The French at The Midland – the unsung hero of Manchester’s food and drink scene
Why is no one talking about The French anymore? Star or not, after dining there last week it seems a travesty that more people aren’t going on about how brilliant the food is.
The French at The Midland, or rather, I should say, Adam Reid at The French, as it is known today, has always seemed like one of those impossibly fancy places that a scruffy food lover like myself with slightly-dirty trainers could never belong.
As a wet behind the ears undergraduate student voraciously reading every Manchester food guide I could get my hands on, it was somewhere I always dreamed of visiting.
Not just for its deep velvet booths and impressively huge, sparkling chandeliers (well, not for that at all, if I’m honest, although they certainly do look stunning), but to experience eating at one of the city’s most famous fine dining restaurants.
It only took me fourteen years to get there – and now that I have been, I am not going to shut up about it.
Newcomers like Climat, Higher Ground, and The Sparrows all deserve the praise they get, and I am among those quick to write them a glowing review. Still, if you ask me, Adam Reid at The French could do with being showered in quite a bit more, so here I am with my sprinkler. Please indulge me.
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For those who don’t know the history of The French, in 1974 it made history as the first Manchester restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star.
Back then, it was Chef Gilbert Lefevre at the helm and it really did what it said on the tin – serving opulent plates of escargots, foie gras, and caviar, even committing right down to the menu itself, half of which was printed en français.
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The restaurant retained its star for three years, before losing it in 1977, and would go on to have some ups and downs before coming under the stewardship of Simon Rogan in 2013, with its now-Chef Patron Adam Reid working underneath him as Head Chef.
Rogan – already then a proprietor of the Umbel group including L’Enclume, Fera at Claridge’s, and Rogan & Co – famously ended his five-year contract with the hotel two years early after failing to get a Michelin star.
That same year, local lad Adam took on the top dog role and in 2017 re-positioned the offering to reflect his own style – essentially making everything more relaxed.
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He dropped the complicated place settings, brought in music so that diners no longer feared dropping their forks, introduced a new chef station in the restaurant, and revised the menu to pay homage to his Lancashire roots.
As the years have gone on, every year we foodies have wondered – would this be the year that Reid, and the restaurant, is finally given Michelin recognition?
Sadly, so far, that has not happened – but, star or not, after dining there last week it does seem something of a travesty that more people aren’t going on about how brilliant the food is here. And the service, for that matter.
Some things have changed at the restaurant again recently. Since February, the kitchen has been headed up by Reid’s new Head Chef Blaise Murphy – another one with an impressive CV that spans some of the best restaurants in the North West.
Having started his career here at seventeen, Blaise has come full circle after two years at Ormskirk’s Moor Hall, and another three with Simon Martin at Mana – aka the Ancoats chef notorious for giving Manchester its first star since the early days of The French.
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Unpasteurised Stichelton blue English cheese is served at the table. / Image: The Manc Eats
‘For afters’ feat. Stichelton with green apple, walnut, prune and celery. / Image: The Manc Eats
Returning to the place where it all began, he has spent the past few months working under Reid to devise a refreshed offering packed full of down-to-earth Northern flavours – and their 11-course tasting menu can undoubtedly give Manchester’s trendier newcomers a run for their money.
Think dishes inspired by picky teas, miniature cheese and onion pies, and steaming cups of beef tea served alongside Pollen ‘French malt’ bread and thick pats of beefy butter. Pretentious? Definitely not.
There are also ideas, Blaise tells me, to hopefully host some collaborative pop-up supper clubs in the future, saying: “I’d love to do something with Flawd or Higher Ground.”
Between him and Adam, they are reinventing things once again, and the result is absolutely glorious. Where else, I wonder, can you listen to Supersonic and munch a squid ink cracker topped with whipped roe and pickled red pepper that tastes like a mouthful of patatas bravas?
‘Yesterday’s dinner’ feat. house cured Loch Duart salmon with pine creme fraiche, chives and homemade dill pickled cucumbers. / Image: The Manc Eats
Squid ink crackers topped with whipped roe and pickled red pepper. / Image: The Manc Eats
Other highlights include ‘Yesterday’s dinner’ – made up of two deceptively simple-sounding plates using house-cured cold cuts that, in fact, require hours of preparation behind the scenes, starting with the in-house butchery of whole pork legs, and the filleting and gentle smoking of huge sides of salmon over branches of juniper and applewood.
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Plated at the table, these feel special, like a childhood memory on a plate – the Loch Duart salmon served first with pine creme fraiche, chives and homemade dill pickled cucumbers.
