CityLife

Thomas Restaurant And Bar

By Paul Ogden

1 / 1 imagesThomas Restaurant And Bar

Thomas Restaurant And Bar
Northern Quarter
June 2010

[This review is of the restaurant. For the bar, use the link on the right.]

Average three-course cost: £20

Overall: 3/5
Decor: 4/5, Service: 3/5, Food: 3/5

Serving up restaurant food at all hours of the day is a tough ask. Chain eateries are used to people coming in off the street for a meal at odd hours and cater well for modern lifestyles out of sync with our traditional lunch and times.

The trade-off in those places though is unremarkable food and a fairly soulless experience – although discount vouchers can lessen the usual leaden feeling of disappointment.

But it is quite ambitious for an independent to guarantee decent quality food for a straight 10 hours a day, seven days a week (though they do get an extra hour off on a Sunday!).

To do it right you obviously need a consistency of cooking, but less obviously you have to guarantee a supply of ingredients to satisfy all-comers and prevent a flurry of “sorry, that’s off” apologies from the waiting  staff – something that will tarnish a reputation very quickly.

So, the menu at Thomas Restaurant And Bar, the new venture in the heart of the Northern Quarter, is supremely well judged, and nicely executed.

At first glance the menu seems fulsome, varied and comprehensive – most people would be happy with something from the eight starters and 20 mains.

Look closer and there is a simplicity and straightforwardness that ensures that Thomas has a good chance of getting it right at midday, 4.30pm or 9.50pm.

Restaurants in the US do this supremely well and Thomas does feel like one of those New York brasseries where you can roll in at anytime of the day or night and order up decent nosh, though there you’d probably be choosing from more expensive ingredients.

The Northern Quarter is supposed to be our answer to New York’s Soho, though apparently the “cool” money has moved out of that Manhattan district as more commercial operations have moved in.

For the time being the NQ is, thankfully, fairly chain free, and still seems the place to be for the brave to open up a food or drink outlet. Thomas is certainly an upmarket addition to the area, without spoiling its hip vibe – the sort of restaurant if it was in NY would attract the Sex And The City girls after they’d been shopping “at all those great little boho places”.

Its minimalist, modern style balances on the tightrope between providing food and drink and it has something other places in the area sadly lack: light.

The terrace building has been opened up with a bank of windows at the front and a big chunk of the second floor taken out to give a wonderful feeling of space.

You can sit outside, but the windows welcome so much sunlight in you don’t really need to.

I can’t remember the last time I appreciated air conditioning in a Manchester restaurant, but one day last week when Manchester’s mercury was nudging 28, Thomas had just the right level air con going on, though there was still a guy in there in one of those infuriating wooly hats that seem to come as a BOGOF deal with skinny jeans.

It was air con that is put on display inside as modernist decoration, alongside the oversized Christmas bauble lights and chic limestone tiles.

The music was easy listening indie, until it defaulted, shockingly, to Radio 2. Steve Wright In The Afternoon is not a good soundtrack for a place so obviously uber-6 Music.

The economic times mean there are a lot of offers on at the moment. Thomas enshrines this on the menu with two courses for £11.95 before 6pm.

A couple of dishes are excluded from the deal. My seared scallops and tiger prawns (£7.95) was one. Note that the menu’s description is plural.

I only got one scallop, and three medium-sized prawns – rather overpriced I felt, even though it came with a nicely delicate sabayon sauce.

Over the table was a half fillet of fried mackerel (£4.95), a cheap fish but packed with flavour on top of a limey, summery salsa that also contained coriander and chilli. And little daughter had a good tomato and basil soup of the day (£3.95).

Most of Thomas’s wines come  by the glass as well as the bottle, but virtually all are in 250ml   large glasses – that won’t be good if the drink drive laws are tightened up.

We had a Caliterra Sauvignon Blanc (£4.90) and a gorgeously creamy Maschio Prosecco di Valdobbiadene (£5.25 for 125ml).

As well as being simple but effective, Thomas’s menu is weather resistant too, withthe mains including pork belly for those cloudy days and Malaysian chicken curry for the sun.

The Med temperature influenced my choice of gnocchi with Leagrams Organic Blue cheese (£9.25). The pillowy, individually-cut gnocchi was lovely but I had a couple of issues with the dish as a whole.

First it was advertised as coming with asparagus and broad beans but in mine the beans were substituted for peas – without explanation.

Now, I love peas in Italian dishes, but I adore broad beans and felt a little disappointed it wasn’t apologised for.

Maybe when the short broad bean season comes along later this month they may oblige. Also the cheesy sauce was a little too rich for me. Over the table there was a good stab at Malaysian curry (£8.95) with mushrooms, asparagus and strips of chicken in a punchy, coconuty sauce.

Little daughter had a Thomas beef burger (£9.50) which was obviously bespoke and good chips, too.

Dessert selection is a little disappointing but the cheesecake of the day – Grand Marnier – (£4.50) was a classy finish and there was pistachio ice cream from Tattenhall’s Cheshire Farm Ice Cream (£3.50).

Thomas Restaurant And Bar, 49-51 Thomas Street, Manchester, M4 1NA (0161 839 7033, www.thomasrestaurant.co.uk).

Reviewed: Fri, 11 June, 2010

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