Former Nutters restaurant will be transformed into an Albert’s

The former Nutters restaurant in Norden will reopen with a function room and private dining space, as part of the well-known Albert’s chain of eateries.  

The historic Wolstenholme Hall site will be brought back to life as an Albert’s restaurant, following planning approval. Elle R Leisure, the company behind Albert’s and Dukes 92 has outlined its vision for the 1800’s building off Edenfield Road.

Bosses want it to become much more than a restaurant, with plans for a bar, function room and a private dining space.

A glazed ‘winter garden’ around the south east corner of the hall is proposed. The new restaurant would boast 180 covers a night alongside a private dining room for up to 40 people.

There would also be two function rooms for 80 and 150 people. 

There has been talk of the venue being transformed since Nutters restaurant closed in 2021 following three decades in business.

Run by award-winning chef Andrew Nutter, he said it closed due to the ‘immense suffering’ caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Plans to transform the hall into an Albert’s venue were approved by Rochdale council last year. Those proposals were later withdrawn following conversations with planning officers so finer details could be tweaked.

The latest plan, now approved by the planning committee, retains many of the specifics of the old blueprints, with current extensions at the site to be demolished to make way for a dining terrace and a feature staircase.

An overspill car park with 58 spaces, as well as a drop-off facility for the function room, are also in the new plans.

Bosses say the business would contribute more than £5m to the local economy and create 80 jobs.

Elle R Leisure runs four Albert’s restaurants in Manchester city centre; Standish in Wigan; Worsley in Wigan; and Didsbury in south Manchester.

Planning papers read: “The design concept is based on recreating the existing Albert’s model of clean, modern and contemporary styling, so that the development is recognisably an Albert’s restaurant, whilst respecting and responding to the character of the existing building and the context of the site.

“The clear, open plan nature of the Albert’s model is at odds with the current arrangement of the existing building in which the haphazard ground floor extensions create an incoherent layout and obscure much of the character of the existing house.”

Wolstenholme Hall has been an iconic building since 1850. It was used as a hospital from around 1920 until the late 1970s before being turned into a nightclub.

After the club closed in 1988, the building stood vacant for four years before being bought by Whitbread for use as a restaurant. In 2003, it was purchased by Rodney Nutter – father of chef Andrew – and used as an eatery until 2021.

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter