Review of 'St Martha Greek Taverna'
Once a year, my companion celebrates her birthday. Every single year. On your birthday you pick where you want to eat so in this case she chose the local “St. Martha” Greek restaurant which we have heard good thing about. Located just outside the town centre on Hospital Street just around the corner from the Morrisons this small restaurant (reservations required) might be easy to miss but is well worth a visit.
Visiting on a cool October Wednesday evening we arrived to wait a few minutes while the busy maitre'd finished with a phone reservation before showing us to our small table beside the kitchen serving window. The small modern interior has funky bare light-bulb lighting and Greek travel pictures on the walls. The wood interior and flooring means it does get quite noisy when busy, as it frequently is. The menu is a single A4 piece of paper divided into Meze (starters here), Kyrios (mains) and Synodeftika (sides).
For our starters we went a bit over-board with a “Collection of Dips” (“taramosalata, tzatziki, beetroot + pita”; £9) which was quite good. The pita was delicious, cut into thick, wedges suitable for taking in as much of the tip as possible with the taramosalata (fish roe) smooth and creamy almost like humous while the tzatziki was light and creamy while the shocking red of the beetroot dip was quite nice. The dips did not really add a huge amount of flavour but they were pleasant enough.
We shared an order of St Martha’s Greek Sausage (“produced in collaboration with Cheerbrook Butchers using our own recipe, honey Dijon”; £9) because it was so local and sounded so interesting…different from what you might normally expect in a Greek restaurant. The sausages were lovely, with a bit of spice (not hot) and a lovely, creamy, mustard dip. It was a bit expensive considering we just received the one, not terribly large, sausage,…
My companion's “Spanakopita” (“spinach + feta pie”; £6.50“) was quite tasty. Not overwhelming in flavour, the pastry was crispy and the filling not overwhelming.
For my main I chose a dish that would test to see just how good their food was, and is one of my favourites: “Moussaka” (“lamb, beef, potato, aubergine, béchamel”; £15). When it arrived it was a bit underwhelming – a small baking container containing the baked moussaka sliding around on a plate. It was extremely hot but the flavour was pleasant but not amazing with a good amount of meat. The portion size was satisfactory and filled me up which I suppose is one of the main attributes of such simple food.
My companion's main “Kleftiko” (“lamb shoulder, baby leek, baby carrot, baby potato”; £22) had quite an overpowering sauce but the lamb was tender and the vegetables cooked well.
At this part of the evening we were quite full having had our two fairly large courses and drinks so we passed on the less-than-inspiring dessert menu. At £75.40 it was fairly expensive for the two of us though it did include several glasses of wine and a fairly pricey main. The service was ok but not overly friendly while the food was fairly disappointing with nothing really amazing though was prepared well.
Rating: “A bit better than average”
Review Date: 2022-10-19
Cuisine: Greek
Address: Hospital St, Nantwich,Cheshire CW5 5RP ENGLAND
Location: Cheshire (England) - Nantwich
Map:
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Telephone: +44 (0) 1270 620036
URL: https://www.stmartharestaurant.co.uk/