26 July 2012

The five-star Lowry Hotel’s River Bar and Restaurant is a favourite of people with a jet-setting lifestyle: Sven Goren Erikson, David Beckham, Kylie Minogue.

Clean simple lines, a built to design curving restaurant and award-winning bar serving among the best, mixed cocktails in the city centre, as well as a spacious, cream-toned restaurant, complete with pea-coloured highlights. It doesn’t feel as cutting edge as it once did, but it’s unmistakably in the city’s top league.

The acting head chef has devised an extraordinarily good value summer menu for just £19.95 per person for three courses. It changes monthly but July options include terrine of goats cheese, pressed with finely sliced celery, crisp apple, lemon juice and fresh cream into a terrine, served with house-baked bread plus candied walnuts (£5) or tuna tartare with pickled kohlrabi (like a softer, less acrid take on a Granny Smith), with wasabi and a Thai-inspired lime dressing (£6, pictured).

These dishes shone with flavour on my visit, presented with just enough fanfare to let you know where you are. Chatting to the chef afterwards, he noted that the plates are white china, and simple, round shapes. Meaning, perhaps, that the cash is spent where it should be.

The restaurant does, after all, have a history of exceptional fine dining. Mark Hix oversaw some of the early menus, just after the restaurant opened 10 years ago while both Marco Pierre White and Eyck Zimmer have had a hand in the restaurant’s evolution. Right now, though, the cooking is as fresh and imaginative as we can remember.

Taste of summer

Even a dish like confit shoulder of pork with apple and vanilla puree, black pudding mash and spicy pork jus (£12) is a lighter creation than you’d expect. The pressed tender nuggets mingled perfectly with light hits of black pudding and spinach, the sauce bringing to mind the sweet and sour heat of star anise. Desserts continue the trend with roast apricots on toasted brioche with super rich condensed milk ice cream (£5), and a straight up local cheese selection (£5).

There’s a main menu that’s more traditional and indulgent in tone. Think rib eye steak, with Café de Paris butter, chips and salad (£22), Coq au Vin with Alsace bacon (£16.50) and perhaps the city’s only authentic Wiener Schnitzel (£18).

The two options complement each other well though, with something for all palettes. I’ll be back to try August’s seasonal menu at any rate. With value, taste and surroundings covered, it’s a rare and special thing when these three come hand in hand.

River Bar and Restaurant, The Lowry Hotel, 50 Dearman Place, Salford, M3 5LH. Tel: 0161 827 4000. www.thelowryhotel.com