THE RADISSON Blu Edwardian hotel on Peter Street - one of only two five-star hotels in the central areas of the city - is poised to launch two new restaurants and a rooftop bar in 2015/16. This is part of an ambitious multi-million pound investment in the Free Trade Hall site.
The as-yet-untitled restaurant and bar will be plonked seventeen-floors high on the roof of a brand new luxury residential development to be constructed at the south-side of the Theatre Royal
The Radisson's current Opus One bar and restaurant will be replaced by the Manchester Kitchen - a new concept for the Manchester Radisson fashioned after the Mayfair Kitchen restaurant at the Edwardian Group's famous Mayfair Hotel in London's West End.
The Mayfair Kitchen is a DIY affair: choose from steak, lamb, veal, sole, oysters, pig cheeks, lobster and so on from the grill and take your pick of fancy sides. We expect The Manchester Kitchen to be of a similar ilk.
Still, we could be way off the mark, Stephen Miles, esteemed General Manager at the Peter Street hotel for the past decade, is giving little away.
Opus One
"Opus is in such a fantastic space," Miles told Confidential. "We're going to open the whole room out with a theatre kitchen to create the much grander Manchester Kitchen.
"The concept and the chef we'll reveal closer to the time."
The new restaurant will form the basis of the £1m phase one development of the Radisson's ground floor, which will also include a renovation of the lobby and a revamp of the popular Steak and Lobster restaurant at the back of the hotel on Windmill Street.
Subject to planning approval, the Manchester Kitchen and the rest of phase one should be ready to go as early as March 2015.
Steak and Lobster, Windmill Street
Phase two of development - costing between £5m to £6m - will see Radisson add twenty 'deluxe rooms' and a 10,000 sq ft 'super suite' to the rear of the hotel by the end of 2015.
The Radisson's second new restaurant and accompanying rooftop bar is a far more ambitious and pricey proposition.
The as-yet-untitled restaurant and bar will be plonked seventeen-floors high on the roof of a brand new luxury residential development to be constructed at the south-side of the Theatre Royal (1845) - which the Radisson Blu Edwardian group purchased in 2012.
(Confidential revealed the plans for the Theatre Royal back in March 2014 - You can also read Jonathan Schofield's history of the Theatre Royal here).
Theatre Royal, Peter Street
The new restaurant and bar will be the jewel in the crown of a huge phase three investment by the hotel group, which will see a 800-seater conference and ballroom space built inside the Theatre Royal and 60-70 luxury apartments in the new seventeen-storey residential tower on Windmill Street (the new tower should fall just short of the Great Northern Tower's 72 metres).
Radisson intend to build an underground tunnel and an overground walkway linking the Free Trade Hall and the Theatre Royal. Miles also hinted that the Council were keen for the Radisson's development to include an overground link to the Manchester Central convention centre.
Phase three should be done and dusted by the close of 2016. All plans are subject to planning approval.
View of the Radisson Hotel (left) and back of the Theatre Royal (right) taken from Manchester Central
A walkway could be constructed to link the hotel (left) with the Theatre Royal (right)
"We're hoping to create an urban resort," Miles told us, "taking inspiration from the the Ivy urban resort project in Sydney. We've even drafted in the same architect - Woods Bagot - to deliver our vision."
Woods Bagot's Ivy in Sydney is an integrated complex of bars, restaurants, shopping and leisure which includes a huge ballroom space and a sunken garden.
"This is a fantatsic opportunity for the city too," Miles continued. "Building this kind of project and creating such an amazing complex right in the city centre will attract types of businesses that Manchester may not have before."
