As a Medderz resident, I’ve always been underwhelmed by the amount of watering holes and places to munch. Don’t get me wrong, there’s the charming Poet’s Corner, where heads slowly turn at the sight of a new face, or the swish Riverbank, but one place that has been overlooked for yonks, now providing a sweet-ass middle ground, is the gobsmackingly-refurbished Embankment.
Castle Rock have moved in, done away with the snooker tables, and smashed through the building’s exterior to open up massive windows and shamefully unused spaces. The place is glowing. Historically, the building was the Boots Social Club, with Jesse Boot’s office overlooking the staff’s recreational space (now a meeting and function room). You can still smell the med’cine seeping out of the elegant wood fixtures.
Now, the only dispensing going off is booze, most importantly cask and craft beer, alongside a proper pub menu with a specials board to be reckoned with. The pumped stuff is discerningly selected – a couple of blinders we started with were the floral hitter of the spot, Beavertown Gamma Ray, an American pale ale (5.4%, £3.90 for two thirds), and the thick, tangy Kirkstall Framboise, a Belgian raspberry ale (3.6%, £4.20 for two thirds). The beers are constantly rotating, fulfilling every CAMRA member’s dream, with Heineken and the rest also available
Almost all food comes freshly cooked. The Spanish chicken (£7.95) with chorizo and vegetables in a kicking tomato sauce, alongside rice and salad, was light and delicious. The lamb koftas (£5.95), juicy and packed with flavour, were accompanied by pittas, hummus, mango chutney, mint yoghurt and salad. The cock-a-leekie pie (£9.50) was beasting and beautifully succulent – gravy, broccoli, carrots and mash glittering on a true pile of grub. Lastly, the captain seafood pizza (£11.50) was huge, thin-based and cheesy as you get. No portion size was to be sniffed at, and although we were all left huffing over the amount we’d crammed in our faces, the home-cooked gear meant we weren’t left feeling sick, and could just about squeeze a pudding in.
The salted caramel and banana pudding, sticky toffee pudding, apple and rhubarb crumble and tiramisu (all £3.95) came served with cream, ice cream or custard. Mouth-wateringly moreish, even at this point. We ended on some beer tasting, moving from the restaurant to The Dispensary, where a roast-tinged Wrench stout (4.4%, £2.80 for two thirds) from Derbyshire’s Shiny brewery, and local Black Iris’s Homeward Bound double IPA (7.2%, £4.35 for two thirds) blew our bleddy socks off. Bridie Squires The Embankment, 282-284 Arkwright Street, NG2 2GR. 0115 986 4502 Castle Rock website
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