I AM sitting at the bottom of a lift shaft contemplating the delights of bone marrow in an eclair. A first. On my table are the crumbs of scoffed sausage rolls that can best be described as revelatory. This unique six-seater booth is in the middle a new bar with enough industrial remnants and weathered brickwork to qualify it for World Heritage Status.
So far so Northern Quarter, which has recently spawned licensed premises that think they are a ship (Hold Fast) or a potting shed (Allotment) and numerous others that aren’t quite sure what they are – and it shows.
No such identity crisis for Tariff and Dale. It may sound like it’s a New York deli and the street it’s on has doubled for Brooklyn or the Meatpacking District on many a location shoot (general manager Nikki Beckley recalls a film crew once blocking her route home to her flat), but it’s firmly in homage to the cotton spinning warehouse it once was.
A firebomb reputedly took it out of commission during World War II and in intervening decades the corner building became increasingly derelict. A friend who had an apartment across the road when this was the new urban frontier recalls seeing squatters dancing naked in there once.
Still behind the boarded-up windows lay a lost world of gently rusting artefacts – mothballed manna to the magpie instincts of new owner Nick de Souza, whose Chorlton bar, the Lead Station, appealed because it is housed in a former cop shop.
Tariff and Dale’s sympathetic refit has worked around an old cotton baler and vintage weighting devices, so it doesn’t look like some crass post-industrial rent-a-girder joint and, of course, that disused lift shaft. Some serious restructuring had to be done and locating the loos means negotiating a staircase warren. I particularly like near the bar entrance a tableau of vivid blue old door and a huge cog-heavy machine, both left as found.
The basement open kitchen under head chef Chris Vernazza, boasts a wood-fired pizza oven, not quite as snazzy as the mirrorballed Neapolitan one across the NQ at Ply, but capable of generating the same fearsome temperatures that turn 24-hour proved sourdough discs into the crispest of bases.
I never got round to road-testing the pizzas, but all I ate in the 70-cover restaurant was splendid testimony to Chris’s pedigree in some top kitchens. The gloriously moist, deftly crusted sausage rolls are the kind of elevated pub grub promulgated by his telegenic mentor Tom Kerridge at the Hand and Flowers, Marlow. At £7 a plateful with sharp ketchup they are good to share – as is the beef tartare at a quid more.
That innovative eclair slathered with marrow accompanied a main of dark beef shin (£14) and worked really well. My companion’s lasagne (£12.50) was equally playful. Rather than being baked whole, the layers were cooked separately and constructed just before plating- the meat was shredded Middle White pork.
Both dishes were well-matched by a Delaforce red from Portugal’s Douro from a small but well-chosen wine list. Draught beer was mostly keg, but there was hand-pulled Outstanding Pale Ale. Best bet is the increasingly visible Beavertown range, which have redefined UK beer in cans. Cocktails are in the capable hands of Ozzy Foster (below), formerly of Liar’s Club.
Among the puds my lemon posset with crunchy shards of meringue was too sweet for my taste. Across the table the brown sugar brulee worked much better. Both were £6, as was Big Kids Honeycomb, which I’ll try next time. And there will be because this is a terrific addition to the Northern Quarter, open from breakfast through until late.
Tariff and Dale, 2 Tariff Street, Manchester, M1 2FN. 0161 710 2233. http://tariffanddale.com @TariffDale
