THE LOBSTER tacos settled it for us. They were exquisite. Let's go all Noel Coward. They were divine. In Cheshire Life they'd be 'to die for'.
Go at lunchtime and the waiters, the ambience and the food can be delightful, calming, not bedlam in the slightest.
There were so many flavours in them I imagine the kitchen to resemble a Frankenstein lab full of strange instruments brewing up strange potions and infusions. The menu description says 'beer battered lobster, soft floor tortilla and red cabbage slaw and sweet pepper ketchup' - but the picture at the top of the page represents them better.
These tacos were colourful, floaty yet substantial, filled with bursting flavour, moist and simply delightful. To pick out individual flavours would be unfair. This was a complete ensemble.
I was in Neighbourhood in Spinningfields where the food style is 'Manhattan', not American, not even New York, but specifically 'Manhattan'. The owners might as well name the exact street they have in mind, probably somewhere round Fifth Avenue.
Truth is, with the way food genres are morphing and blending - like all miscegenations inevitable and ultimately good for the world -Neighbourhood's food could occupy any aspirational bar/restaurant space from Hamburg to Dubai via Shanghai and even back to Manhattan.
Neighbourhood in evening party mood with mirrors on tables
But let's get back to that later because for me Neighbourhood is all about the food and its price.
The tacos were part of a deal, two plates for £12 and three for £15. Of course we went for the latter.
The General Tsao's oysters were on a par with the tacos. Panko breadcrumbs (made without the crust don't you know), another seemingly forty seven infusions and injections of sauce, wasabi coleslaw and a big chunk of the feature seafood. Normally I prefer my oysters fresh and naked in the shell but these cooked ones were little wonders.
Lovely oysters
If you have that kind of mind you'll now want to know who General Tsao was. Well, he was a nineteenth century Chinese statesman and warleader. After extensive research lasting minutes I've discovered he had no involvement with the spicy sauce named after him and used with the oyster. Perhaps Chinese expats in the USA just missed his authoritarianism.
The quality of the food continued in this holy trinity of three dishes with the roasted baby beets, which melded goats cheese, pistachio, basil and mint together in slightly too artful way, but added bounce and charm by preparing the dainty and soft beetroots in a raspberry reduction. Good again.
A slider selection was less distinctive, but then it was up against the previous three, and although fine enough, the mini-burgers of turkey, meatball and Wagyu, neither had the panache nor the subtlety of what had gone before. Still, they were skilfully imagined and realised in what clearly is a very talented kitchen. The Parmesan truffle fries were excellent. Fries and slider cost £12.
Slider power
A deconstructed Pavlova for £8.50 looked the part but I can't really remember it very much. My notes say 'over complex'.
Pavlova in deconstructed mode
We were there for a late lunch. Golden brown Neighbourhood with its multiplicity of shiny bits and bobs, its mirrored booths, the sparkly lights, and a weird garden patio section was busy and bubbly with a lazy soundtrack of music set at a good talking volume.
Get a rich, saucy red, such as a Ribera del Duero, even if a little pricy at £39, and the afternoon is pleasant indeed, even when talking business.
So why review this at lunch? Couple of reasons.
A few months ago I went early on a Saturday evening with family and by nine it was impossible to talk. All we could do was smile at our own reflections in the mirrored table surfaces and comb our hair.
"Sometimes we can't hear the orders and get it wrong. It causes trouble," said a waiter.
Good truffle fries
It was expensive too. Food prices are steep in the evening.
Two of that excellent lunchtime trio for £15, the tacos and oysters, will set you back £24. Six oysters at Grill on the Alley are almost £3 less than the Neighbourhood price of £12. Desserts at £8.50 are at least £1 more expensive than those at Australasia and at 63 Degrees; £2 or £3 more than the average aspirant restaurant.
Going at lunchtime allows you, if you're lucky, to splash out on the wine and talk to each other.
When Tracey MacLeod of The Independent reviewed Neighbourhood a year ago she thought 'the food is much better than what it needs to be at a party place'. Very astute. She went in the evening, when Neighbourhood is all party.
The bar's the main feature on weekend nights
Especially at weekends. My advice at those times for the sensitive diner is stay away, what with the racket, posturing gentlemen pushing out biceps bigger than their book collections, girls with their hands in the air and the keen doorstaff (don't get one of my writer's started on the times she's been refused entry - all of them - while sober and unthreatening).
That picture I've painted above might be a caricature but there's truth there too. So go at lunchtime and the waiters (we had the very engaging and knowledgeable Ed Kirby on our visit), the ambience and the food can be delightful and calming and delivered with skill. Bedlam doesn't reign in the slightest.
I find it odd, given the talent in the kitchen, that the executive chef's name isn't in lights up on the website. With this degree of skill the words Damien Bell should be all over it.
By the way, the Sunday lunches are also apparently very good, the half-salt roasted chicken (£15) is beckoning me back to Neighbourhood. The lobster tacos I want right now.
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Rating: 16/20
Food: 8/10 (tacos 8.5, oysters 8.5, beets 7.5, slider 7.5, Pavlova 7)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5 (but this was at lunch, it'd be 1 or 5 depending on your mood on weekend evenings)
