‘My Goldilocking continues’: Posie, reviewed

Review by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

What makes a great bar? Well the drinks, obviously. The atmosphere - which should come primarily from the hustle and bustle of other people enjoying themselves, rather than forced attempts to create a ‘vibe’ with moody lighting and loud music. A bar is only ever as good as how good of a time those in it are having. A bar should have efficient service with a cheeky glint in the eyes of the staff, who are happy to chat about the latest industry gossip while they make you something special. 

Ideally you should be sitting at an actual bar; staff on the other side. A great bar prioritises walk-ins and encourages spontaneity. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the World’s Best Bar and indeed the World’s Second Best Bar. I preferred Mexico’s Handshake Speakeasy, which is currently in second place having swapped this year with the current number one. At Handshake Speakeasy you are greeted with a handshake upon your arrival; which feels warm and special; and then the staff all shout a chorus of ‘bienvenidos!’. You’re immediately given water and delicious spiced nuts and presented with a particularly inviting, original drinks list. The atmosphere is electric. It’s utterly brilliant.

And what makes a great restaurant? Well the food, obviously. As for everything else, I refer to the expertise star restaurateur Jeremy King shares in his book ‘Without Reservation’. Tables should ideally be candlelit and a soundtrack provided by a mix of people all having a good time. Service should be attentive and engaged but not too present. The pacing needs to be right; all the dishes coming at once is a tetris nightmare forcing the diner to decide what to allow to grow cold. Never good. Too long between courses and things start to feel tedious. 

I’m privileged to have visited some of the best restaurants in the world, though I generally find that my favourite restaurants are ones that rarely make such lists. They always have the same things in common: the lighting is right, the service dynamic, the atmosphere made up of other people enjoying themselves. A space that allows you to forget everything outside and focus on the people and food in front of you. A great restaurant takes your coat and your worries as soon as you step in the door and engulfs you in its unique between-space where you are present and utterly correct.

And what are the constitutional differences between bars and restaurants? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly. Some restaurants undoubtedly have great drinks and allow you to pop in for a drink and a plate, almost like a bar. Some bars serve particularly good food, and you can have a small meal with your drinks, almost like a restaurant. But a place must know what, fundamentally, it is. Otherwise it risks slipping into a liminal space where it satisfies neither party; it’s not quite right for a casual drink, nor is it quite right for dinner. It has yet to find the Goldilocks zone. And this, as you can probably guess, is where we find Bar Posie.

At first glance, Bar Posie had all the signifiers of a very promising bar-cum-restaurant. It is the new sister venue to 10 Tib Lane, which is one of Manchester’s best restaurants. The drinks menu is spiked with original creations such as peaches and cream (£12) and all red and gold (£13). The 10 Tib Lane culinary brilliance shines through in the food menu, too, with items like focaccia and cacio e pepe butter which made going for dinner an inevitability. And they’ve managed to resist calling it something beginning with S, which is a relief after Schofield’s, Stray, Sterling, Speak in Code and most recently Bar Shrimp.

But for us, Posie managed to hit neither the hallmarks of a great bar or indeed a great restaurant.

Some of the food was very much worth seeking out; focaccia with cacio e pepe butter (£6) is inspired and fried olives (£7) were meaty enough to make a vegan moan. A dense coil of hogget merguez with spiced onion puree and sauerkraut (£11) was an undeniable highlight – coarse and meaty, brought round spectacularly by the vegetable creations it shared the plate with. Similarly the cafe torino (£13) - cocchi americano, coffee liquor and spent coffee-infused select aperitivo - was rightly recommended by the staff; heady, aromatic, caffeine-forward and slightly sweet.

Yet for somewhere opened by the 10 Tib Lane team, there were a few too many misses. Oysters with pina colada granita (£4 each) were just plain weird. I’m all for experimentation but that granita belongs in a drink and definitely not on some of the sea’s greatest offerings; which were quite frankly ruined. I enjoyed the pork belly skewer (£13) quite a lot once I’d stopped swooping it through the eye-wateringly vinegary chilli sauce. Pommes Annas (£8) - surely one of the most delicious ways to prepare a potato - were a chore that tasted of very little and split in the centre to reveal a worrying shade of grey, suggesting the parboiled spuds had been left out and oxidised before they hit the fryer.

And so we were neither over- nor under-whelmed by the food. Just whelmed. The same was true of most of the drinks, the service, and the atmosphere. My initial foray into the original cocktails landed me on a boban (£14) - which had me at mezcal - but somehow in this concoction my favourite spirit had been tempered by so much citric acid it was undrinkable. I felt nothing but relief when they took it from the table before I had finished it. For a second drink I thought I’d play it safe and order a Oaxacan negroni (£14); mezcal again, but in negroni form. Though no real reprieve, it was inoffensive.

As I said earlier, a bar is only as good as how good a time the people in it are having. When we arrived at 6.30pm, Posie was full of the after work crowd, but it emptied fairly quickly after we arrived. Perhaps I should take the hint. The table next to us appeared to be having a truly miserable time. Perhaps I really should take the hint.

It was all over in an hour, which is perhaps our fault for ordering everything at once, though I seem to remember a time when restaurants were capable of staggering dishes. We decided to cut our losses without dessert, which might’ve added another five minutes.

So at this point in time, on this particular visit, Bar Posie satisfied neither the need for an evening in a bar nor in a restaurant. If looking for a restaurant, I’d very happily visit 10 Tib Lane, which I’ve always found to be excellent. If looking for a bar, I’d head to Schofield’s, ideally, or one of the other S’s. Maybe I am looking for the wrong thing, but in the case of Posie I didn’t get what I wanted nor what I needed, and had to head home and make my own negroni to pair with a piece of heavily buttered toast. My Goldilocking continues.