Barburrito
Telephone 0161-228 6479
Address 1 Piccadilly gardens, Manchester M1
Open all week, 11am-9pm (sun, noon-6pm)
Price meal for two with a beer, around £10-£12
Score 8/10
I hope no dwellers in the birthplace of this newspaper will take umbrage if I say that, until very recently, the only type of Mexican you'd have anticipated coming across in Manchester's Piccadilly was one of those traditional stand-offs involving young men and lethal weapons.
I was reflecting on this in Barburrito, from where we could see the frontage of the hilariously gaudy Brittania Hotel. I've stayed there several times, once with my wife, who struggled valiantly to get the joke, in a bedroom in which a cardboard mural of the Manhattan skyline replaced anything so poncily recherché as a window; and once with a cousin, when cravenly we both pretended to be asleep between the hours of 1.45pm and 5.30pm while the occupants of the next room threw each other against the connecting wall without pause.
How times are changing. Today, the BBC is scheduled to move a chunk of its operations to Salford, the UK's first super-casino is going to the Trafford Park area and, in the most startling act of regeneration since that professional Manc Christopher Eccleston mutated into David Tennant, having rashly sucked the time-space vortex out of Billie Piper's mouth, even the city centre is being tarted up.
Piccadilly Gardens, a forbidding concrete area the last time I sidled past, has been redeveloped. Confusingly, part of it is being turned into a garden (hardly Babylon, but there is a decent patch of grass), and it now hosts a row of smart cafes and restaurants, the most popular of which is Barburrito. And no wonder, because this, the city's first discernible link with Mexicana since Tony Wilson closed the Haçienda, is a star.
Driving for five hours from west London to Manchester and back for a meal that would, had we not lingered, have taken five minutes is an experience that could tend toward the irritating. In truth, my friend initially did seem a little put out ("Wouldn't it have been quicker to fly to Córdoba?" he asked on arrival), but he began to melt when I asked the young chap at the counter whether anyone working there was Mexican. "Nope. "And the owners?" "English." "So is there any Mexican involvement whatsoever?" "None at all."
A glance around the room confirmed this contempt for pretence. Cheaply but cheerily done out with blond floorboards, those Alien-style ceiling pipes that were briefly voguish in 1998 and walls painted coffee-shop red, the only vague concession to Mexicanness is the odd print of a cactus. They don't even bother with that foolish wedge of lime in the beer bottles, although that may be more an economy measure than disdain for faux-authenticity.
The menu is brief, concentrating on a range of burritos, tacos and quesadillas. You pick your dishes and walk along a canteenish counter telling the staff which relishes and condiments you want with each. Almost everything we ate (and we ate just about everything on offer) was fresh and well prepared. A taco filled with bits of steak, hot salsa and sour cream was zingy and delicious, albeit lukewarm, and a braised pork quesadilla with chilli and good, stringy cheese was about as light as such a medley could be.
Easily the highlight, however, was a burrito that married an impeccably springy tortilla to pieces of juicy grilled chicken, spicy beans and jalapeño peppers. All the puddings absolved themselves from any allegiance with Mexico, but a shared portion of cheesecake was fine. The one complaint to this point was getting the tin foil in which the latter was wrapped on a tooth filling, but the menu's claim that the coffee is "award winning" seemed fanciful, unless anyone bothers handing out a plaque for Worst Coffee in the Hemisphere.
That apart, we were hugely impressed. "This is a scrupulously honest product," said my friend, coming over all business analyst as he noted the sight - not wearyingly familiar in a fast food joint - of things bubbling away in pans and people chopping onions in the kitchens. He was right, and if this place doesn't spawn a large and lucrative national chain, I will eat my sombrero (having first, of course, gone out and bought one).
