THERE are certain restaurants that resemble Coldplay.
They might be massively popular with a huge profile but they are despised almost instinctively by critics, would-be critics and trendies.
The reasons for such loathing in both food and music tend to be the same. The restaurant or band has sold-out, it lacks authenticity, has gone bland, is artificial and over-marketed.
Or in the case of Coldplay there's a moment in every song where Mr Paltrow runs out of words and warbles, "Oh-oh-oh-ohhhh-o, Oh-oh-oh-ohhhh-o".
Chip all that marketing overkill away, get rid of the name and this Italian restaurant can be judged on its merits.
Jamie's Italian in Manchester suffers from this trendy prejudice more than most. Thus many Manc food-lovers with their finger on the pulse and many of those curious sorts fond of public bloggery find the diamond geezer's empire building lacking the Faith. For these people the word INDEPENDENT has replaced the word GOD as a belief system.
This Cult of The Independent lies mainly on the left of the political spectrum and its temples are back-street coffee shops, little one-off restaurants (too often with brief lives), bars with sharing platters and craft beers, music venues in damp basements, vintage-clothing boutiques, second-hand bookshops with tearooms and Wifi.
Most of the time I’m one of these people. Most of the time. Give me a pint of Old Scroggle and a couple of good conversationalists and I can talk the legs off a table.
But also please give me a good chain any day over a bad independent. Give me that surety of experience and better staff training over the waywardness of the half-arsed amateur establishment with the cousin as the barman.
Jamie's Italian is a good chain.
It also has the bonus in Manchester of sitting in one of the top five interwar buildings in the region. Of course you're more likely to see Jim Carrey in a good movie than Jamie Oliver cooking there. But then I don't expect to see Mr Cooper in his House and Garden either. That'd be fantasy, same thing in Big White on King Street. The name is about marketing the place pure and simple.
The big white Portland stone ex-Midland Bank, a masterpiece from Sir Edwin Lutyens
The more grevious criticism from those exhausting people who are always chasing the next big thing is that the food isn't any good. But a recent visit to Jamie's proved this wrong. In fact it was all very enjoyable - especially at lunchtime without the Friday and Saturday evening bedlam.
A starter of pasta boscaiola with tagliatelle, pancetta, mushrooms, porcini stock and passata at £5.25 was superb. Aromatic, packed with flavour, earthy with mushrooms, fluid with stock, simple trattoria fare done well. I could have a bowl of that every day. Two bowls.
Lovely pasta
The meat plank - a Jamie trademark - was fine enough at £6.85. It's a poor thing next to the ones in Salvi's (click here) but it is cheaper. The best bits were the mortadella and pecorino with the chilli jam. Of course I loved the caper berries on this, but then my love for caper berries blinds me. I love them so much I could eat them even if they arrived wrapped in the Daily Mail.
Meat plank
Mains were good.
I thought I was done with Jamie's thing of slapping the crab, squid, cockles, scallops and mussels in a bag with capers, chilli, garlic, tomatoes, lemons, white wine, frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails, and steaming them together.
But the seafood bucatini (£14.95) was a cracker. The bag which might be ugly as sin on the plate retained the aroma of the seafood. One big strong sniff and I was back being a child climbing over mussel-crusted rocks at low tide on a long forgotten holiday at Combe Martin, Devon.
The scallop had that necessary bite, the whelks were little darlings while the thick pasta strips provided a sturdy foundation. The rich fish stew under all this was a delight to spoon up.
Bucatini
An unattractive bream on a celeriac collation (a special at £11.95) was a surprise. The thing looked like the sole of a brogue that had become detached and thrown in a canal but the interior flesh was wonderful, a properly uplifting piece of fish that this time put me on Padstow's harbour front in the sunshine. I was getting around the south west of England in my imagination a bit this lunch.
Bream - looks can deceive
The braised cabbage (£3.45) was another decent dish, it felt healthy and went a treat with the bream. Our old friend from the starter, the pancetta, all crispy this time, was present again, together with a Parmesan crust.
A dessert of 'rippled' Pavlova (£4.95) was ok with a big strong blast of hazelnut coming through all the fruits. Nothing special but did the trick and was the right price as well.
Big mess of a Pavlova - but nutty
There are certain things that grate in Jamie's of course. All that palaver with Jamie books, t-shirts, gifts, Eyetaliano merchandise piled high is awful - makes the place look like a tourist information centre in Genoa airport inexplicably promoting big Cockney faces.
Merchandise me, Mr Oliver, hit me with your big pizza bats
But chip all that marketing overkill away, get rid of the name and this Italian restaurant can be judged on its merits.
Do that my fellow independentistas and then give your opinions an airing. You'll find Jamie's compares favourably with other mid-range dining establishments. It's certainly better than the vast majority of real or fake Italian places in town. San Carlo, Cicchetti, Piccolino and Salvi's are better - although three of those will have the Independent Cultists finger-wagging - but Jamie's delivers some very good pasta dishes, good market fish and that bucatini. Think of it as a great big upmarket Croma with a broader menu.
What gives added value is the host building of course.
Sit there on a sunny day or a summer's evening with the light playing on the white walls and feel the way Sir Edwin Lutyens utilised the space inside the building. It'll calm you down. Look at the clever details and it'll lift your spirit. Snap down on some of those big juicy olives the size of plums, sip the full Barbera at £6.85 a glass. Jamie's Italian is worth a trip for the views alone.
Remember even Coldplay have some good tunes. All together now, "Oh-oh-oh-ohhhh-o, Oh-oh-oh-ohhhh-o".
PS Please dear management in Jamie's, Manchester, just turn the music off. It becomes a blur of bass, it ruins the building, becomes a nasty grumble beneath the conversations people are having over the table.
For the story about the upper parts of the building becoming the controversially titled Hotel Gotham, read here.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
Jamie's Italian, King Street, City centre, M2 4WU. 0161 241 3901
Food: 7/10 (boscaiola 7.5, bucatini 7.5, bream 7, cabbage 7, Pavlova 6)
Service: 3/5 (would have been more, but the charming waiter was over-stretched on his section)
Ambience: 4/5
View across the restaurant from the upper areas
View of the former banking hall
Jamie's - the old Midland Bank details