Up next, the ham – perhaps the highlight of the night – with shavings of fresh black truffle, wholegrain mustard, homemade Henderson’s relish, and rested egg yolk in a sharp, rich chicken broth first debuted by Adam on the Great British Menu.
Once we get to the bottom we’re instructed to ‘drink it like a ramen broth’, and chuckle as the chef serving it at our table just can’t help but make a joke about Wagamamas as he departs.
Paired with a mixture of low-intervention wines, craft beers, and sakes all carefully selected and served by the ever-friendly Restaurant Manager Karina Kanepe and Assistant Restaurant Manager Alessandra Assuncaodossantos, it’s a magical evening.
In fact, the experience is so far from the stuffy posh hotel restaurant reputation it seems, so unfairly, to have acquired that I almost have to laugh at myself for buying into it.
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This is now a place where “it’s more about what’s on the plate than your feet”, Adam tells me. Finally, both I and my trainers can feel at home.
Moor Hall – What it’s like to eat at officially the best restaurant in England
Daisy Jackson
There are a lot of good places to eat around the north west. Some are even great. But very few are exceptional – and only one can claim to be the best not just in our region, but in the entire country.
The restaurant in question is Moor Hall.
This two Michelin-star spot, just outside Greater Manchester in Lancashire, opened back in 2017. It achieved its first Michelin star at break-neck speed, proudly mounting a red plaque within six months of opening. A year later, it got its second. It’s been named the Best Restaurant in England two years in a row at the Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards. And that’s just the tip of the glittering iceberg.
All this might seem quick, but I doubt anyone has walked through these doors without emphatically agreeing that Moor Hall deserves every accolade on its shelves. If I had the power, I’d give it another star on the spot.
The experience begins before you’ve even got through the door.
You’ll drive through the stone gates and down the winding driveway, passing a lake, a group of geese pottering about on the lawn, and around the back of the beautiful former mansion house.
You could have arrived on the set of Bridgerton (if the Bridgertons happened to have a wine list so comprehensive that the table shakes under the weight of the menu).
As each guest is given a staggered arrival time, they know who you are the second you walk through the door. Being greeted by name takes us both aback – is this how the Beckhams feel all the time? Fetch me my Birkin! Where’s my security?!
Anyway. The initial grandeur of Moor Hall carries through for the first part of your meal – drinks and snacks in the bar area, where the walls are covered in dark wood and cosy bay windows look out onto the lake.
The main dining room at Moor HallMoor Hall’s Provenance menu The experience includes a walk through the kitchens
Here, you begin to see the many, many cogs that go into making a restaurant like this function. Someone is in charge of water. Someone else is carefully slicing charcuterie into slices so thin it dissolves on your tongue like butter.
Tiny black pudding bites pack a rich, meaty punch that immediately makes me wish we were staying overnight and could eat breakfast here too (there are 14 guest bedrooms at Moor Hall plus new garden rooms being constructed in the grounds).
The next miniature mouthful bursts open with flavours of barbecued asparagus and smoky chorizo, then a dinky English muffin topped with buttered lobster turns me misty-eyed.
A pair of pretty leaf-shaped crackers, each one embossed with herbs, arrives next, alongside a tin of cod roe and caviar, like a classic pate but 1000 times richer and more interesting.
Crackers with cod roe and caviarAn English muffin with poached lobster
At this point, you’re whisked off your feet by another Moor Hall staff member, who promptly escorts you out the door. Have we done something wrong? Nope – it’s time to see the kitchen gardens.
He expertly points out all the herbs, fruits and vegetables that are grown on-site in the beautiful walled gardens, tended to by a small team of gardeners.
The tour then spits you out into the kitchen, where each of the many, many chefs whipping up your dinner will greet you with a friendly smile, and chef-patron Mark Birchall offers a warm handshake and yet another snack (this one resembles a small bird’s nest, filled with smoked eel and potato).
While the bar is dark and stately, the dining room is a modern, simple space flooded with sunlight and views of the lake.
The dishes at this stage of the Provenance menu become instantly more theatrical.
‘Royal Oak Rainbow’ – baked carrots with doddington cheese ‘snow’Rudy red Devon beef with beetroot and mustardGuinea hen with morel mushoomsGrilled cornish turbot with mussel and roe sauce
Suddenly we have people spooning brilliant white crumbles onto plates of carrots, herb-infused stocks being poured onto plates, quenelles of butter being rolled out of wooden dishes.
Some dishes are simpler, like a loaf of the best sourdough we’ve ever had, but most are unimaginably intricate, like 80-day aged beef served with beetroot and mustard, and rich guinea hen complimented by even richer morel mushrooms.
