CityLife

Sculpture Hall Tea Room

Sculpture Hall Tea Room
Town Hall, city centre
December 2009

(Lunch review)

Overall: 4/5

A COMFY chair is hard to find in the city at this time of year.

The few sofas in high street coffee shops are always nabbed by kids, unmovable, with their endless limbs spread out on top of each other, still growing as their hot chocolates cool.

Outside the Town Hall is the Christmas market scrum, but inside is the recently-opened Sculpture Hall Tea Room, which has deep leather armchairs and no youngsters to beat you to them. I was won over from the moment I sank into my seat.

The best of the food is just as snug. One of the soups of the day – a chicken and vegetable broth filled with lentils, carrots and celery – was deep in flavour but not too rich. It was served in a mini cauldron with butter and bread for dipping: £2 well-spent. The spicy pumpkin soup was tasty but nowhere near as good.

For mains, the Lancashire pan lafferty (£3.25) – potatoes with cheese – was more a side-dish than a meal and the corned beef hash (£4) was a bit too much corn beef for one man. It was like a corn beef soup. Put together, the two dishes worked better.

But nit-picking aside, Sculpture Hall is a treat. For breakfast, you can stop for toasted crumpets (£1.50), muffins and teacakes (£1.25) or even a bowl of cornflakes (£1). There are fruit scones and rarebit rascal scones (£1.75) and afternoon cream tea served after 2pm. Drinks all cost just over a pound and service is friendly and fast. It was hard to pull myself away, but that might just have been the armchair.

Manchester Town Hall, Albert Sq, M60 2JT (0161 234 5000).

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