IN and out the students go talking of Michelangelo.
Grano is a sweet-little indie that wouldn't be out of place in the Northern Quarter
And strangely enough Imperial Roman history in the Middle East.
And daytime television.
I was in Grano, a strange but not unappealing bar-cafe on Stretford Road in Hulme. This sits on the fringe of the vast new MMU campus and was filled with students. One prof sat at the back under the books and tapped at her computer.
The place was a stop-off to the fourth broadcast media interview I've done in as many days about the impending twentieth anniversary of the IRA bombing of Manchester. I've got about four more interviews to do and then several panels to pontificate from about the events of 1996.
I like doing this because I want to dispel the myth of the foundation moment of modern Manchester. The bomb wasn't the beginning of a resurgant Manchester. Truth is the city had already intellectually changed by the time that big June bang put things back rather than pushed them forward. Olympic bids, the council deciding to work in partnership with commerce rather than against it, the movement back to city centre living, the re-birth of an urban sensibility had already seen the Manchester mood swing upwards.
Of course, the media love a simplistic start moment, it loves to turn history into a soundbite, but there's something peculiarly nasty about this myth. How can a bomb that creates £700m of damage and injures 212 people ever be a positive? Maybe ask those 212 people whether they feel glad to have been part of the event that 'changed Manchester'. At the same time it's rank condescension to say that Manchester needed the 'leg-up' of the bomb and couldn't have changed without help.
That's what I was mulling over whilst eating a very worthy thyme-glazed chicken, paella rice and salad dish for £5.50. As I ate I was having one of those hypothetical rows in my head with an anonymous someone who might challenge my views on 1996. I was probably jabbing the air with my fork. I recall though the food filling me up nicely. I recall the herbs on the chicken were excellent and that the rice was less so.
Chicken and riceA glass of £5.80 Rioja was poor. The bottle had maybe been open for a while. I should have stuck with all the non-alcoholic health drinks and shakes they were advertising. In fact, wine aside, Grano plays a good hand at the classic 'organic' cafe that feels as though what you eat and drink might do you good. A coffee and pecan cake for £2.50 to finish off was very acceptable, lots of coffee flavour and rich cream.
The bar area seemed like a decent place to hang out in the evening, in an area where most of the traditional pubs have closed down. In fact Grano is a sweet-little indie that wouldn't be out of place in the Northern Quarter although it might suffer from a lack of edge to its character. The charmless building it sits within doesn't help.
Fed and watered I went off to my interview in All Saints walking through an area that has gone through intense re-invention twice in fifty years. The sun was out, the cherry blossom was flamboyant, the city looked good, the streets were buzzing with a polyglot mix of students and locals.
Manchester didn't need any shitty bomb from scumbag terrorists to achieve this.
Grano, 49 Stretford Road, Hulme, Manchester M15 5JH
Rating 12/20
Food: 6 (chicken dish 6, cake 6)
Ambience: 3
Service: 3
