CityLife

M.E.N review: Establishment

BANKING was always a solid career move. Fifty years of ledgers all adding up. The feckless begging you to bail them out and you counselling prudence. At the end of it, a pension and gold watch guaranteed. But now it's all distant and online. A customer has less chance of confronting a bank manager than spotting a great auk. How the old certainties have crumbled. How the old bank buildings are crumbling.

All over town you see them, given over to new uses. Fashion emporia and bars rattle around in their echoing, marbled halls. Mind, these are lovely spaces.The opulent Edwardian Baroque of the old Parr's Bank houses, rather successfully, the Athenaeum Bar. Other conversions fall by the wayside. Up on Shudehill, The Smithfield pub - in a branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank - is shuttered and forlorn as the new transport interchange rises behind it.

A much, much grander edifice - from 1890, also once a Lancs-Yorks Bank and cheek by jowl with the Athenaeum - is now home to Establishment, a restaurant built to attract serious money for its serious food. It ought, too, to be attracting that Michelin star that continues to elude Manchester city centre establishments (Juniper out at Altrincham is still our sole standard-bearer). After all, its nifty chef, Ian Morgan, was runner-up in a prestigious national competition and the food served is elaborate and challenging. So why no star?

Perhaps, the clandestine inspectors were put off by the day-glo cocktail bar that's in your face as you heave your way in through the heavy doors. My evening's companion, the lovely Ms B, calls Manchester Cocktail City and all the aspiring big league restaurants, such as Obsidian and the Cotton House sport similar ``mixologist's labs".

Naff

But here among the polished granite columns and more marble than most cathedrals, it looked, well, naff. As did the notorious purple `pod' next to it that breaks up the cavernous interior and provides a private dining area. As did the twin saucer domes painted with clouds. I almost preferred the less cluttered look of its previous incarnation as Marston's mega-pub Rothwell's.

But, of course, food and service should outweigh style quibbles. Service, umm. It took an age of prompting for us to secure a menu, but the resident mixologist did whip up a zinging non-alcoholic cocktail for non-drinking Ms B.

On that note, I warned the hovering head waiter that, on my own, I might not finish my bottle of red with the meal. Could I take home what I left? He said yes, unlike his counterpart in our swankiest hotel recently, but then was edgy the rest of the evening about pouring me the merest drop from my Dominique Portet Fontaine Cabernet blend.

At é22.50, this was a deft piece of French winemaking transported to Australia's Yarra Valley and brilliantly accompanied my main course, which was beef done in two different styles. Have you noticed this trend among the nation's gastronauts? Establishment's pudding list includes Mango Four Ways! I can accept an all-singing, all-dancing choccy pud assortment, but this is an unprecedented elevation for the humble mango.

It was a leisurely meal. We were in a discreet corner, shielded from any radiation given out by the bar. I regretted not wearing pinstripes in this very masculine-feeling dining room, but I didn't regret my starter, Isle of Skye seared scallops with a wild mushroom and artichoke risotto (é9.95) - the rice a mite too salty, the scallops firm and sublime.

Ms B's slow roast breast of squab pigeon, wrapped in cabbage with foie gras, warm potato salad and thyme jus (é8.75), would be a main course in many a more frugal joint. This was a Sumo pigeon. We both loved it - after I had finally negotiated a bite.

Slow-roasting is, obviously, Mr Morgan's thing. For my main, I chose slow roast aged rare Scots beef fillet, alongside braised daube, accompanied by roast baby turnips, winter veg and mash (é24.95). The daube, that old Provencal take on beef cooked in red wine, was darkly unctuous, made from shin beef, I guessed; the rare roast perfectly judged, too. Ms B chose pan-fried seabass, partnered by lobster cassoulet, bisque, with braised chicory and parsnips done two ways (only, two you ask?). A fussy plateful, yet the combinations worked, though, at é23, perhaps more lobster should have been in evidence.

The piece de resistance of a splendid meal came with our shared assiette of puddings. For é15.50, we got eight of the little dears. Two involved mango, four chocolate... and two loners, a rhubarb crumble and a sticky toffee pudding, completed the luscious line-up.

COOKING: You can bank on great expertise and invention.

STYLE: Kept their marbles, but added a purple pod. Ouch.

PLUS: Service, odd quibbles aside, is smooth and friendly.

MINUS: Requires a substantial investment (though lunch at é16.50 for three courses is a bargain.)

VALUE: Our overdraft - sorry, bill - came to é126. Worth it, though.