GOLF, famously (and apocryphally) derided as a “good walk spoiled” by Mark Twain, is redefining itself indoors these days from the crazier than crazy nine holes at Junkyard Golf in First Street to the newly-opened The Range Golf Members Club at Spinningfields Leftbank, offering five top-of-the-range golf simulators, a raised putting green, two bars and a kitchen.
Maybe we should just put it down as a good bar crawl spoiled (this ToM corresepondent’s lack of hand-eye co-ordination puts Dog Bowl and All Star Lanes in the same category) except the food at The Range’s wine bar, Albatross and Arnold, is rather good on the evidence of swinging by (sic) on opening night.
Chef Oliver Hampson’s all-day small plate sharing menu features soy and honey lamb cutlets, Lancashire cheese bonbons with balsamic pearls, pan-roasted scallops and whiskey-glazed belly pork,all between £9 and £13.
To wash all this down there are 20 wines by the glass on offer plus rare whiskies and cognacs and cocktails such as thyme and grapefruit negroni or blueberry and lovage martini. These are dispensed from a 13ft polished concrete, oak and brass bar, faced by a suspended light installation featuring 1,000 golf balls.
This first floor ‘urban golf venue’, situated between Beastro and Scene Indian Restaurant, is named after the term for a three-under-par on a single hole and American golfing legend Arnold Palmer.
Non-golfing guests are free to pop in for a drink and a bite to eat from lunchtime until late, along with those who also want to spend a bit of time downstairs enjoying the golf simulators and raised putting green.
Albatross & Arnold, The Range, Spinningfields Leftbank, Manchester, M3 3AN. 0161 325 4444. Open Mon-Thu 11am-11pm,Fri and Sat 11am-12pm. Closed Sun.
