only nod to modernity.

There is a leek and potato soup, with no temptation here to fancy it up as Vichyoisse, but then up pops herrings Bismarck which in my book is rollmops.

Before our visit last month I’d been faffing about, unable to find a menu either on the restaurant’s website or Facebook page but it turns out it’s the same as the lunchtime one. What is different is that the Omega now does evening meals and we wanted to show foodie chums Craig and Marie Harris just what we’ve been raving about as they both work over lunch.

When I take restaurant manager and co-owner Jamie Christian gently to task over a lack of published menu he explains they did until hake was posted as a dish but decent supplies failed to come ashore so it was beached. A customer had made a special journey for it and blew up a gale when her hopes were sunk.

Jamie Christian

So chef and co-owner Steve Roebuck scrapped it to avoid the aggro. He may be wrong on this in my book but if you ask nicely they can send you one.

New diners should really start here. The Omega at Abbeydale is the son of the fantabulous Baldwin’s Omega banqueting suite off Psalter Lane run by David Baldwin, who sadly died earlier this year. So great was the esteem in which he was held that crowds of former customers lined the streets, with chefs in their whites, as the cortege passed.

Baldwin’s never opened for dinner – the evenings were devoted to private and public banquets, apart from the odd ‘pop up.’ While Jamie and Steve are continuing in the Baldwin’s tradition they can now do dinners as well as lunches.

The food was marvellous. I’ll not dwell on every course but let’s consider the calves liver. Ideally it should be of the highestest quality and cooked just briefly, barely kissing the pan to seal and stiffen but not by much. And there should be crispy smoked bacon to offset the liver’s sweet succulance. With it should be the silkiest, creamiest mashed potato you could wish for and caramelised onions, soft and sweet.

Reader, it was delivered. It was magnificent. It was memorable. It matched up to the Italian version of liver and onions I had a couple of years ago in a Venetian restaurant. I’d have given Craig a mouthful but he has spent a wasted lifetime hating liver. Instead, he was on the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.

Just look at the picture. Wouldn’t you want to eat that? In the Good Old Days of Baldwin’s Omega it would have come theatrically on a trolley with the chef carving it from the joint at your table. But no trolley could manage the present kitchen steps.

In the pink – roast beef

We ate contentedly through three courses, remarking that it wasn’t always best to follow the latest food fashion and if the old ways worked, why change them?

I enjoyed the wispiest of tempura batter on my prawns, dunked in a gutsy tomato aioli (which you certainly wouldn’t have seen in the Eighties). And I finished with a lemony creme brulee with the crispiest of toffeed topping.

Now the Omega appeals to a certain kind of customer, monied and probably getting on in years who likes his or her food expertly cooked. The Omega might not even occur to the younger set (unless they attend Abbeydale Sports Club where it now resides).

But give it a try. It’s well worth the proverbial detour.

The Omega is at Abbeydale Sports Club on Abbeydale Road South, Sheffield. Web http://www.omegaatabbeydale.co.uk

Part of the menu

Pssst! Wanna buy a dance floor?

Jamie Christian with one of Baldwin’s famous flaming torches

FIRST things to go were a couple of the ironwork chandeliers. “A lady wanted them for her barn,” says Jamie Christian. “Have you noticed the torches? They’ve got sold on them.”

So who’s bought them? “I have,” he says.

Ah the famous ‘flaming torches’ in reception at Baldwin’s Omega. Uplit strips of cloth used to flicker like flames. I used to joke they only operated when Mr B – big boss David Baldwin – was in the building. But they will flicker no more here. The Omega is shortly to be demolished for housing and it’s having a closing down sale. Everything must go.

Jamie, the Operations Manager, is keeping an eye on things during the sale, which runs until Sunday. He and head chef Steve Roebuck will be opening a new venture, the Omega at Abbeydale, with the old ethos at Abbeydale Sports Club in September and those torches will be used somewhere.

The dance floor at the Omega

We wander past tables stacked with candles, vases, wine glasses, crockery, chairs and veteran kitchen equipment and into the ballroom with its sprung floor. Several generations of dancers tripped the light fantastic here at functions and dinners, whisked their partners round the floor on salmon and strawberry nights or limboed under the bar on Caribbean evenings.

Jamie looks thoughtfully at the floor. “We should have cut it up into squares and sold them off to people who had their wedding receptions here.” But it’s for sale. Name a price, Jamie. “£500 and take it up yourself.”

All for sale at Baldwin’s

I pass on that one but do buy a candle setting for a fiver. That’s not thinking quite out of the box as some people.

They’ve already sold basins from the ladies and one of the urinals from the gents, which once won David and his wife Pauline a Loo of the Year Award. I came down for The Star and we got a saucy picture of him pretending to take a pee. Just in case you were wondering, the Baldwin’s Omega sign on Psalter Lane is not for sale. They plan to take it to their home in Spain.

There are memories all around. The wooden lectern on which there used to be a copy of The Star or seat plans is for sale at £45.

Pauline Baldwin is in the office for very possibly the last time and in reflective mood. She’d expected a rush but perhaps people will be coming later. Will she be sad now it’s all over – some 37 years of company and works’ dinners, social shindigs, Christmas parties, lunches, pop up restaurant nights and private parties? “I won’t miss the admin but I’ll be like a fish out of water,” she says.

The new venture belongs to Jamie and Steve, who will take with them head waitress Angela Jackson, but doubtless the Baldwins will still be around to offer advice.

Indeed Mr B plans to take a seat at the bar at the new place. I look forwards to seeing him there.

*The sale runs until this Sunday.

NOTE: To read why it closed see here

 

All the plates you could want