The Cherry Tree one of OpenTable’s top romantic restaurants

For the borough is home to one of most romantic restaurants in the UK. 

The Cherry Tree in Blackrod has been listed in OpenTable’s top 100 romantic restaurants in the UK for 2024.

Staff found out about the ‘exciting’ news last week and have been celebrating as a team as the Valentines season approaches.

The restaurant which opened in 2010, was named as part of OpenTable’s latest top 100 report alongside six other Greater Manchester restaurants.

To come up with the top 100, OpenTable, the online restaurant-reservation service company, analysed more than 1.1 million diner reviews and metrics to find the restaurants that had diners swooning – and The Cherry Tree was one of them.

Alison Graham, restaurant manager at The Cherry Tree has spoken about how excited her team was when they found out.

She said: “It is amazing news; we are really excited about the recognition from OpenTable.

“We already know we have a beautiful and romantic restaurant so its great that everyone else knows too.

“We found out about the recognition last week, OpenTable let us know and we have been provided with a logo, so we have been putting it out there to let all of our customers know, especially on the run up to the most romantic time of the year, it’s a nice thing.

“When I found out it was very exciting, I told all the team, and they were very excited too.

“I put it in our group chat and thanked them all because obviously they are the reason, we get such awards.

Inside The Cherry Tree (Image: Bryden Carlos)“I think we have been named as we have a very pretty restaurant, there is lots of nice cherry blossoms and there are some nice quiet booths, a very nice terraced area, a lovely lounge, and there are lots of nice romantic spots to sit at.

“Being recognised like this can only be positive really, it is nice for a small local independent restaurant to get a prestigious award as it gets your name out there.

“It is tough time for restaurants at the moment so it’s really nice for our small restaurant to get something like that, it will help us.”

Alison said The Cherry Tree is a much-loved restaurant by the customers.

She said: “We have a 4.7 out of five rating on OpenTable and TripAdvisor so its above average and is loved in the local area, the responses we get are good and we get lots of great feedback and we have regulars too who have come here for years.”

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The Cherry Tree offers a range of delicious food options.

Alison said: “We do very classic dishes, we have the traditional fish and chips, but we also cater for different palates too, so we have some more extravagant menu items.

“So, we have a little bit for everyone really, you could have fish and chips, or you could have a nice shoulder of lamb or fillet steaks and we also have pizzas.

“We also have nice lunch menus, a market menu, a Sunday lunch menu, and we also have our dinner show events which are quite popular, so there is a bit of something for everyone.”

The Cherry Tree has plans in place to celebrate the love this Valentines.

The Cherry Tree has been named as one of OpenTable’s top 100 romantic restaurants in the UK for 2024 (Image: Bryden Carlos)Alison said: “We have a Valentines Special Menu which can be found on our website and on social media so there is a range of starters, mains, and desserts but we also have our main menu too.

“We didn’t want to just stick to a set menu, we are just letting everyone have the option to pick and choose.”

A new menu is also set to launch on February 26 with lots of new dishes set to be available too.

For more information or to check menus, go to: https://cherrytreeblackrod.com/

If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at chloe.wilson@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on X @chloewjourno.