CityLife

Neil Sowerby's restaurants of the year

AWARD-WINNING: Chris Johnson of Ramsons

IDEALLY I’d like this to be a look ahead to what 2009 might have in store as well as a requiem/post mortem for 2008 but, like the rest of you, I’m bewildered what might happen. The crystal ball is cracked.

I told two owners of recently opened eateries: “You are brave setting up now”, and both replied ruefully that their ventures were two years in the making and they hadn’t anticipated the swift financial downturn.

Well, I know of at least three similar restaurant/bar projects that have been shelved until the dust settles over Mount Doom.

Certainly I’m not pinning my hopes on the prospect of St Jamie riding into town with a Med-style eaterie – yet another – promoting Brand Oliver, or another bar or three tapping into the inexhaustible student thirst of Fallowfield.

I just pray that small, independent operations serving quality survive and that folk being cannier with their cash realize the burgeoning chains aren’t good value.

It all seemed so much simpler when the CityLife.co.uk Manchester Food and Drink Awards judges settled in conclave, with a glass of wine and a side plate or two to sum up a 2008 that had given us fresh hope for a city eating scene that had been dithering in the doldrums.

Serial awards nominees Michael Caines at Abode, Vermillion, Ithaca, Chaophraya and Grado all had a swagger with food and drink to match, allaying fears any of them might be built on less than solid foundations.

Yet all were ultimately eclipsed by a restaurant in far-flung Ramsbottom with 25 years of solid foundations.

Ramsons’ garnered acclaim like windfall apples – all the apter since Ramsons proprietor Chris Johnson is an accomplished ‘forager’ for wild foods.

Having scooped the Good Food Guide readers’ national restaurant of the year, Ramsons could easily have won the Manchester award, but that went to Abode.

Consolation came with its chef Abdulla Nassem being named Chef of the Year.

Ramsbottom itself at times resembled a culinary gold rush town with a spate of new bar and eaterie openings, notably the delicious Tamil Nadu restaurant, Sanmini.

CityLife.co.uk even ran an article entitled ‘Ramsbottom: the new Chorlton?’.

Perhaps I should have headlined my review of a revived Altrincham destination restaurant as ‘Juniper: the new Juniper?’.

After 10 Michelin-starred years, Paul Kitching decamped to Edinburgh and only the wildest optimist would have predicted a white knight on a charger galloping to the rescue from Cornwall.

Enter Michael Riemenschneider, giant Swiss foam-meister with an ice hockey player’s licence, who denied that the presence of Altrincham ice rink had affected his decision to commute to Juniper from his other restaurant in Penzance.

His food? As breathtaking as his ambition.

His arrival made up for the departure from The Lowry of Eyck Zimmer, a fellow innovative Germanic genius.

On a homelier level, Altrincham boasted a genuine dining pub of quality, The Victoria, with seasonally changing, well-sourced, well-priced dishes.

If only a raft of cloned pseudo ‘gastropubs’ hadn’t muddied the waters.

One top quality exception was the Clog And Billycock, the latest Nigel Haworth operation following his Three Fishes template.

Only personal fatigue at seeing further arty pictures of local suppliers framed on the walls spoiled the meal in my natural habitat (Blackburn, not a pub).

Other dining pubs deserving praise were the Devonshire Arms at Beeley on the Chatsworth estate, the White Horse at Helmshore and, of course, the very pubby-like Angel off Rochdale Road (on the way, incidentally, to one of the nation’s great drinking pubs, The Marble Arch).

The Angel, Lazarus-like reincarnation of Robert Owen Brown as city centre food magus (bless his Eccles cakes), still feels like a work in progress but its popularity shows that, in these credit crunch times, honest food at honest prices can pay off.

And, if you want a bit of swank with genuinely creative modern food, then I’d suggest Harvey Nichols. Alison Seagrave, as last year’s Manchester Chef Of The Year, was ineligible this time, but a private lunch there recently confirmed that she is still a very special talent. Unlike a clutch of other chefs around town she has stayed put – to the advantage of her kitchen.

I wish the Citylife.co.uk Manchester Food and Drink Festival had stayed put.

The flapping tipi camp in a rain and wind-swept Spinningfields didn’t work for me and I wasn’t alone, especially those diehards who associate it with Albert Square and hadn’t twigged where Spinningfields was.

Perhaps, after 11 years, there is a need for a major revamp of an event that has played a crucial role in trumpeting the city as a food destination.

Evidence against optimism in this field? The dwindling, forlorn farmer’s market in Piccadilly; the Arndale market that promised so much but is now, fish and cheese stalls excepted, just a very average snacking parade, and the 2008 demise of delis such as Love Saves The Day and Gastro’s.

A genuine food culture is not just about eating out.