Room in Manchester is a smart restaurant on King Street. It’s an enviable location, and one that’s bound to pay dividends. You’re greeted by a receptionist and sent upstairs to the venue itself. They take your coats if you have any before you’re seated.
The décor is modern, with lots of glass and sharp edges. The dark wood and dim lighting adds a moody atmosphere to the place, but not in a bad way. The room itself is huge, with high ceilings and a long bar. It isn’t a fine dining interior, but it’s comfortable.
The menu is English with a modern “twist.” It may be the excuse for the prices, as they were a little on the high side. It’s good to see English food still being celebrated, and it should be encouraged at all costs.
"We were disappointed to say the least."
Our starter consisted of a prawn cocktail and mushrooms on toast. The prawn cocktail was an evolution of the 70’s classic rather than a revolution. It contained crab and fresh prawns with tomato jelly. It tasted fresh, fishy and went down well. The mushrooms on toast wasn’t as basic as it sounds. The mushrooms were truffled duxelles, with porcinis to add flavour. Nice, but nothing that set our taste buds on fire.
Main course was a fish supper and a rib eye steak. We also ordered sides of cabbage and bacon, butternut squash and mash. The fish supper was catch of the day with chips. The fish was light, the batter crispy and the chips nicely cooked. They were arranged as a little tower on the plate.
The rib eye was from a grass-fed animal according to the menu, but you couldn’t really taste it. It came with a peppercorn sauce and garnish and was okay, but again, nothing to make us smile with glee. The sides were fine, but there was an overwhelming taste of salt in almost everything.
It was as if the chef had forgotten all about flavour and decided to cover everything in salt to make up for it. After the positive reviews for the Room, we were disappointed to say the least.
The Bill: £53 per head
