Jamie's Italian Reviewed By Gordo

IT'S been a busy time for Italian restaurants opening in Manchester. It has been for seven years.

What it does, however, for its size of operation is to gather extraordinary ingredients together, gets them delivered daily and constructs good looking, tasty and dare we say it pretty darned healthy dishes

One place, which advertised itself as ‘Italian with a twist’, has also possibly made it into the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest opening and closing. This was Pizza Porto - or better Pizza Pronto - on Albert Square. It lasted twenty four days. Gordo’s pal Dianne Bourne from the Manchester Evening News and a good commentator on these matters told Gordo it wasn’t bad at all.

The only ‘twist’ she could think of though were the two foot long pizzas, which Gordo thinks a little excessive.

Manchester is a sea awash with ‘Italian’ restaurants, most of them very mediocre in the food department if not in their sometimes splendid settings, Rosso and Stock being good cases in point.

There are less than five good Italian restaurants in the Greater Manchester region and probably thirty totally incompetent ones who are as faithful to great Italian ingredients along with care in cooking them as Gordo is to sticking to a healthy, nutritious and balanced diet. Most are only interested in the profit margins attainable by mixing flour and water and producing pizzas and pasta dishes that can deliver 80% margins.

The opening of the year for the Italian mob was always going to be with the ‘cheeky chappy’, aka Jamie Oliver, and his eaterie ‘Jamie’s Italian’ at the top of King Street in the old HSBC/Midland Bank.

Edwin Lutyen's classic sets sail again

Arguably Manchester’s most beautiful building, it was the home of Gordo’s money for many years, including the first time he became a millionaire, followed all too swiftly with the first time he went spectacularly skint and was forced into bankruptcy. He was asked to leave the bank by a snotty ‘just out of uni’ manager who seemed to be enjoying his power moment.

Life, as most of us knows these days, does have a way of coming back at people. Gordo was quietly pleased to bump into the same feller some years later. He had left the bank to make his own way in business. He was caught out by the Internet crash of 2001, had his company liquidated and was driving posh cabs for a living - those that used to park outside Room, the other restaurant at the top of King Street. Get in.

Jamie’s Italian was a long time coming. It was going to be interesting to see how it was laid out. Pretty spectacularly as it happens.

Jonathan Schofield has described the interior well (click here) in one of his short reviews so Gordo will not go through all that; suffice to say that there is only one bad room, and in that, one bad table out of over 180 covers. It’s dark and miserable. Of course, Gordo got it.

View into the restaurant

He decided to do the review over two sessions as that first evening he feared that he might let his gloomily bad mood overtake him.

Also, the lighting in this area was weird, the snapshots were looking worse than usual. At this visit he also had to wait one hour and twenty minutes for his table. In all fairness he was informed of this and given a portable electric shock machine that prompted the fat one to go back to the maître’d station to report in for said table.

 It was exactly one hour and twenty minutes and a bottle of very good Barbera d’Asti later that we were seated at the worst table in the gaff by a lady whose job it was to take the punters to their table.

Someone else takes you order and someone else delivers. It’s all very slick, but a bit too slick; everyone had their part to play and they delivered it with the charm of the robot waiters on that spaceship looking after the fat people in Wall-e. It seems that they all want to be cheeky chappies and chappesses, clones of Jamie. On that visit they were like diabetic jam. There’s something not quite right about them, but they do the job.

The second visit had us seated upstairs. Gordo had asked his PA to book a table on Tuesday lunchtime. Apparently the quota for booked tables had run out, but we could ‘take our chances’. When we arrived, it was early, and we were given a table immediately. In fact, the restaurant was only ever just over half full for the session. Which irritated the fat one.

Nibbles of olives (big green buggers on ice, really good but need to be at £3.75) came with crispy flat breads and an earthy tapenade. Rice balls, which Gordo doesn’t get normally, were good. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, with a good dip (£4.95).

