“SO WHY are you called 2Kozy?”
“We have a restaurant opposite the station in Rainhill, near Liverpool, and that’s called Kozy, you know like cosy. This is on 2 Ridgefield and it’s our second place so 2Kozy.”
“Right. So why spell it with ks and zs?”
“Makes it look better. We’re opening another one in Leeds in 2015; that’ll be called 3Kozy.”
2015. Wow. Transpennine plans.
I'd last seen a chicken chasseur in about 1985 in the Iceland Home Frozen Range and thought it had long gone to the Hospice For Obsolete Dishes.
Confidential loves ambition, but we're terrified for this operator. They're getting it wrong.
At present the site, opposite Grill on the Alley and the original Pizza Express, feels nothing like a city centre destination. Instead it feels exactly like a restaurant opposite a station in Rainhill, a sort of glorified cafe or greasy spoon, with a winelist and a menu stuck in the past.
That aura of under-investment begins outside the restaurant with signage in black and gold printed on boards normally employed as hoardings around a building site.
Hoarding boards
The dowdy interior doesn't help matters. Nor did the crowd on our Wednesday lunchtime visit. This consisted of me, a friend, Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross.
The latter two were a disembodied presence as their ‘Greatest Hits’ anthemed themselves over the music system to each tune's inevitably tragic climax – a bit like the life of Whitney H herself. Sitting there was an emotional roller coaster of wailings and croonings.
My friend started with chicken liver pâté (£5.75) complete with an utterly pointless pesto that clashed badly with the pâté. The latter was chilled to the point of frost bite, dulling flavour.
Chilled chicken liver pâté
My starter of king prawn, chilli, and ‘garlic Noilly Prat’ (French vermouth) at the racy price of £9.75 was the best thing we ate. I could have licked the weird sauce off the plate with its chilli heat. The peppered prawns were dirtily beguiling.
Prawns
Then the mains arrived. Oh dear.
Below is a picture of the main course of chicken chasseur (£12.95). I'd ordered this out of curiosity. I'd last seen a chicken chasseur in about 1985 in the Iceland Home Frozen Range and thought it had long gone to the Hospice For Obsolete Dishes. This version was WAG-orange, with poor quality chicken that had the texture of edible cotton wool. It was definitely senile.
Chicken chasseur
Then there was the salmon (13.95). This looked remarkably like the chicken chasseur. It was also very orange, and, also with the consistency of edible cotton wool.
Prominent in both pictures are beans and carrots. Heaps of them. This was cooking at its least elegant, most prosaic and clumsiest best. When you go for a meal you want cooking to a standard better than your own, you definitely don't want a school dinner.
Orange
The desserts included ice cream, tiramisu and fruit salad. The latter (£4.25) sounded safest. The chef's method was simple. Cut some fruit up and place it in a bowl with syrup that tastes as though it comes from a tin of pears. I quite liked this.
Chopped up fruit
By this time the music was really getting to me.
Forget the greasy spoon with a winelist I mentioned before, 2Kozy was beginning to resemble a Village venue gone to seed.
Any minute I expected a howling gaggle of middle-aged divorcees to burst in with a few residual gay mates looking for maternal approval. In my mind's eye I heard the volume being cranked to 9 and 'I will always love you' blasting out amidst squeals of delight.
I was beginning to hallucinate.
Interior
Listen, as a reviewer I take no pleasure in being honest about independent restaurants when being honest sounds like you're being cruel, but 2Kozy, if it is to survive, needs to shape up and soon.
It needs to ditch those signboards, ditch the name and then quickly write a decent menu.
The managers should glance over the road at Grill on the Alley as a model, see how the Living Ventures group excite their customers and then come up with their own solution - God knows we don't need any more 'grills'. There is room for chicken chasseur in the world as long as it's updated in execution and presentation.
At the very least 2Kozy (or Tea Cosy as my brain keeps translating it) needs to appear professional, up-to-date, as though it belongs in this part of Manchester city centre. The concept might need to be polished considerably before 3Kozy launches.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
2Kozy Bar & Restaurant, 2 Ridgefield, City. M2 6EQ
Rating: 9/20
Food:4.5/10 (prawns 6.5, pâté 5, chicken 3, salmon 3, fruit salad 5)
Service: 2.5/5
Ambience: 2/5
