Good Food Guide 2010

[thom]

A little background:

I post regularly on the Manchester forum of www.skyscrapercity.com, a gigantic, global "eGullet"-style forum for architecture and urban-life nerds. The food and drink thread therein is always quite interesting, and unsuprisingly as posters tend to be immersed in the guts and bones of their respective city's the rival-bashing between the forums (particularly between Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and manchester) can sometimes reach fever-pitch.

Because of this (and because of the number of SCC posters, often Mancunian, who like to offer Manchester's lack of a city centre Michelin star as proof that we are an uncultured and unappreciative bunch of philistines living in some sort of post-nuclear urban wasteland) I thought I'd use the latest GFG as an excercise in city comparisons. A neat bit of bench-marking I reckoned.

And if nothing else it meant I could finally put to use the statistics module I did in my Marine Biology degree...

The post is repeated in full below. Bear in mind it is tailored for city-nerds, not food-nerds, so some of the discussion and specifics are less detailed (and more "spoon-fed") than they would have been had I originated the post here. Also, it's Manchester-centric as it was written for a Manchester forum. London is excluded from the list as frankly within the UK it is a dining scene apart and may as well be treated as a country in it's own right (albeit one who's teams have never won a European cup).

I also kept the breakdown pretty basic (as to be honest I think the results are pretty clear and telling) so there is no prattling on about modes, medians and degrees of freedom.

The upshot is that Manchester comes out pretty well (and as you all know I like a bit of Mancunian tub-thumping) but oh how we miss Juniper's mighty 8 out of 10 to hoik our stats up like a tent-pole. Edinburgh is steaming ahead as far as the UK goes, and Birmingham comes out well for fans of serious dining too. God help Leeds if Anthony ever decides to pack it in!

Ah well, The Modern and Red Chilli both made this year's guide for Manchester, and for that reason alone I couldn't be happier!

Ok, let the knee-jerk and defensive city-baiting and all round cheap-shots begin! (You know it will, we denizens of online forums are all the same and give in to our baser instincts no matter what subject we're actually meant to be addressing!

Cheers

Thom

"The new Good Food Guide was out Monday, though Waterstones in the Arndale only got it delivered today (and needed chivvying to put it out on the shelves).

Despite it's imperfections (and no form of grading something as subjective as food is without criticism) it is a pretty good yard stick of good dining - more inclusive than Michelin, more serious than Hardens, more integrity and relevence than the AA or RAC guides - and as such it makes interesting reading for Manchester's self-flagellating restaurant scene.

For those that don't know the book it is not a definitive list of UK restaurants; it doesn't include crap places just to write a wittily ascerbic review, and to even get into the guide is a serious achievement. Ratings go from 1-10 but in all seriousness a 1 is a respectful rating for say a mid-range restaurant or an unassuming bistro.

Anyway once again, for God knows how many years in succession, Manchester has more full entries (and minor listings) than any other UK city outside London and Edinburgh. For the record the regional run-down looks like this:

Edinburgh - 20 total listings - 19 (full listing)/1 (minor listing) - 3.8 (average score out of ten)/8 (highest score out of ten)

Manchester - 17 - 11/6 - 3.4/4

Birmingham - 11 - 10/1 - 3.4/6

Leeds - 10 - 8/2 - 3.5/7

Brighton - 10 - 9/1 - 2.9/6

Bristol - 9 - 9/0 - 3.3/5

Cardiff - 7 - 7/0 - 2.3/4

Glasgow - 7 - 7/0 - 3.1/5

Nottingham - 7 - 6/1 - 3.1/7

Liverpool - 6 - 6/0 - 3.0/4

Newcastle - 5 - 5/0 - 3.75/5

Sheffield - 4 - 4/0 - 2.7/4

I think what is interesting is that as has long been the case Manchester has a huge breadth and variety of dining scene in comparison to other regional cities (the above numbers are even excluding the other seven listed restaurants outside the "city" but within Greater Manchester) but lacks a knock-out top drawer place.

Abode has the potential to become this in time, but as yet we lack an Anthony Flinn style figure (take that one guy out of Leeds and the city's stats drop to 7 - 5/2 - 2.8/4!) to really lift the top end. Birmingham deserve respect for fine-dining strength in depth with no less than four restaurants nailing a 6 out of ten.

On a personal note I was delighted to see The Modern at Urbis in the book with a credible 3 (on a per with The Midland and Harvey Nichols, and one below Abode). A big success for a very Mancunian, local and regional dining experience, and God knows Urbis could do with some good news. at the moment...

Cheers

Thom"