The River Restaurant, The Lowry Hotel, 50 Dearman's Place, Manchester (0161 827 4000).
Meal for two, including service, £130
Long menus scare me. The menu at the River Restaurant of Manchester's Lowry Hotel boasts 45 dishes, not including sides. That is truly terrifying. I see a menu that long and I think only one thing: somewhere, hidden among this jumble of words, there will be some fearsomely awful cooking. It simply can't be otherwise.
On the River Restaurant menu there are references to ponzu, tahini, pickled girolles, sunblushed tomatoes, vine tomatoes and pressed tomatoes. There are hearts of palm. There is ginger broth. There is guacamole, crisp couscous, fennel puree, pomegranate jus and five-onion sauce. Not four- or six-onion sauce. Five! It reads like it's been put together by a contestant in a supermarket sweep, desperate to fill their trolley before the time runs out. All of these ingredients are then arranged in long lines, some of which only sound edible if you've spent too much time watching Ready Steady Cook
Take one of our starters. Please, take it: ceviche of scallops with pineapple, chilli and coriander. The slices of scallop were so thin you could read a newspaper through them (a great quality in raw filo pastry, lousy in a slice of scallop). A miserly portion of these for £12.50 was laid over a Mars bar-sized log of diced and spiced pineapple, which completely overwhelmed the citrus-cured seafood. Who thought that was a good idea? More to the point, what was it doing on the same menu as my completely under-seasoned bowl of rustic - read tough - pappardelle with wild mushrooms and fava beans?
But then along came the main courses, which were terrific. Not simply OK for what they were, or not bad considering the torture of the starters, but really good. German chef Eyck Zimmer, hired to give Manchester the culinary fireworks it has for so long lacked, clearly has serious classical chops: crisp-skinned sea bass came with tiny rings of caramelised squid, baby vegetables and a light creamy sauce mined with small cubes of chorizo, a savoury burst amid all the fishy sweetness. Dense dark breasts of pigeon, the right shade of purple within, were served with a quenelle of diced candied vegetables and a meaty jus reduced to just the right side of stickiness.
So there's good food and bad food, and it's all coming out of the same kitchen. In short, this menu both reads and eats like one of those confused, over-ambitious, sticky, laminated room-service jobs available in hotels which are trying too hard. Which is what it is. The dining room, also, can't hide its true nature as the eating hall of a corporate hotel. It's big enough that, during weekend breakfasts, wedding guests who embarrassed themselves the night before can hide from each other. In the middle is a marble podium where curling buffet breakfasts are served, and the whole thing is decorated with random chrome bits and mirrors which might pass for glamorous if you were a pre-pubescent girl just out of the pink phase. It didn't help that, on the day we visited, the River Restaurant had no view of the river. The terrace was being renovated, so they had covered the windows with a white gauze as if something truly filthy was going on out there. We peeked over the top. No rutting pigs, just a view of the rough-hewn terrace, which was far better than the truly bizarre white-out of the windows.
I might be willing to overlook the silliness of the room, and even some of the kitchen's acute inconsistency, were it not for the prices. We had two-and-a-half courses each. (We shared a pudding and, like everything else, it was a mixed bag. A square of bitter-chocolate mousse with a crisp shell was very good. A macaroon was overcooked. Ginger ice cream was fine but a pear was undercooked, and so on.) With this and one glass of wine each, the bill came to £107.80. I stare at a bill like that and ask myself one question: if it were my money would I return, even allowing for those fabulous main courses? I'm afraid the answer is no. Or at least not until Mr Zimmer has worked out what it is he does best, and then pared the menu back to that.
While I'm on the subject of money, time for a short public service announcement. I had hoped that the introduction of chip-and-pin machines would stop restaurants dishonestly attempting to screw an extra tip out of customers when service had already been added to the bill, by leaving the gratuity space open on the credit-card slip. Sadly not. A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would like to leave a tip via the chip-and-pin machine when service had already been added. Disappointingly, this was at the otherwise marvellous new Szechuan place Bar Shu, in London's Soho. The management has promised they will stop the practice. In the meantime, please send me reports of any other restaurants doing the same and, if I can, I'll name and shame.
