Confidential Safari #5: It's just all these parties

In his regular report, Editor David Adamson- with help from Jonathan Schofield - looks back on some of the recent events from across the city and beyond.

The number of the bistro

Maya Bistro Bar menu 

We were invited down to Maya to try its Bistro Bar offering, the type of menu I've been banging on about to anyone with two ears and a spare moment to hand. 

"Large menus just give you the tyranny of choice," I'd say. "Give me as few options as possible."

While this isn't a daily blackboard, get-what-you're-given affair in true French fashion, it's a refreshingly slight menu that means you can get on with the important business of having a conversation.

Besides the building itself - a very handsome canalside site that, while two minutes from Piccadilly, makes you feel suitably ensconced - the Mayfair import is tempting people in with its 7-7-7 cocktail menu. 

Seven cocktails, £7 each for seven hours (4pm to 11pm). I like a sense of symmetry. 

I sat with Harley and Hayden and was kindly plied with lots of carefully crafted cocktails, the best being the clarified coffee and coconut martini, a high end espresso martini in disguise. Harley confirmed a top-notch non alcoholic variety for those of you more sensible. She then sensibly left for her evening plans.

Hayden and I started with a rock oyster each (£4.50) and I had a glass of Cremant de Bordeaux Precious Day champagne (a very reasonable £8). With the intention to go full French, this was an ideal way to start.

Hayden ordered steak tartare, which of course I had to try, then it was onto mains and the only thing for it - steak frites with cafe de Paris butter (£20).

It's all there to be taken advantage of. Maya so clearly wants to be your new favourite restaurant so why not give it a whirl and see what you think. Sit upstairs if you can because the sun-dappled bistro bar on a summer's day (of sorts) is a spot that's hard to rival.

Took you long enough 

Rudy's Altrincham opens

Strange that a Manchester export as ridiculously successful as Rudy's took so long to get to Altrincham. The Michelin-gorged hordes of Birmingham had at least two sites before the Lyon of Trafford got a look in. But then it's not like it was desperate for restaurants. 

But here we are. Finally an outpost, and right by Altrincham Market and the Everyman. Saturday night pre-cinema will probably become a fait accompli.

It's a bright, airy and relaxed space, with a nice elevated level at the back for gazing down onto passing pizzas and thinking 'Hmm, shit I should have ordered that one'. I'd hazard a guess and say yours will be nice as well. The way in which they're turned out to a standardised level would be unnerving were you not seeing the open kitchen lay them up in real time. I went for the fennel sausage with smoked mozzarella.

With a flag now planted in the gastronomic district of Altrincham, where next?

Gavin from accounts has one too many 

Junction, Manchester Central opens

Manchester Central is enjoying a boom in conventions and all manner of schmoozing opportunities, and so it should be. No industrial park outside a minor train station on the outskirts of town. No travel tavern vibes. It's smack bang in the centre, in the shadow of the grand Midland Hotel and with Bridgewater Hall looming nearby. 

And now it has a purpose-built hospitality wing to it as well, Junction. The one-time train station needed some semantic connection.

It's a much-needed, clean and classy space that means you won't have to carry your canapes around the cavernous interior of a former train station, no matter how strangely beautiful the building is. 

If Manchester is to keep rolling on with the reputation it's clearly building, as an increasingly corporate-friendly escape and playground, then it's places like Junction that were needed. The space, all Scandi clean lines and high windows, is relaxed and well-managed, and crucially the sofas and chairs are very comfortable.  

We all know corporate getaways are some of the most unhinged outside of FA Cup awaydays, so I'm glad there's somewhere for the Chartered Accountants Guild to get shitfaced and make mistakes that will haunt the boardrooms and corridors for years to come.

Moxy and mother's ruin 

Moxy Hotel Deansgate X Manchester Gin

Nowadays it's not quite enough to just be a hotel. It needs personality, and a sense of place. Why set up in the historic surrounds of Deansgate and the shadow of Sunlight House if it's just going to be a Premier Inn.

Which is why Moxy hotel has clearly made an effort to entice those looking for a livener on their travels about the city centre, and have done so in collaboration with Manchester Gin, them of bees on the bottle.

While it's now expected that the decor of a city hotel speaks to, well, the city - see framed photos of long-closed factories, the romance of a post-industrial place - it shows a bit of common sense to make the gin you serve be from a Manchester company. Of course if Manchester Gin tasted like bathtub hooch I wouldn't be so sure, but it doesn't. Especially the classic variety of London Dry, which is very nice coming from someone who's blood is 33.3% mother's ruin.

