Foodie extraordinaire Clare Tollock goes to check out the new menu at The Wick at Both Ends.
The Wick at Both Ends is one of my favourite bars in Sheffield. It has cocktails, friendly bar staff and an excellent menu for informal dinning. They’ve been doing the Wick & Mix dishes for a while, but up until now, they’d been keeping their stabilisers on and always included a few safe bet main dishes on the menu.
Now, with full confidence, the Wick has ditched the stabilisers and gone fully Wick & Mix. With dishes ranging from £3 to £7.50 you can have as much or as little as you like and as the kitchen has taken inspiration from across Europe and Asia, along with a few British classics, there really is something for everyone. The new menu also ensures that vegetarians, vegans and coeliacs are well catered for.
I went to the recent press launch of the menu to sample some of the new dishes for myself. There was a fine spread set out for us, along with a few cheeky mojitos, making for a rather fine affair!
Head chef Alex Mallins has created a few new dishes for the menu, but he’s not daft and he’s kept a few of Wick’s classics on there including firm favourite of Ham and Eggs; a patty made out of ham hock and served with a soft poached egg (£3). I’m also pleased to see that calamari has made a return to the menu; with salt and chilli (£3) and along with battered tentacles and stuffed squid for (£5).
Asparagus tempura (£5) was served with a sweet lime and mint dipping sauce. Based on the mojito the sauce was syrupy and clung well to the tempura batter which encased the fat juicy stalks of asparagus. Rabbit saddle stuffed with garlic and thyme and wrapped in Serrano ham (£5) was a real hit amongst us all and it was good to see this meat being used.
Sticky ginger pork (£4) was chunks of belly pork cooked in ginger beer and served with a sticky ginger beer sauce. The pork was well cooked and beautifully tender but the general consensus was that there needed to be more ginger in there as it would cut through the fattiness of the belly pork perfectly.
Chicken wraps (£3) were fresh and tasty with the chicken cooked in lemon, coriander and chilli and BBQ ribs (£7.50) were big, fat juicy pork ribs coated in the Wick’s own BBQ sauce and served with enormous onion rings. Needless to say they were good and I’ll be ordering them in future!
Reading the menu there are plenty of other dishes I fancy; the rare beef salad (£5) or rump steak served with rocket and a wasabi dressing and the fisherman’s pie (£7.50) of coley, smoked mackerel and tiger prawns are well and truly firmly on the list of the things to try when I next visit… because there will be a next time… and it will be soon.
Find full details of The Wick at Both Ends here.