15 October 2013

Neil Sowerby's verdict on Manchester House

WHILE all eyes in Manchester were on our own food awards, on the same night the city’s brightest new arrival was scoring a significant hit down in London. Aiden Byrne’s freshly minted Manchester House was named “The One To Watch” in the National Restaurant Awards.

Which explained his absence from the Town Hall, along with arch rival Simon Rogan, whose L’Enclume got fourth spot in the 100 Best Restaurants list, and Mary-Ellen McTague of Aumbry (90th).

Rogan and McTague cleaned up in absentia at the MFDF Awards. His eponymous satellite restaurant, The French, scooped best restaurant and newcomer of the year titles, while she was again chef of the year. Byrne wasn’t eligible in any category because he opened too late.

On the evidence of a recent (mostly) impressive meal at Manchester House he would have run them more than close. I’ve long admired the confident Scouser’s talent, honed in Michelin-starred kitchens, but felt with his Church Green base and sideline ventures a sense of diminishing returns. That’s all changed with the backing of Living Ventures’ Tim Bacon. And how.

It’s a powerhouse alliance they have forged on level two of Tower 12. A world away from Bacon’s three hit and miss Spinningfields As – Australasia, Artisan and Alchemist (we were spared “Aiden”). OK, the bar on level 12, The Lounge, linked by lift, murmurs discreet bling, but it was fun nibbling canapes there (I do love the foie gras in beetroot macaroons) and scanning the darkening cityscape. Unlike skyfall rival Cloud 23, you don’t feel like you are in a spaceship or surveying Gotham City.

Twelve courses

Still the whole point is the food. The 12 course tasting menu (£95), you are warned, takes over three hours. We did the a la carte (tweely divided into Beginning, MIddle, End) but extra dishes kept appearing, served with a flourish in a 76 cover restaurant that never felt crowded. Not that eavesdropping was on the cards with so much concentration demanded by the food.

If Simon Rogan’s ox in coal oil, pumpkin seed, kohlrabi and sunflower shoots has become his signature dish in Manchester through sheer chutzpah, then the Byrne rival in the much-hyped shoot-out has to be his starter of squab pigeon with cherries, pistachio and violet mustard (£16). I ceded it to my companion because I’d already sample it as press preview where it wowed the grizzled critic pack.

Out of a tumult of sweet and sour from the aromatic mustard and the dusting of freeze-dried sour cherries the gaminess of the roast breast emerges triumphant. Smashing.

My truffle-poached chicken (£15) is a gentler thing of beauty. The baby artichokes lack the intensity of their Gallic brethren in an Alan Ducasse establishment the previous week but hey that was Provence and otherwise the dish offers a quiet playfulness. The chicken shelters under a scroll of toasted rye, topped with potato cubes and herb wisps and there’s a frozen goat cheese that’s supposed to contributes a whack of acidity but doesn’t.

Before the starters we’d been sent a cluster of treats – a chilled broad bean soup given oomph by a sharp goat’s cheese and an aesthetic setting courtesy of a beautiful receptacle laced with small holes; a vibrant combo of razor clam, tiny fried squid tentacles with yellow pepper, cubes of black squid ink jelly and nasturtium leaves; and, topping the lot, a potato foam, redeeming all gratuitous foams because its grainy depths harbour  plump, braised snails under a light layer of parsley puree. I can’t remember the Fat Duck’s famous snail porridge tasting so good. These extras are offered generally as an ‘extended a la carte’ option as a half-way house to the full taster. Well worth it.

An odd craving for Chablis after two many hefty Southern French reds in our week away dictates fish mains. My companion’s wild sea bass, shrimp chorizo and red pepper (£26) delivers too much salt for her liking and I have to agree. A similar possibility with the Turbot cooked in fermented cabbage with morteaux sausage finally inclines me against my initial main choice.

Despite the hefty £50 price, I don’t regret going for the poached lobster tail – firm and tender lobster sweetness in heavenly union with gently smoked apple puree, sitting on slithered vestiges of fennel and a mere coating of pomme puree. Hardly challenging but harmonious.

Milk and honey (£8.50) was my lactose-tolerant companion’s pud. Frozen milk pearls, something gelatinous with vanilla, a cube of lemon-scented caramel, it offers less than the sum of its parts. I’m happier with the similarly priced (and in that holed bowl again) Szechuan, lychee and rose, fresh and fragrant, though the pepper kick is hard to discern. Neither dish is up there with Byrne’s way off the wall version of the much-abused Manchester Tart, which I’d enjoyed at the preview. Tart in the House – I won’t spoil it for you.

It’s early days yet, Simon Rogan is in the ascendancy across town, and one suspects the the One To Watch accolade was the metropolitan culinary mafia bigging up one of their own (they see the Dorchester in Byrne, not the Kirby, the Great British Menu rather than the Great Manchester Michelin Yearning). There never were such times.

Let’s just call Manchester House the One You Can’t Ignore. I’m happy to show a continuing interest, though via the bargain £27.50 set lunch rather than the arm and a leg lobster.

Manchester House, Tower 12, 18-22 Bridge Street, Manchester M3 3BZ. 0161 835 2557. www.manchesterhouse.uk.com