42 King Street West, Manchester (0161 839 2233). Meal for two, including service, £80
Maybe it was always going to be this way. Maybe in the pursuit of something nice to eat in Manchester, the solution was always going to lie with the Italians. When all else fails – the overconceptualised dining rooms that look like high-end hairdressers, the menus of pan-Asian knockoffs that taste like something has died, or clumsy modern British fiddly bits that feel like a crisis of national self-confidence – you should simply run as fast as you can towards someone with a thick Italian accent. Perhaps Britain's city centres could be fitted with gastronomic panic buttons: in case of dietary distress, or just overuse of ponzu and daikon, break glass, press button. At which point a cheery chap from Piedmont in a black waistcoat will appear and lead you to a simply laid table with olives, breadsticks and an unconsciously phallic pepper grinder. And then everything will be fine.
A ludicrous idea; many terrible things have been done to innocent ingredients in the name of Italian food in this country. But on a cold winter's night, sitting in the warm glow of Cicchetti, being served plate after plate of very nice things, the fantasy makes sense. My failures to eat well in Manchester over the years are so familiar now even I'm bored of them. I've come and I've gone, weighing hope against expectation, only to leave with my fragile heart in pieces. But here I am faced by a little cast-iron pot of a sweet, dark seafood stew with that dirty, funky flavour you get from the application of baby octopus, and I finally know that everything really will be fine.
Cicchetti is a new(ish) restaurant from the San Carlo group, a hugely successful chain of glossy Italians across the north of England, the Manchester branch of which is said to be one of the UK's highest-grossing restaurants. A lot of footballers go there. Cicchetti serves the smaller plates that its name suggests, and is decorated in the sort of style that is probably laid down in the city's bylaws: a huge amount of marble and chrome, uplighters and downlighters, garlands of twigs threaded with flashing fairy lights. Everything here is shiny.
The menu is long, but also responsive to the seasons, having recently bent the knee to the arrival of winter. Most dishes cost between £5 and £7, and where it rises above that – such as with that luscious seafood stew from Livorno, which costs £11.95 – it feels justified.
Perfect gnocchi come baked in a cast-iron pot with a crust of dense cheese. Although the chicken livers on a crostini are a little overcooked, the sauce is so robust you forgive them. A crisp pizza base is spread with melted fontina cheese which at the last minute is laid with strips of smoked salmon so that the oils just begin to run. A thick piece of exemplary raw fillet beef is beaten out to twice its size to be draped over a hot plate to form their "warm Carpaccio" dressed with serious olive oil and curls of black truffle (a bargain at £10.95). Wide egg pasta tubes come with a sausagemeat and beef short-rib ragu full of soothing winter tones. We have a side dish of buttery peas with pancetta, and they are not the fresh kind but something verging on marrowfat, which makes this feel like an Italian dish by way of Salford. The zucchini fritti are indecently thin and crisp.
Curiously the only letdown is in the desserts – a meringue concoction, a chocolate-and-nut torte – which feel one-note and easy. There's nothing wrong with them; they are simply not as good as everything else. The price I have cited is for a full meal, including a bottle of wine, in our case a Montepulciano for £23.95. But the joy of this place and this menu is that it can be used for just a couple of drive-by platefuls at the bar. There are rumours that some of the northwest's most interesting chefs are planning to bring their cooking into Manchester and finally give the city the quality of restaurants it deserves. I hope it's true. While we await that moment, however, it's good to know there's always Cicchetti, a gastronomic place of safety.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
