Hardies Restaurant is a Holiday Inn creation located in their hotel right in the centre of Bolton. It's a light and airy affair, thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows and streamlined furnishings.
Food is served all day long at Hardies Restaurant, showcasing a menu that has a distinctly Continental feel. To start, diners can dig in to warming tomato and pancetta soup with freshly baked bread, or perhaps crisp bruschetta, or baked Brie with a cranberry dip.
Meanwhile, Hardies' grill menu specialises in succulent steak. It doesn't matter if diners go for the rump steak, sirloin steak, or larger rib eye steak — they're all cooked using top quality, 28-day dry aged meat sourced from British farmers. The chefs promise to chargrill the steaks just the way diners like them, and serve them with the traditional sides of grilled tomato and chips, plus the diner's choice of sauce. For something with a bit more spice, opt for the Portuguese-style piri-piri chicken.
A selection of salads and risotto finish off Hardies Restaurant's menu of mains. Classic Caesar salad is played against an on-trend superfood salad packed with health-boosting ingredients like avocado, sugar snap peas and pumpkin seeds. The risotto is piled high with vegetables, too, crafted from a recipe that uses asparagus, leek and peas. Diners can add interest to both the salads and risotto with optional toppings of chargrilled chicken breast or grilled salmon fillet.
The wine list is a good mix of familiar wines and award-winning blends. So as well as the tried and tested proseccos, chardonnays and merlots, there's an offering of more unusual bottles, like the French Chablis and the juicy pinot noir. All in all, a well-chosen accompaniment to the European menu.