Delilah Fine Foods on Victoria Street in Nottingham is a great Deli and also a great place to grab a spot of lunch.

Pre Covid It has always kind of felt a little upmarket and was always rammed with people eating on the Mezzanine or sitting at the square bar with a coffee or a glass of wine whenever I have poked my nose inside looking for some cured meats or cheeses from the shop.

These days things have changed as we enter the new normal, this week when we came in it felt so different, masks on as we followed the arrows around the shop and one in one out to eat up on the Mezzanine. No-one was sitting at the bar, and the shop full of awesome produce and foods was bereft of foodie bustle.

The team though were full of enthusiasm and ready to greet, we were allowed a seat downstairs as it was busy and we gratefully accepted the offer. Track and Trace cards filled in, and orders placed all very well organised and we were in and awaiting our brunch

Unbeliveably the last time I wrote words about this place was way back in 2013, and reading what I blogged then as I mused and considered my words for this piece, I was just as keen to eat there again (read more here)

Today we were in taking advantage (I suppose) of the #EatOutToHelpOut which seems like a good idea to encourage the punters back in.

So what did we eat?

DELILAH BRUNCH

The Delilah brunch for £9.95 made up of ‘Sausage, chorizo & butter beans slow cooked in San Marzano tomatoes with toast & scrambled eggs‘ Sounded pretty good on the menu.

It was all very tasty and the mixture of sausage, butter beans and chorizo in the cooked down tomatoes was the highlight. I liked the piquant tang of the chunks of sausage alongside the gentle sweetness of those San Marzano tomatoes. The butter beans were firm and almost meaty adding some bulk to the sauce.

In some ways I pondered that this was really just posh sausage and beans, but it was a lot more than that to be fair. A lot of quality ingredients all melded into a solid saucy delight.

The scrambled eggs were excellent, light, creamy and a perfect foil for the flavoursome sausage and tomato element on the plate as it was plain yet still seasoned well enough to take its place in the brunch time mix up.

Although this was a really nice plate of food, it was really more of a light bite and In reality it seemed a lot smaller than I had hoped for, especially for just under 10 quid on a normal day. It was a good dish to have though with this #EatOutToHelpOut offer as it was then a total bargain.

TRUFFLED MACARONI CHEESE

The Truffled Macaroni Cheese ‘baked with 4 cheeses & English truffle oil’ was priced up on the menu at £7.95 and there were options to have this with ‘funghi di muschio‘ or with ‘chorizo & black pudding‘, we chose the latter.

This bowl of gooey cheesey delight looked great when it arrived at the table, a crisp baked cheese topping upon a load of perfectly cooked pasta mixed into a lot of thick molten cheese with a generous amount of crumbled black pudding and chopped chorizo sausage meat.

If you love truffle then you will probably love this, for me I found it a little bit overpowering and I only had a few mouthfuls as I was having the brunch dish. I liked it but found it to be a very rich dish to consume.

I think that it would have benefitted from being served alongside some crusty bread or toast and a nice mixed green salad with sliced tomato, just to add a little acid and freshness. Don’t get me wrong though this is a seriously good grown up mac n cheese dish, I just want more as always 🙂

Value wise with the #EatOutToHelpOut offer this brunch at Delilah was great, just about £11.50 for both dishes and a cup of tea and coffee. Deals like this could well encourage a few new people through the door to check the place out and if so that would be a great way to get back on the road to recovery.

While we were here I checked out the sandwich menu, which looked just as good as when I blogged here six years ago, and I reckon that is that way to go, just as it always was.

Looking around the shop at the meats and cheeses on offer I also remembered why this place is so good, and to be frank it needs to be promoted a lot more as it does not get mentioned enough in my opinion. But you know it took me another 6 years to post again so I accept some of the blame 🙂

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Delilah is located at 12 Victoria Street and you can check them out

on their Facebook page and on their Instagram Feed