The French
The Midland Hotel, 16 Peter Street, Manchester
Tel: 0161 236 3333
Meal for two, including wine and service: £140
When I was growing up, lousy with privilege, my parents used to take me to a restaurant near Piccadilly Circus called Stone's Chop House. It was a grand place in the continental style, which stays in my memory mostly because the waiters used to set fire to things tableside: little copper pans of this, frying pans of that, all of it doused in booze and ignited. This culinary arson seemed to me the height of sophistication.
I was reminded of Stone's when I went to eat at The French at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. They ought to set fire to lots of stuff here: crepe Suzette, lobster, each other. It's that sort of place, a culinary artefact whose retro appeal begins with the name - presumably when the hotel opened, in 1903, the city only allowed each nation to be represented by one restaurant - and carries on through the chandeliers, the fleur-de-lys on the walls, the cloches, and on to the silver fox of a maitre d' called Bruno (natch) who has been presiding here for just the 36 years. It is a museum piece, albeit one with an entrance fee of £70 a head (dinner included).
Sadly, while there are a number of trolleys in attendance, not one of them is dedicated to the flambeeing of anything. If you look like this, you might as well play up to it. Bring on the prawn cocktails, the tournedos Rossini and the rum babas. I'm inventing the restaurant to fit the space, of course, for The French is none of that. After a faithful renovation, they reopened recently with a menu that is full of twists and fiddles, nods to the modern, and only the slightest of curtsies to the past. Some of it is very good indeed.
Unforgivably at these prices, some of it is authentically bad - for example, the shellfish bisque. A good bisque should make you worry for your appetite. It should be richer than Bill Gates, and more satisfying than kneeing Jim Davidson in the knackers. This was limp and insubstantial. Plus the rouille was a disgrace to the name, empty of garlic or saffron or cayenne. It was just mayonnaise.
My companion did much better. For her, a tortellini of chicken made with exceptional pasta, wild mushrooms and black truffles. And yes, the flavour of chicken was overwhelmed but, she said, it was still a good, tasty dish, made with care. She did better, too, on her main course, a priapic arrangement of impeccable veal chop, with lovely crisp fat, and fondant potatoes: everything was arranged on the plate pointing upwards, like the kitchen had been at the Viagra.
My tasting of Cumbrian lamb was less good. The kidney and sweetbread was overcooked, the loin and cutlet just a little under, and much of the meat had a plasticky sheen that comes from sitting under the pass lights for too long. And yet this restaurant could still play a blinder with a little copper pot of sublime Lancashire hotpot, the meat cooked down to an unctuous tangle of fibres.
And then came dessert and the food found its way. For her a warm stem-ginger rice pudding which she described as 'memorable'. For me, their chocolate plate: a perfectly formed dark fondant, a silky milk chocolate parfait, a dark chocolate pot with nuggets of sponge and kirsch-drunk cherries, and a little white chocolate mousse. It left us with a warm but uneasy glow, and the sense that though we were pleased we had been we weren't sure why we might come back.
The French is grand and gruesomely expensive. Those main courses cost £29 each and hunting for bargains on the wine list is fruitless. For this sort of money the least you can expect is that everything works. Oh, and that somebody will set fire to something.