Whatever the dish (and we get through a LOT), it’s the sort of food that makes you stop in your tracks. It triggers involuntary reactions – I keep catching us smiling, or closing our eyes, or gleefully pointing out goosebumps on our arms. I actually well up at one point. I didn’t know ice cream could move me to tears, but laced with spicy stem ginger – a staple on Moor Hall’s menu from day one – apparently it can.
And throughout, Moor Hall will go to great lengths to show you where each dish has come from (because let’s be honest, fine dining sometimes gets so complicated it stops resembling food at all), whether that’s showing the huge joint of meat your dish has been carved from or handing you a tiny card telling the story of Ormskirk gingerbread.
Three of four sweet courses on Moor Hall’s Provenance menu
If you add a cheese course, you’re even escorted into the cheese room (is this… heaven?) to build your own cheese board from the huge selection of British creations inside.
There’s a refreshing level of transparency throughout and although we’re surprised plenty of times, it doesn’t feel like trickery.
It’s hard not to appreciate the meal you’re eating because you’ve seen every painstaking step and every ingredient being used before you’ve even sat down, from the gardner pruning the rosemary shrub to the sous chef placing micro herbs on bright green butter with a pair of tweezers.
It’s elaborate but intimate, complex but never intimidating.
The cheese room, where you can build your own cheese course
You might wonder how a £235 tasting menu could ever NOT be intimidating to the average person, and that really comes down to the team who work at Moor Hall.
They’re so warm and inviting, it’s like dining with friends. They could switch it up from explaining one of the most intricate menus in the world to joining in with our debate about whether it’s weird for adults to have a favourite colour.
Vegan restaurant in Manchester pleads for ‘understanding and support’ after sharing ‘heavy news’
Daisy Jackson
Wholesome Junkies, a vegan restaurant in Manchester city centre, has asked for ‘understanding and support’ after announcing that they were having to overhaul their menu prices.
The restaurant is famed for its plant-based takes on classic junk food, whether that’s hoisin ‘duckless’ bao or a towering meat-free burger.
You can even get an incredible Sunday roast with all the trimmings, for an ethical twist on the British classic.
But now in a heartfelt statement shared this week, Wholesome Junkies has said it has some ‘heavy news’ to share.
The colourful restaurant beneath the arches near Manchester Victoria said it’s had to take ‘a hard look’ at its menu prices after ‘recent struggles with rising costs’ – an issue plaguing just about every business in the hospitality industry.
In their statement, Wholesome Junkies said that rising rents, wages, stock prices, utilities and VAT (‘the biggest battle of all’) has left them barely breaking even.
Wholesome Junkies, a vegan restaurant in Manchester. Credit: The Manc GroupWholesome Junkies, a vegan restaurant in Manchester. Credit: The Manc Group
And so they’re having to action ‘big changes and a massive restructure’ in order to survive, from streamlining their menu to removing some items for more cost-effective options.
The restaurant then wrote: “We’re asking for your understanding and support. If you’ve enjoyed your time with us, please consider leaving a review or sharing your feedback.
“Every little bit helps as we navigate these choppy waters and it makes such a difference to our team who work tirelessly to keep this engine alive.
“We know times are tough, but we’re committed to weathering this storm together. Thanks for sticking with us through thick and thin. Here’s to brighter days ahead!”
Hey, Wholesome Crew! We’ve got some heavy news to share. Our recent struggles with rising costs have forced us to take a hard look at our menu prices. It’s not a decision we’ve taken lightly, but we’ve hit a point where we need to make some changes just to even keep the lights on. Some of the dishes and prices just aren’t working anymore, it’s not fair on our customers or on us.
From rent hikes, wages rising to soaring stock prices and utilities, and the biggest battle of all… VAT, the numbers just aren’t adding up. Despite our best efforts, we’re barely breaking even and I honestly don’t know how long we can keep going. Some days I do wonder why I’m even doing this at all, but I’m not throwing in the towel just yet. My love and passion has got us this far.
Starting next week, you’ll notice a big changes, I’m going to have to do a massive restructure of the business and menu for a chance to survive. We’ll be massively streamlining our menu, saying goodbye to some of our pricier items, and exploring new, more cost effective options. It’s all about trying to find that delicate balance between quality and affordability.
We’re asking for your understanding and support. If you’ve enjoyed your time with us, please consider leaving a review or sharing your feedback. Every little bit helps as we navigate these choppy waters and it makes such a difference to our team who work tirelessly to keep this engine alive.
We know times are tough, but we’re committed to weathering this storm together. Thanks for sticking with us through thick and thin. Here’s to brighter days ahead!