They missed a trick in not calling it Manchester Gin's That There London Dry, but there you go. 

Here's Harley Young with her report on The Castings, the latest apartment to have sprung up

The Castings apartments press preview and terrarium-making class with Northern Flower

Friday 19th July

The Castings, 9 Heyrod Street

On Friday, Harley, Hayden and a load of our media peers were invited down to check out one of Manchester’s trendiest new apartment blocks. 

Located in Piccadilly East, which The Castings website has described as ‘Manchester’s newest and most exciting urban neighbourhood’, this swanky, upmarket habitat for young professionals has everything you could need from a home in the city. 

With free Wi-Fi, an onsite gym and a 24/7 concierge service to name but a few amenities, this pet-friendly building is putting building a community at the heart of its ethos. Harley and Hayden experienced just a taste of the activities aiming to bring residents together, with a guided terrarium making class from city centre florists Northern Flower. 

Sat in one of the residents’ lounges on the very top level (floor 21), nestled in a comfy chair as we carefully arranged our plants to create their own little contained ecosystem, it felt very therapeutic. Having only taken a whistle stop tour of the building and been there a matter of moments, Harley had fallen for the space and was making herself at home, pricing up the cost of removal vans and measuring the spaces by eye. 

Already partway through a tenancy agreement elsewhere, she left without a contract, but with a beautiful floral arrangement instead.

And finally...Editor-at-large Jonathan Schofield gives his thoughts from his travels about the city

Ridiculous customer service of the month: King Street Townhouse

This is awarded to the King Street Townhouse. On a recent visit we said: “Could we have a look at the wine list?” “You have to get it from the QR code here?” came the reply. “Really, there’s no paper version, this is all a bit Covid times isn’t it?” we said. “That’s all we have, the QR code,” said the waitress. So, we messed about with the bloody QR code, found the wine we wanted but what was this? 

I went up to the bar and said politely, “Let me get this right? You can look up the wines on the QR code but there’s no facility to order or pay for the wine from the QR code so we have to wait for service or come to the bar to order and pay?” “That’s right,” said the waitress with a look of resignation. She’d clearly heard this before. 

Dear Townhouse this is the wrong use of technology, it’s anti-customer service. It’s like hiring a taxi and then having to drive it yourself. In any case QR codes, even when you can order and buy things on them, are just rubbish as customer service, lazy, it’s only the pisspoor establishments sticking with them, although perhaps they work for very shy customers. 

No moussaka and good customer service: The Real Greek 

Not been to the Real Greek for a while so after a Sunday trip out of the city I passed the restaurant late-on and for some reason was seized with an overwhelming desire for a moussaka. I ordered the dish with a glass of wine. When the wine came there wasn’t any moussaka to be had so could I please order something else. “Eh, no moussaka in a Greek restaurant?” I said. The charming waiter explained: “We make it fresh and we have to estimate how much we’ll need on Sunday. We’ve sold out of the tray we made for today and it was very busy yesterday. I’m so sorry, may I suggest something else on the menu.” Totally reasonable excuse that, good handling of a potentially awkward question. 

Rooms with less of a view

There was a recent story in the MEN about residents in the city’s tallest cluster of skyscrapers, Deansgate Square, complaining about more skyscrapers being built next door, namely two 46-storey and two 51-storey towers. Some of the complaints refer to a loss of amenity including views and daylight being lost, plus extra traffic and, weirdly, an increase in anti-social behaviour (why?). These additional towers have been mooted for ages so maybe residents should have read around the subject a little more. Discussing this with a friend, he said: “Not so much NIMBYS as NIMBS, Not In My Backyard Skyscraper.” 

Towers and hounds 

One of the new skyscrapers will feature a ‘dog spa’ which probably signifies the downfall of The West as it eats itself in its own decadence. It reminds me of the time, in my role as a tour guide, when I was hired to do a tour for Deansgate Square residents…and their dogs. It was very jolly, we strolled through Castlefield to lovely Ordsall Hall with its gardens and back. In many ways it was the same as the other countless tours I’ve done over twenty odd years with one exception; this was the first time any of my customers had crapped on the pavement. 

Peterloo Memorial imprisoned

The city council timed this badly. The cleaning of the memorial commemorating the murder of 18 people at a peaceful rally in 1819 means it's been cordoned off throughout graduation season. The stepped memorial to British citizens protesting about a lack of the vote and representation would have been a great place for people who'd gained degrees to have photos taken. It's also unfortunate that the memorial marking one of the key moments in Manchester's and the UK's history will be shut-off on Saturday 27 July, Manchester Day. 

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