Big Green Olives And Italian Nachos

The nibbles are a bit more than nibbles and make for a great two hour beer session in the bar area for grazing. Successful stuff has included Sicilian Spaghetti fritters, Crispy Squid, Mushroom Fritti, Polenta Chips and Italian Nachos, all between £3.55 and up to £5.75. Great bar food and Gordo can recommend that you order an extra portion or two at the table. They are fun.

Much better fun than ordering sides to go with your mains and thus getting a proper spanking for 20p’s worth of ingredients in the ‘Humble green salad’ which, although dressed with great skill is a complete piss-take at £3.25. Yes, Jamie, you really are a cheeky bleeding chappy, aren’t you?

Mozzarella Best Of Breed

Gordo had twice ordered ‘Jamie’s Favourite Turkey Milanese’, which is the politically correct Veal Milanese. Clearly there is a PR army behind the cheeky chappy but they need to get behind Rose Veal. It’s got better flavour and mouth feel than pummelled turkey, which can be a bit vinyl-like at times, one of these certainly was. But, great flavour in the coating, which had been briskly fried in good butter. The fried egg on top was well handled, of a good size and runny. The dish, in Gordo’s opinion, should be served with anchovies. Gordo asked and he was pleased to be given a small bowl of chopped fellers with no fuss.

There is a lot of ‘construction’ cooking here, as is common in Italy, fillet of fish cooked in a bag (£15.95) is a case in point. A bed of cracked wheat, fish fillets laid on top. The flavourings are dropped over. In this case fennel, anchovies, chilli, mussels and clams. Bag is sealed by hand. The genius here is that the dish can be pre-assembled, it benefits from fridge time and this particular one, after about nine minutes in a hot oven is absolute heaven.

Another guest at the table reported that his sea bass was a ‘greasy overcooked mess’. Gordo was not best pleased, he had been polite and not complained. Always complain people, it gets straight to the Head Chef who can then sort out the problem of when and where the mistake happened and sort it. If you do this, everyone goes out happy.

The menu is different to other Italian gaffs, whilst pasta is not all over the carta; it is well represented by a few gems. The cockles linguini (starter £8.20) is great and Schofield the editor, who gate crashed, had the black angel hair spaghetti for the third time which didn’t disappoint. A seafood dish, you will find scallops, garlic, chilli, anchovies, parsley and capers along with a big slug of Sicilian wine.

Linguine Seafood

Anyways, back to that cheeky very rich chappie.  No pizza or blinking dough balls. Good thing.

Puddings are formulaic, ordinary and probably not made on the premises. Gordo will be happy to be proven wrong on this. A pannacotta on the first visit was wobbly, rich and creamy with a good berry compote. Peachy peach cake was on the dirty lush side with a dollop of thick cream. But Jeremy can do better with these. Gordo can’t remember the prices of these things. So shoot him.

Peachy Pudd

The wine is boxing above its weight; Gordo on the second visit was taking care at lunch with a bottle of Pinot Grigio at £19-odd for which he would have paid £27. The first visit was the Barberra d’Asta, again value.

The cooking at Jamie’s Italian isn’t world beating.

What it does, however, for its size of operation is to gather extraordinary ingredients together, gets them delivered daily and constructs good looking, tasty and dare we say it pretty darned healthy dishes which rarely go wrong.

The crowd currently filling it are from outside the city limits; those inside will try it but then go back to Ettore’s Piccolino and San Carlo’s Cicchetti, or drive up to Chris Johnson’s Ramsons up in Ramsbottom, where the food is better.

The decor may not be, however.

Jamie’s will become a firm event favourite, there is a good sense of occasion here.

One last moan. The tables are too small.

You can follow Gordo on Twitter here @GordoManchester

ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE. 

Jamie's Italian, King Street, City, M2 4WU. 0161 241 3901   

Rating: 15/20
Food: 6.75/10
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 4.25/5