CityLife

Malmaison Brasserie @ Malmaison Manchester

Malmaison

Malmaison
Piccadilly, city centre
July 2010

Average three-course cost: £28

Overall: 3/5
Decor: 3/5, Service: 2/5, Food: 3/5

Figures out earlier this month showed that Manchester is not far off the top in the UK city break league – pulling in almost a million foreign tourists a year.

With its imposing presence in the former Joshua Hoyle textile  warehouse opposite Piccadilly Station approach, Malmaison hotel must hoover up its fair share of those city break visitors – no doubt young couples without kids keen to bathe in our city’s nightlife without totally breaking the bank.

And at Malmaison they get a competent, mid-range hotel with the veneer of pop star glitz airbrushed over it.

The company says its 12 UK Mals are ‘hotels that dare to be different’. When our Mal opened in 1997 as the trendy new kid on the block, it certainly broke the mould. Its bold, funky, modern design declared every other hotel as an old fogey.

It was a place of celebs and cocktails rather than Corby trouser presses, luring more Mancs to its bar and brasserie than any other in the city.

The brasserie itself was a breath of fresh air too. The cooking was solid with touches of flair but it was the louche decor which really pulled people in – a lot of black, a little bling and a lipstick smear of red all over.

With lighting more subdued than Wayne Rooney in South Africa, it really was the place to go for dangerous liaisons, or so my married but resolutely feckless friend tells me.

Over those 13 years Malmaison seems hardly to have changed – so why alter a successful formula? But other hotels have caught up, with newer ones surpassing it in the indulgence stakes and more individualistic places (Canal Street’s Velvet, for one) make the Mal’s once boutique feel seem a little more like clunky chain store.

When we visited on a Saturday evening there were certainly still a lot of loved-up couples eating in the restaurant’s two rooms, their room keys splayed suggestively on the tables, and they and a lively out-of-town hen party created a buzzy atmosphere that the Mal always seems to enjoy.

One thing that has changed recently  is the head chef. Kevin Whiteford, who brought in this local Malmaison’s Homegrown And Local Menu (£17.50 for three courses at the moment) which sources ingredients within 30 miles of the city centre, has moved on. His protege, Jarda Hlavsa, has taken charge.

That menu is still there, offering decent (but not unbeatable) value – though I’d love to know how potted shrimps qualify for it. However, we were here to take soundings from the summer a la carte, now the new man is in place.

I don’t mind dimmed light, unless you get to the level of unlamented Negresco on Deansgate where I am sure usherettes with torches guided you to your table. But that low lighting meant my starter of carpaccio of halibut (£7.50) was a ghost of a dish.

The thin slivers of raw white fish were latticed on my white plate meaning it was impossible to see. Only the pickled carrot (not sliced finely enough) and radish told me that there was anything in front of me at all.
Unfortunately, there was only a mere apparition of flavour, too, and the whole thing was pretty unappetising.

Across the table was a well-executed classic  combination. Plump grilled sardines (£6.95), well filleted, full flavoured and not too oily came with a spiky tomato fondue.

The sour dough bread it sat on was toasted but still nicely soft – not like the hard frisbees of bruschetta that sometimes land in front of you. A little lemon would have crowned it.

There wasn’t a huge front of house team, despite it being fairly busy – and service fell foul of my three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule, which some would regard as fairly merciful. Our wine came late (though an apology was given), an ordered glass of water failed to arrive and the wrong sauce turned up on the main.

The mistaken order was taken by our waiter, who did his job without pen and paper. That is always a risk at a place as busy as the Mal.

My main of grilled lamb T-bone (£16.50) came with little sprigs of samphire, the lovely wild sea asparagus found on tidal mudflats. Usually used to garnish fish, it worked well with the meat though I would have loved a heap more of it.

Unfortunately, that meat was overcooked yet almost cold. That may have been partly due to the meal arriving on a wooden platter which I find always fails to retain heat.

The minted hollandaise with it was fine but the side of pommes puree (£3.25) was far too posh a title for my dull, lifeless lump of mash.

My friend went for the rump steak frites (£16.95), which people swear by at the Mal.

The Aberdeenshire meat was tasty enough, but medium rather than the asked for medium rare and the chips were charmlessly limp. We drank a lovely, silky, medium bodied Argentinean, Catena Malbec, which was on special offer at decent price of £22.

The Mal has an interesting selection of desserts. We shared a raspberry souffle (£5.95) which was beautifully light and not too sweet. That was left to its white chocolate sauce, which was delicious but a little too runny.

I still have an affection for the Mal – it is a modern classic in many ways – but with hotels springing up all the time and better food at nearby City Inn and Abode, it needs to up its game and become ‘bon maison’ again.