Michael Caines at ABode

I think this is probably the best restaurant in Manchester at the moment, certainly among the non-ethnic options.

It's shame it's tucked away in a window-less basement really, as for me that just notches a couple of points off its final score.

I particularly liked the way, having been very delayed on my train journey to Manchester, that I could go in at 2pm and still get a full lunch, without a moment's hesitation from the excellent staff.

The Amazing Graze table d'hote lunch is one of the biggest bargains of culinary Britain - 3 courses for £12. Ok, they're smallish "grazing" portions, but if you want a 24oz steak and chips, you're not going to be coming here anyway, are you? What you get for the £12 are three pretty to look at and tasty, well conceived dishes. With the excellent bread, it's enough for lunch and I don't leave feeling hungry.

But sometimes it's good to go à la carte, where you get two options: grazing portions or "full" portions, the grazing portions being about half the price of the big portions. You can mix and match the two portion sizes, but obviously going for small means you get to try more things, which is part of the fun. And you definitely need to leave room for desserts. At the moment (Sep 09) there's a peach tart on , that is simply exquisite.

Coffee - at least the espresso I usually have - is excellent and comes with yet more food! Most recently some really nicely made chocolate truffles which had a hard exterior and molten interior, and a shot glass of excellent chocolate mousse topped with a banana cream.
Comment on this reader review

Escoffier
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 9
Thursday, September 10, 2009