Albert’s Schloss
Ian Jones, Food and Drink Editor
Christmas 2024: The festivities have arrived at Albert’s Schloss. The beautifully decorated space, complete with a roaring fire and cosy grotto feel, provides the ideal seasonal setting. There are festive feasts available at the Cookhaus, and to complement these hearty winter dishes, you can enjoy festive drinks like Alpine Hot Schokolade, Boozy Schokolade Orange, and the limited edition White Christmas Margarita, available until Christmas Eve.
And, as ever, the live Bavarian-inspired entertainment means the festive energy will stay high throughout the season. Expect music, magic, and merriment in abundance.
New Year’s Eve 2024:
This New Year’s Eve, Albert’s Schloss, one of Manchester’s most popular party spots, is inviting guests step into ‘Albert’s Party Time Machine’ to celebrate the new year alongside history’s wildest party animals, all within the lively halls of the much-loved Alpine bier palace and cook haus.
Guests are invited to travel through the decades with Albert and friends from eras past and wilkommen the New Year with their nearest and dearest, plus some very special historic party animals! Be ready to say hallo to history’s finest party purveyors, with the guest list including the likes of Nero, Dionysus and Cleopatra!
Expect midnight magic, merriment, mayhem and all manner of indecency from Albert’s showtime extraordinaries.
Tickets will set you back £45 and grant you access to a menu including prosecco and canapes before 8pm. For those who would like to seriously indulge, there’s also a 3 course set menu, available from £100pp from 7pm and £120pp from 9pm, scooping you your own table.
The schnapps is poured. The haus band is ready. It’s time to dance into next year – see you on das benches!
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Restaurant: The Albert Schloss Sunday roast comes billed as the best in Manchester, but it’s a crowded field, with plenty of great contenders for the crown. The sheer number of people packing out Albert Schloss on a rainy Sunday afternoon suggests they’re doing something right.
The venue’s look plays a big part – it has an almost churchlike feel, with a fire blazing as you walk in. It’s the perfect setting for this most British of meals, especially as the place is named after old Queen Vic’s husband (yes, him of unprintable piercing fame).
The menu has all the classics, with a welcome touch of the Germanic. Standouts from the appetisers section include the wonderful alpine krokettes – hot little spheres packed with rich, gooey Gruyere cheese and thick chunks of smoked bacon.
The bier onion soup is an interesting option, and one rarely spotted on modern Manchester menus. Essentially a French onion soup with a Deutsch twist, it arrives in a large white pot with a “top hat”, aka a light buttery pastry lid. Dive inside, and you’ll discover a delicious soup made with sweet roscoff onion and Stiegl beer, with some light thyme flavours and thick swirls of Gruyere cheese. Damn right it is, especially when you rip a strip of pastry off the top and dip it in.
There might be a mains section featuring burgers and sea bass, but that’s for part-timers – we’re here for the roasts. Most restaurants keep it simple, with just two or three options, but not Albert. Here you’ll find pork, chicken, mushroom and no less than two types of beef: sirloin and Wellington. All come family-style, with sharing plates of well-executed roast potatoes (crispy, fluffy and beautifully seasoned), seasonal greens, plus a gravy boat like the one your gran used to have back in the day.
Each plate includes a big portion of fresh-tasting root vegetable mash and an enormous Yorkshire pudding with all the requisite parts and textures, namely a soft middle and crunchy (but not too crunchy) sides.
Albert’s beef Wellington is a little different from the ones you might be used to. Rather than a cut of beef served pink and surrounded by pastry, here you’re looking at a slow-cooked featherblade of beef encased in a light, almost transparent pastry casing. It’s actually sauerbraten beef – Germany’s national dish, no less – meaning it’s been heavily marinated and delivers some pleasingly potent tangy flavours.
But what about the pork, I hear you cry? More than mere pork, here it’s called schweinsaxe and you’ll be hard-pressed to find it on the menu elsewhere in Manchester. Also known as pork knuckle, it’s an imposing joint, and this one portion could probably feed three people.
Not that we’re complaining; this is a wonderfully multi-layered piece of slow-roasted hog, giving subtle hints of anise and citrus flavours thanks to the caraway seasoning. There’s crunchy crackling, salty fat, dark lean meat, light meat, and so on – it’s the swine that keeps on giving. Top tip: if you don’t finish it, take it home – it’s a crime to waste something as good as this.
To end this feast, only black forest gateau will do. A nice combination of light and traditional, this is a world away from Sara Lee, largely thanks to the fluffy vanilla cream that makes up more than half the dish. Pair that with a nice amount of chocolate sponge cake and a handful of powerful Amerena cherries and you have yourself a winner.
As you’d expect from the Anglo-Saxon theme, Albert’s Schloss does a great line in hearty meat dishes, but the pork knuckle steals the show, and then some. It’s a must for all roast dinner connoisseurs, especially if you’re looking for something to replace the common or garden chicken and beef options out there. Ausgezeichnet!
