ORGANIC growth of cities is as passé as Quarters being one fourth of a whole. Nowadays these aspirant hip urban enclaves are dotted across the map in their dozens, it seems. At least First Street, self-styled ‘Manchester’s latest most vibrant new neighbourhood’, has the good grace not to quarterise itself.
Creating a new destination around what was once an overflow office block for council apparatchiks before the cutbacks has taken some chutzpah. Early days, but Mancs and visitors alike are flocking to the £25m HOME, which yokes the Library Theatre and Cornerhouse together in a thespish, beard-stroking, subtitled, over-installed arts ghetto.
Banal name, some think. Texted: ‘Where are you?’ ‘At Home’. ‘Oh, really?’ ‘Innside before.’ ‘Inside where?’. HOME’S neighbour INNSIDE is a rather striking hotel that stands guard like some Castilian bastion over the entrance to the fledgling quarter. It is run by the Spanish hotel group Melia and its all-day dining restaurant, Street on First, “offers a contemporary approach to Spanish dishes, and is based on the Mediterranean traditions of sharing experiences”.
Being Manchester, at the helm is died-in-the-wool Aussie Dave Spanner, once of pan-Asian Australasia in Spinningfields but also, crucially, a chef with a Barcelona pedigree. I’ve always like his food, but I think this shiny transient setting, on a new frontier, suits it best.
Initially, it feels very much a hotel restaurant space, evoking flashbacks of solitary business travel diners chewing their way through three courses with wine by the glass to assuage their guilt at later ram-raiding the mini-bar. But it grows on you. Outside the Climate Change gales rearrange the coiffures of cineastes heading for HOME (you’re getting my point?), while at a corner window table we are treated like royalty, well like Juan Carlos, by our waiter, Ezekiel, whose bloodline is Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian with youthful years spent in Uruguay. He now lives in Chadderton. You feel the transience?
The bread and olive oil he doles out are exquisite, the spiel about each day’s menu being created according to a mood is risible. It’s a Tuesday, so the uplifting theme on the carte is ‘BIg up and Boost”. I asked if Friday was ‘Knackered and ready to crash’ but learned that each day positivity always reigned.
The dishes arriving are definitely positive statements, among the most exciting food in town. We had resisted the recommendation for a series of small plates but still chose three ‘sharing experiences’ as starters, one of which was a half helping of rabbit tortellini with peas, asparagus, cepes and shaved parmesan (a full portion is £16). Delicate, summery but with earthiness from the cepes.
In contrast, the pork belly that partnered hand-dived scallops in a second dish (£12) lacked the crackling crunch. Our waiter described it as challenging combo. Not really, though the cucumber pickle was a dude.
Much more satisfying and playful, too, was star-anise haunted duck broth in shooters, with pearls of tapioca and shredlets of crab, which you lubricated with further broth from a little black tea-pot. Just £8 for a dream dish.
Mains brought strong reminders of the Spanner tenure at Australasia – pork belly in a red Thai curry sauce, chicken tagine with harissa couscous and preserved lemon – straying light years from the Iberian peninsula. Ditto the pan seared black cod in a miso marinade (£30). From the culinary realms of Nobu cliche? Not a bit of it – flaky umami heaven on a plate.
There was a certain sweet intensity underlaying our other fish main, thanks to a roughly pureed sweetcorn base for the seared monkfish (£26). A few wisps of samphire were extraneous and I’m not sure cubs of chorizo and clam in a razor shell contributed over much, but it’s heartening to see the sheer verve being applied in a chain hotel kitchen.
Enterprising Tweed provide the local beers, including the refreshing Street On 1st lager and there are a couple of fancier bottles from Estrella Galicia. The wine list is short but covers most bases. Our Picpoul de Pinet La Cote Flamenc cost £35 a bottle. By the large glass it’s £8.40 and delivers a minerally, tropical citrus punch that goes well with the assertive flavours of Spanner’s food, where the portions are more Spanish style than the flavours. Didn’t bother us. A real addition to the city’s culinary scene. Get INNSIDE!
Street on First, INNSIDE, 1 First St, Manchester M15 4RP. 0808 2341953, http://www.firststreetmanchester.com
