“You've seen it on TV, now it's your chance to take on THE CUBE exclusively at Urban Playground”, says the publicity surrounding Manchester’s entertainment venue which opened in February. The trouble is, I hadn’t seen it. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of it, so I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.
The first mission is to find the place. The address listed is simply ‘Upper Mall, Manchester Arndale’ with no further detail. I’ll spare you the trouble of running around the whole top floor by telling you it’s near the Selfridges/Next side and it’s really obvious once you’ve seen it.
The Cube Live
In a nutshell, the popular TV game show fronted by Phillip Schofield has been running since 2009. Contenders must complete a series of deceptively simple tasks while confined to a 4m × 4m × 4m Perspex cube. In this version, helpful staff are on hand to point you in the right direction but scan the QR code on your digital ticket and a short movie on display panels next to each cube explains the rules of each game. The Cube Live experience at Urban Playground has nine cubes, and, working solo or in teams of two (depending on the game) you are assigned seven of them at random. This means that no two visits are the same.
It’s not cheap at £64.99 for two but the experience is a lot of fun and can last up to two hours. Break that down and £16.25 per person per hour for adrenaline-fuelled games of skill against the clock isn’t unreasonable. Urban Playground is also home to Putters, a carnival-style crazy mini golf experience with unique technology, but we’ll have to save that for next time.
The Butcher
This is also where you’ll find the only UK branch of The Butcher, a gourmet burger joint with venues in Amsterdam, Berlin and Ibiza. Known for its high-end take on fast food, the restaurant and premium bar uses only the finest fresh ingredients including Aberdeen Angus beef, fresh vegetables, unique signature sauces, and homemade buns.
The Butcher Manchester‘s menu is huge with twenty or so signature classics as well as burgers made with chicken or lamb, fish or even plant-based patties. There are luxurious ones with truffle glaze, as well as burgers inspired by various countries and cuisines. You can get wraps instead of buns, or even no buns at all for a lower carb option.
We needed to check they’d got the basics right, so ordered ‘The Butcher with Cheese’ (£8.90) - prime Aberdeen Angus beef, with lettuce, a slice of beef tomato, grilled onion, gherkin, Dutch Edam cheese and The Butcher sauce. The burger itself was great. Ever so slightly pink in the middle (The Butcher make a big fuss in their promo material about them being ‘the bloody best burgers in the city’ – re-read our launch article HERE.) However, they’re very juicy so once it’s had a couple of squeezes and bites, the tomato, gherkin and sauce make it start to fall apart. My advice: eat it quickly or take the wet stuff off to eat separately.
‘The Daddy’ (£11.45) had a better burger-to-other-filling ratio with a larger 230g patty of prime Aberdeen Angus beef topped with melted Edam cheese, lettuce, tomato, bacon, BBQ sauce and grilled onion.
At the other end of the scale, we tried ‘The Ugly with Chicken’ (£8.40) a tortilla wrap as neatly folded as a bed in a luxury hotel. Tucked up inside the mis-named parcel was grilled and marinated chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, avocado, sour cream & BBQ sauce. It’s also spiked with spicy jalapeño peppers, so you won’t get too comfortable.
Prices are for burgers only and there’s a comprehensive list of additional toppings, sauces and sides to choose from including various types of fries, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, chicken wings and popcorn chicken. They’ll even do you a green salad.
To wash it down, you can order something from the bar (situated on The Cube side of the venue but everything is ordered via QR code) where you can order beers, wines, spirits and cocktails. There are also the usual soft drinks as well as milkshakes from simple vanilla/chocolate/strawberry (£4.95) to more indulgent peanut butter or cookies & cream flavours (£5.25) or even an extra indulgent boozy milkshake offering with rum and chocolate ice cream (£8.50.)
Although it sits within the Urban Playground unit, The Butcher is a distinctly separate restaurant, so you don’t have to get involved with any of the games to reward yourself with a gourmet burger. In fact, you don’t even need to go there at all as The Butcher Manchester is available via delivery through UberEats, Deliveroo and Just Eat – but that’s arguably less fun.
the-butcher.com Manchester, Urban Playground, Manchester Arndale.
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