FOOD consumption in restaurants is prone to the prevalent idea, the 'big thing'. Often this starts out small, strikes a chord, gets copied and before you know what's what, it's got so big it's hard to remember where it all came from or why.
Bill’s is voguishly cluttered. Makes sense, people prefer clutter, it reminds them of gran’s house, it’s comforting. Modernism has its moments but Brits generally want busy.
'Big ideas' reign in food more than ever from Brazilian churrascarias through burgers and yoghurt bars to endless cicchetti options, sharing platters and craft beers. Some ideas are good, some make you retch.
Homespun comfort at Bill's
One of the really 'big ideas' is to be cutesy, homespun and ‘genuine’. This usually involves restaurant chains trying to tell us they're still a tiny operator who started out selling turnips on an allotment twenty years ago and nothing's changed despite the 89 'units' nationwide and twenty people in marketing, five of whom are working on the ‘next best concept to hit Rotherham’.
These girls and boys play on words such as 'yummy' , 'friendly' and 'shared values'. The presentation comes directly from the Innocent smoothies stuff a decade ago and Apple ads now. You know the ones, a folk singer track and a knowing smart-arse voice-over to make us think we’re in some sort of club, that we're special. Madmen still rule in ad-land only now they don't wear ties.
Bill's, John Dalton Street
Sometimes it seems we aspire to turn the world into a kids’ party arranged by parents who take the offspring to pottery making sessions in garden centres and prefer Halloween because Bonfire Night has fireworks and problematic provenance.
It makes me want to curl in a ball in a bus shelter and rock to and fro my face buried, just to hide myself from all the Innocent smoothie smiles that are beginning to look like everyone's been replaced by alien replicants and I’m next on the list.
It’s the Age of Smug. And we love it. Mostly. If we have enough money we can assuage our conscience with a commitment to recycling.
The marketing for Bill's Restaurant group is a bit like this, you just have to look at the greeting card typeface of the logo.
Rustic with things in big tins
On Bill’s website there’s stories of start-up sheds in Lewes, tiny shop units, floods, recovery, then keeping the original values with a name that doesn't refer to the 'the damage' but to the man who created it all. It’s designed to make us think we’re still in that start-up shed pickling shallots.
So is Bill’s a load of flim-flam, a meretricious fandango of persiflage (I know, I know, I’m being churlishly un-homespun), masking the true nature of a slick 21st century business?
Well, of course, but it’s hard not to be impressed by the gusto of the staff and their desire to want you to enjoy the experience. And it’s hard not to enjoy Bill’s Manchester, there’s always people to look at, the London plane tree in the terrace out the back is a proper star and the design is amusing.
Indeed, there’s more ‘rustic’ bric-a-brac in Bill’s than in the average shallot pickling shed - although it doesn’t go as far as The Botanist round the corner with screwed down garden forks to prevent the swain from Wetherspoons next door popping in to borrow the fork but not for the garden. It all looks a devil to dust.
Then you realise this is a modern form of the tile-bedecked gin palace with the ornate bar of the nineteenth century. Next door to Bill’s is the Restaurant Bar and Grill (RBG), the bar of which may sport the odd vase of lilies but shuns clutter. RBG is out of fashion. Bill’s is voguishly cluttered. Makes sense, people prefer clutter, it reminds them of gran’s house, it’s comforting. Modernism has its moments but Brits generally want busy.
The menu’s busy too: mezze, risottos, pies of duck and fish, ‘peri peri’, soup, steaks, burgers, salads and even fish finger butties. Wow.
Salt beef rosti
Hake
The pan-fried hake (£11.95) comes with cracking caper, tomato and avocado topping which gives vitality to an otherwise decent dish that’s about 22% too small and comes with a shy spud rosti. The lamb rump with garlic and rosemary, gratin potatoes and so on (£15.50), is entertaining, but also about 22% too small.
The burger (£9.95) got a nod of approval but the Thai Green chicken (£10.95) was only a bit too small and split oddly on the plate as though it were a picture drawn by a kid. Good heat in the curry but it was too greasy in texture, oil floating on the sauce surface.
The salt beef, spring onion and potato rosti hash was fabulous (£5.95) despite an egg with all the personality of Dale Winton off camera. But at least the strong salt beef and potato rosti hash shared my values all right, I’ll be back for that like a shot, big flavours everywhere. Sweet potato fries (£3.55) were just dandy, the pecan pie (£5.50) very good, the cinnamon doughnuts (£5.50) shy of cinnamon.
Thai green curry
The doughnuts
The biggest let down was the ‘peri peri’ marinated half chicken (£11.95) that was stringy, low in heat and about half too small.
So some things good, some things bad, the winners being the atmosphere, the salt beef, the avocado and caper sauce, the charming service and the big bold red, a Tempranillo, at £21.50.
Bill’s compromises too much, tries to be all things to all men. Clearly the formula works but they need with the food to get back to that Lewes’ shed again, get back to basics, forget all the branded ‘Bill’s’ aprons for sale, up portion sizes and put more fire in the food in terms of both heat and originality. Lose the Dale Winton egg.
Branded aprons
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL OUR SCORED FOOD REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL. REVIEW VISITS ARE UNANNOUNCED AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ANY COMMERICAL RELATIONSHIP.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
Rating: 13.5/20
Food: 6.5/10 (salt beef 8, hake 6.5, lamb 6.5, peri peri chicken 5, green curry 6, burger 7, fries 7, doughnuts 5, pecan pie 6.5)
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 3.5/5
