SOLITA has been so busy extending its empire to Didsbury, Prestwich and, come the New Year, Deansgate, it would have been easy to neglect the Northern Quarter original, dirty food central in Turner Street. Not so.
After a brief closure it’s back with a refreshed new look TOM rather likes and a playful new menu that hasn’t strayed far beyond the hugely original Solita template – ie there’s no budging the £11.90 Manc-hattan Burger, that transatlantic coupling of oven bottom barm roll, pastrami, melted Lancashire cheese, panko fried black pudding, Coney Island mustard and Lancashire sauce. Where, though is the epic Big Manc lurking?
The revamped interior is equally hot and saucy with bright neon-led colours and shameless pop art rip-offs adorning the walls with boards flogging Oreo Ice Cream Pie and further culinary excesses. Oh, and naturally the spotlight is on the caricatures of stars drawn by Stan Chow, a Manc employed by the New Yorker mag.
The sum of the parts is eyeball blasting and artery-hardening, design lessons honed in the Didsbury and Prestwich suburbs, but Solita’s real ‘hood? It’s here.
Solita NQ, Turner Street, Manchester M4 1DW. 0161 839 2200, http://www.solita.co.uk
