REVIEW: Baltic Cellar, Albert Square

FOOD and drink words you never hear.

"Let's nip out for a Lithuanian."

More words you never hear.

"I fancy Latvian tonight."

Or even.

"Shall we indulge in a Baltic bucket?"

It's the food that needs the real attention. An indifferent chewy pudding came with, for example, squirty vegetable extract cream. Very wrong.

Before the harridans and warlocks of hypersensitivity leap on this as evidence of racial stereotyping, let me qualify myself and confess: I'm afraid you're right.

I'm sure in the Baltic states and along the coast to St Petersburg in Russia - the area of specialism for the Baltic Cellar - they adore their own food traditions. 

But since those traditions have never travelled much round my way, I'm left with simplistic cliches of Eastern European food banging around my numb brain: meaty stuff with dumplings, swede maybe, more dumplings, pickled cabbage and given we're talking the Baltic, perhaps herring. And dumplings.

Baltic Cellar

I was hoping the Baltic Cellar would blast this ignorance away, and make me appreciate the nuances of a new cuisine - after all British food is far more than sliced white bread, hard fish fingers and frozen peas as the French seem to think. 

But before we get onto the food let's love the venue.

This is a nifty refurb, not cheap, with big banquettes making booths of every table and making the Baltic Cellar a very comfortable place to lounge. The womb-like snugness is accentuated by the basement location and the moody lighting.

If you're an ankle fetishist then you're in for a treat. There are half windows opening onto the Lloyd Street pavement. Sitting on that side of the restaurant is like being a mouse trapped inside a tap dancing convention.

Comfortable down below

Anyway the food; were my crude perceptions precise?

The Zhulien (£5.95) aka the classic Julienne, is a Russian dish with baked mushrooms, in this version with a chicken and onion sauce and a classic cheesy crust capped by dill. It was very enjoyable, very autumnal, although I needed something sharper than a spoon to breech the cheese. Overall though a worthwhile dish, a bolstering booster of a starter. 

Zhulien - very good

It all got better with the salmon pancakes or blini (£6.95, main image). These were floaty, very fishy, yet balanced by the sour cream mix and set off by very fine pancakes. These were easily the best thing about the whole meal. The little cap of dill added more character. 

Dill became a theme.

They have a lot of dill in the kitchen.

The mains weren't so good. 

My partner's Lithuanian dish had a cracking description. It was 'Kibinai, oven baked pork pasties, served with bullion'. Given the addition of bullion it was a bargain at only £7.95.

Sadly, the bullion turned out to be a pot of thinnish bouillon. The pasty was all right but wouldn't have looked out of place in a transport caff (if there were any of those left). It shouldn't be on the mains section of the menu, this was more like a starter. Maybe Baltic Cellar should half the size and move it across the menu. 

Pasty and 'bullion'

My main was poor. The keshanele (£12.95) was marinated chicken stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, smoked bacon and wrapped in bacon. The bacon wrap was reinforced concrete. Once this had been hacked away the food was dry and characterless, exactly the opposite of how it should be. The brown rice it came with was fine, the salad was ok and there was always the dill. I dream of dill.

The keshanele - a poor shrivelled thing

We also tried the lamb shashlik. The meat was fine, the sauces, the salsa and the yoghurt thing were weak, without enough heat or bulk. The dill was good.

For drinks, it's best to dig into the East European bottled beers served entertainingly in tough ceramic jugs. I liked the Utenos beer from Lithuania, a pale lager with decent flavour. The two wine choices, a house red and white, were again from Eastern Europe, and weren't up to scratch. Baltic Cellar needs to source wine from more familiar wine-growing areas - you can take a theme too far.

Good shaslik, weak accompaniments

But since the beer's good, we needn't worry about the wine, it's the food that requires urgent attention. An indifferent chewy pudding came with, for example, squirty vegetable extract cream. Very wrong. The kitchen needs to sort this and at the same time give the sauces definition and make sure things such as my chicken dish aren't sent out to customers unless they're timed properly. 

Vegetable extract squirty cream - no, no, no

The staff were enthusiastic, keen to explain things. And despite the main courses it was very pleasant to sit there in Baltic Cellar, chatting away to a backdrop of flying ankles. I wondered out loud whether it was this site that was Devilles nightclub in the 80s or the one next door. In which case, this would have been the bar with the worst punning-title in town, Cellar Vie.

Sat in my booth I recalled coming down to Devilles when it was populated by the people in this Youtube clip. Wow, the recent past is so strange.

As for my perceptions of Eastern European food, I'm not sure the Baltic Cellar experience has materially changed things. There is herring on the menu and there are several different types of dumpling and even sauerkraut. Stereotypes are there for a reason of course. 

Still, at least the starters showed there is skill in the kitchen, now it just needs to be applied across the menu.

You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+ 

ALL OUR SCORED FOOD REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL. REVIEW VISITS ARE UNANNOUNCED AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ANY COMMERICAL RELATIONSHIP.

You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+ 

Rating: 12/20

Food: 5/10 (zhulien 7, pancakes 7, pasty 5, chicken wrapped in bacon 4, shashlik 6, pudd 5)

Service: 3.5/5

Ambience: 3.5/5