NEW OPENING | Burger & Lobster | King Street

David Blake 7 August 2015

What They Say: "The most hotly anticipated restaurant to hit Manchester this year, Burger & Lobster is conveniently located just off King Street. The new 240-cover restaurant is housed withing the stunning art-deco exteriors of Ship Canal House and has restored the interior of the once tired, dingy office space to its former glory and into the coolest dining haunt in town complete with the biggest lobster tanks in the North West."

(Art deco? The entrance to the building and most of its floor area is within a Victorian Gothic bank - Ed.)

If you're not into lobster then don't bother

What We Say: 'The most hotly anticipated restaurant to hit Manchester this year'? Hmm B&L's London brethren Hawksmoor and Iberica might have something to say about that, as may Lunya, or indeed El Gato Negro. Still, if social media chatter is indicative of a restaurant's popularity (which of course it now is) then B&L is up there; somewhere in the Top 5.

The skinny at B&L is this; there's no menu. That's right. Save The Trees! Order a whole lobster, 10oz burger or lobster roll, all with chips and a little salad pot for £20. Yes it's gimmicky, and ok it looks a little like TGI Fridays, and no of course you can't make a reservation, Grandad. Still, say what you like about this Russian-owned chain (from the same group behind London's smashing Goodman steakhouses), but twenty notes for a whole lobster is unbelievable value. The middling, warm'ish burger, McDonald's fries and Iceland desserts in plastic cups less so. Still, slap that bargain 700g Nova Scotian crustacean about in garlic butter, dribble it down your novelty bib and I dare you not to be as happy as a lobster that just realised that big pan of hot water is, in fact, a jacuzzi.

Burger & Lobster

What To Order: Easy one this. If you're not into lobster then don't bother, because there's numerous places in the city centre to score a better burger for half the price. Order the lobster, grilled, the dry heat making the meat a touch chewier but intensifying the flavour. The lobster roll in toasted brioche is also very fine indeed. A standard £20 beast pulled from the tonnes in the basement are anywhere between 600g-700g, however, if your horses have come in you can select one of the 2-5kg monsters (from £80 to £215) from the tanks out front, where they parade around like steroided numbskulls in gym windows.

...and booze? DO NOT order 2/3 pint (schooner) for £3.80, you're better than that, but do order a South Carolina Tea (£7.50) with Beefeater, Earl Grey tea, watermelon and lemon; tall, sweet, bang on. Bottles of wine start at £17, and you can rarely go wrong with a Nero D'Avola.

If someone's willing to share you can try both half a lobster and half a burger (£20)

What else? B&L is backed by exuberant Russian restaurateur Mikhail Zelman (also behind London's Beast, Smack Deli and Rex & Mariano) and first opened in London's Mayfair in 2011. The chain now has twelve locations across Europe and the US, with seven in London and one in New York, Stockholm, Cardiff, Bath and, finally, Manchester.

The story goes that following the success of Goodman, Zelman wanted to open a chain of burger bars, however, one of his comrades suggested a US-style scoff'n'go lobster joint. Burger & Lobster was born.

And yes, according to George behind the bar, all lobsters are caught wild in the seas of Nova Scotia (where a shortage of cod eating juvenile lobsters has lead to bumper stocks) and flown alive to massive tanks in Heathrow before the genocide begins.