CONFIDENTIAL has just been for a snoop around Living Ventures’ latest city centre bar & restaurant – and it looks belting.
"Manchester's new Gusto is the first of the Café Grande style. One million pounds plus projects that we're going to roll-out across more city centres like Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham."
Gusto - due to open to the public on Friday 5 December – has taken a 8,000 sq ft slice of Deansgate’s newly refurbished Grade II-listed Elliot House (designed by Royle & Bennet and built in 1878) and the former neighbouring Olive restaurant.
As is their way, Manchester's major restaurant and bar group (Australasia, The Oast House, Alchemist, The Botanist, Manchester House) - captained by Tim Bacon and Jeremy Roberts - have not stinged on the fit-out and thrown £1.3m at this high-end Italian.
It's easy to see where the dough's been spent. The feature island-bar around which the whole 254-seater restaurant revolves, plush with marbled floors, cast iron columns and stained glass, looks a million bucks alone.
With its warm, ornate and palatial art deco innards, the clinking of glass and the buzzing of staff, the new Gusto has the feel of one of Europe's postcard capital cafés. Squint and you could be in the Paix in Paris, or at least The Wolseley or Delaunay in London.
Gusto
Gusto's feature island-bar
This is now the tenth Gusto opening, with restaurants spread from Edinburgh to Knutsford, but the first Gusto of the new 'Café Grande' breed.
"Manchester's new Gusto is the first of the Café Grande style," Gusto's Managing Director, Sue Crimes, told us. "One million pounds plus projects that we're going to roll-out across more city centres like Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham."
"The a la carte menu will be carried over from the other Gusto restaurants," Crimes continued, "but Café Grande will offer an additional specials menu and a connoisseurs wine-list."
Confidential got hold of the opening specials menu which features Dover sole 'Colbert' (£29.75), grilled langoustines (£34.95), rosemary cured monkfish (£21.75) and a whole lobster thermidor (£42.50).
Gusto (ground floor), Lloyd Street
MD and Queen of Gusto, the gracious Sue Crimes
Although, Crimes was keen to make it clear that Gusto was very much open to all. "Yes we'll draw the big-spenders, business and corporates customers, but like the other Gustos we also want the city shoppers and the families - that's why we offer a kid's menu and the design-your-own-pizzas."
Gusto's menu is very reasonable and loosely Italian. Alongside the brushetta (from £3.95), buffalo mozzarella (£6.50), pizzas (from £7.95), pasta and risotto (from £5.25), you'll also find mashed potato with salsa (£3.25), houmous (£5.25) pan-roasted duck (£15.95) and 10oz rib-eyes (£16.95).
There's over 50 wines to choose from too (£16.50 to £55, bottle), plenty of the bubbly stuff (£25 to £195, bottle), whilst bartenders currently beaver away at a cocktail menu exclusive to the new Manchester site and Gusto's first 'Cafe Grande'.
Gusto's bare walls will be adorned by local artists (including Michael Browne) before the launch
Gusto booths
Bosses at the new Gusto are keen to push the wet trade as much as the restaurant. "We want the bar to be a destination in its own right," Crimes told us during the walkabout. "The focal point of this whole restaurant is this beautiful bar so in that respect we want the drinkers in the centre to become as much a part of this restaurant as the diners.
"We've designed the bar in such a way that you can casually hop up and eat on a stool at the bar too, just pop in for a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine."
So what can we expect next from the Knutsford-based food and drink behemoth?
Well, aside from Alchemist's extension into the former All Saints unit and Artisan's ground floor bar extension in Spinningfields, Confidential is told that Living Ventures are cooling-off on Manchester City Centre openings for now.
But the group - which recorded record sales of nearly £50m last year - have ambitious designs on cities right across the UK.
Gusto opens at 4 Lloyd Street on Friday 5 December 2014.
See all Gusto menus here and make a reservation here.
