BertieWooster

the buggers gave us four stars originally (I have the evidence) online and then reduced it...grr. In Restaurant mag this issue...

So those helpful comments from me and Thom were on the wrong day, damn this merkin site's dating system, but glad you enjoyed it. Hmm, yes, it has been mentioned by a few people. The stairs basically drop you at a corridor at the back of the kitchens. Its a fire exit and all the locks spring open in the event of the alarms going off, but otherwise you're surrounded by locks--not really surprising when you consider the four floors of gallery space beneath the restaurant. So, unless someone actually accompanies you down the stairs to open the doors.... Fish Pie AND chips? Potato ANd potato? Thats my kind of eating. I guess two types of potato counts as two veg towards the daily five?

think so. Lunch only for tomorrow, all sold out for dinner, should you be running late.

Are you going to do duck? ← of the 'a l'orange' variety I'm sure! We could make it a whole seventies theme evening I guess, profiteroles and proper Prawn Cocktails... There's a very good (bibbed) restaurant in Masham called 'Vennels'. WOnder if its the same people?

We're going to do 'Gourmet Nights' later in the year, probably with advertising based around the whole Fawlty Towers episode. Either an amusing stab at self-deprecation and irony or a car crash waiting to be beaten with a stick, I can't decide which. Naming something 'gourmet' or 'gastro' is like naming it 'THe Best restaurant'...just giving the reviewers an easy opening line.

Not quite what he was saying this time last year. But I note... "The problem here is that a great new restaurant will open up and hire a chef from a brasserie around the corner - it's a bit of a merry-go-round in chef terms." *ouch*. I was wondering about the Dev too Kropotkin, but surely that would be a no-goer, that has to be fine country house hotel cooking, the Duke and Duchess (who would ultimately appoint) wouldn't stand for all this fancy nonsense.

I find 'THis is great...I've been looking forward to eating like this for twenty years. Course it would have been ten but for that unfortunate incident with another con' keeps the neighbours quiet.

Maybe new bars should keep wines of difficult pronounciation off the menu till the staff get used to the easy ones, or put pronounciation guides on their crib sheets ('Shat--oh--nerf---do---Pap'). Broadly, we think the service up there is better than 99% of places in Manc., but the bar service (rather than drinks making) side is the side where we're still in most need of improvement. And, boy, does the CIty Inn need it.

Hmm, yes, the bar isn't working quite as well as we hoped. Wrists (and other bits) will be slapped... Hope the lunch is better!

Devonshire Arms lost too. Nathan Outlaw straight in a rising two. White BUll at Ribchester gets a Bib.

well, the airport hotels DO employ rather a lot of local people, so I would say they add rather a lot to the local economy. Manchester airport is the fourth biggest airport in the country in terms of numbers (after the three London ones), so its a major regional and national attractor. The problem for local tourism is that something like 80% of inbound passengers are on the return leg...ie. not coming to visit the city/region.

He's following a very tough act out "West" click. ← We ate there about two nights before Hawksworth left. Absolutely stunning place. Very hard act to follow. Everywhere we went in BC was full of British chefs; maybe they're cheaper than the 'merkin equivalents? Presumably Executive SOus means 'he thought he'd get the top job, but we wanted to get in another Brit...so we've given him a new title as a sop.'

No, but bloody awful service.

Dunno mate. How are those commercial sites linked in your sig doing anyway?

Hi Nikki, yes, especially midweek, but if you're talking weekends, phoning in advance would be most sensible to avoid being offered a table in 'two hours' and being forced to consume large amounts of cocktails whilst waiting.

Main menu and prices can be found here. No, its not an offer.

Go on then you teaser. Where's the best fish pie in Lancashire? And don't say your house. And Manchester hasn't been in Lancashire since I was a schoolboy. ← Yeah, but it should be. Just as the best fish pie in Lancashire, at the Inn at Whitewell, should really be in Yorkshire.

Can't really comment for obvious reasons CB. Though I have seen a P&L that suggested seriously large linen bills for the previous incumbents! Because its run as part of Urbis trading, the management of the finances is rather more central I guess. It has to return a serious amount to the Urbis bottom line in order to finance the sort of exhbitions we need to do. But it also fits in with the Urbis purpose, in promoting the best of the city, and hopefully being a showcase the city high-ups are proud to use. It's not a usual venture for a gallery---most, even the biggies, would out-source delivery of catering and accept a fairly fixed amount in return (10% on tunrover or thereabouts). We wanted to deliver ourselves because a) we think we can do it better, and therefore make more money, and b) the Urbis branding elements that are important to us---particualrly around service--, can't be guaranteed when such elements are handed over to a commercial company (even the best ones like Couture catering). And, at the end of the day, I wanted a restaurant and bar I was happy to eat/drink in. Which is why it serves the second-best fish pie in Lancashire, and the best Manhattan.

*waves*. THe street-side issues will be being tackled over the next few weeks we hope. Its never going to have a full-on set of advertising hoardings because planning won't let too much happen to such a signature building. But we can improve what's there. Passing trade is always going to be an issue though. There seems to be a sychological barrier between the Arndale and the Triangle that stops people passing that point. The revamp of Victoria will help rather a lot.

And the downside to that will be...? ← There'll be no-one for the liberal middle-classes to feel superior to?

You wouldn't go out of your way to eat at thestaratharome? You're mad sir/madam. For a start, you'd never get there if you didn't go out of your way.

yes, yes, but write your review already...

ONe of the most amusing things about this story has been to see broadsheet journalists revealing the most tabloid-like hunt for a story, with similarly little regard for doing any research. The most common questions to the PR departments of major supermarkets are currently running along the lines-- 1) Journo: 'How do you justify selling battery chicken?' Sprmkt: 'We don't sell battery chicken. We never have.' Journo: 'Oh, uhhr, oh.' 2) Journo: 'How do you justify seling broiler chicken?' Sprmrkt: 'Broiler chicken is just a name given to chickens that people eat, it denotes nothing about the way the chicken is raised..' Journo: 'Oh,. uhhr, oh.' 3) J: 'How do you justify this? What does your spokesperson say?' S: 'What do we have to justify? WHat allegations are you making?' J: 'All about this chicken thing. How do you justify it?' S: 'If you'd like to give us some specific allegations, I'm sure we can respond.' J: 'So you're refusing to respond to the allegations? I'll have to put that in the article.' S: 'I'm just writing a note to your editor offering to respond to any specific allegations the paper may want to put.' J: 'Oh, uhhr. Oh.'

The two meals we enjoyed most last year were at LCS and at Petrus (except for at that new Manchester place, oooh, what's it's name? ; - ) ). Both taken above the norm because they were tremendously enjoyable experiences. Don't think (at least with the latter) that this experience of Petrus is shared by many, but we found it fun, the staff excellent but chatty and friendly, lovely atmosphere (helped by bitching at and about the elderly men and their paid-by-the-hour companions on other tables), actually quite laid-back. All things, I know, not usually mentioned in reviews of the place! Maybe we were lucky, but also helped by the fact we tend to eat at the latest possible sitting in London places, so we're still there post-midnight when the staff wind down. Oh, and aided by ordering the Tarte Tatin (usually for two) just for myself, and loving every waist-expanding bite of it.

FWIW, I do agree with you (though not always with Harford, who has some strange pre-conceptions sometimes). I'm an instinctive free-marketeer. I wasn't suggesting tariffs or quotas, but an acceptance of a supported price. Not, in itself, exactly a Chicago-economics type idea,but when it comes to food production, I feel there is a strong argument for ensuring domestic production remains in business. For, y'know, when the rapture comes.