MCR42 is a welcome addition to the Village. It forms a triumvirate of good choice along Richmond Street with the Molly House pub and Richmond Tea Rooms. If the gaudy Canal Street strip is not your thing then escaping down the parallel street and universe of Richmond Street may provide sanctuary, especially during Saturday night when this part of the city can be brutalised by hen parties.
The food here is good mid-range fare that fills and adds a few frills.
What’s even better about MCR42 despite that dodgy, skittish moniker, is it brings another proper menu to the area to add to others including Velvet and Taurus.
The menu is scarily massive though. It makes the 23 Game of Thrones volumes (or whatever number it is) look half-arsed, makes a pamphlet out of War & Peace. There are five different versions of afternoon and high tea, six different breakfasts. There are grills, burgers, platters, sandwiches and soups. There are 29 types of tea.
If the overwhelming offer of the menu makes you worry over the quantity versus quality principle, the twee exhortations and phraseology of ‘Loosen your belt’, ‘Dare to share’, ‘You smooth talker you’ and ‘Eats, shoots, leaves’ adds more concern.
I’ve been twice, once shortly after opening, and once very recently.
Spangly
InteriorThe first visit seemed to bear out the concern. It was marred by awkward service, mistakes and delays, and by a belly pork with the consistency of a brick made out of armour plate. A pan fried cod was better, but the belly pork had soured the whole experience which was a long way short of that provided by sister restaurant, TEA42, on High Street in the Northern Quarter.
But it was very early days so I went back. If I’m going to critically assault somewhere I go at least twice - as I tried to tell one angry operator at the Food and Drink Festival Awards dinner a couple of weeks ago. Savagery should be certain. Assault should be assured. Twice terrible deserves a judgement.
This time MCR42 was far better. The service was a delight; charming, attentive. The tea-infused chicken wings with lemon thyme and a wasabi mayonnaise for £6.50 were zingy and succulent. Better again was a main of ‘beef and reef’, rump steak, prawns and battered calamari rings (£21.95) that treated this humble cut of cattle meat like royalty. The steak must have been matured properly because it wasn’t too chewy which can be the problem, the fishy bits were grand too as were the chunky chips.
Another main the grilled Moroccan lamb chops had a menu description that just stopped short of giving the full recipe. The dish includes ‘black pepper, dried mint, smoked paprika, lemon juice, olive oil, fennel and cumin seeds’. It cost £19.95 and was a little odd because despite all the ingredients the chops tasted simply like very good grilled chops with lots of herbs. It wasn’t particularly Moroccan but it was very good and the sweet potato mash was perfect, worth an article all of its own.
Lovely chops
Beef and reef aka surf and turf
Cakes and pudds are a ‘thing’ at both TEA42 and MCR42. The displays of sweets in the cabinets are as colourful as an outfit in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. They are consciously camp. In this they match the consciously camp interior with its lipstick pink tones and its big screens with large faces that stay fixed and then suddenly move and wink at you. It all feels a little more apt for this location than the dandy white leathers and pink in Tea42 opposite the Arndale Market.
The big basementWe shared three mini-cheesecakes which hadn’t been out of the chiller for long and thus weren’t quite loose enough - MCR42 needs to pay attention to these little details. They cheesecakes looked the part though with the best being the rich berry cheesecake. A blueberry polenta cake was very good, rich, sweet, invigorating.
A strong Spanish red had washed down the second meal followed by a full-on but smooth double espresso. All in all, the second visit evaporated my savagery and made me want to come back - although they should think about lowering the menu prices on the grills a pound or two, bring everything in under £20. The food here is not fancy fine-dining after all but good mid-range fare that fills and adds a few frills as well, the number of events and special occasion menus shows how much the people behind TEA42 and MCR42 want to engage with the city. By the way the service was very attentive when it came to enquiring about gluten-free diet, so if you suffer from related ailments give this place a try.
Cakes, many suitable for gluten-free diet
Cakes everywhereNothing to do with the meal but the six foot wide cut-out diorama of Manchester’s street scene left me scratching my head. Prominent buildings are shown such as the Town Hall, the Bridgewater Hall, Beetham Tower, Central Library and the Cathedral. Well, of course.
Only this is not the right Cathedral. The cut-out shows a replacement Cathedral proposed for Piccadilly Gardens in the nineteenth century that was never built – I know this because I’m writing a book which looks at the schemes Manchester imagined and never delivered. It’s a very odd inclusion this Cathedral-that-never-was at MCR42, but then there’s something decidedly eccentric about the whole operation. A welcome eccentricity it must be said.
Mind you, I think the two gentlemen who were dining at the table below the diorama thought I was eccentric.
"Excuse me gents, may I take a picture over your heads of the Cathedral-that-never-was?" I asked.
"The what?" they replied.
I explained. They looked scared.
The diorama, second in from the right, that mystery inclusion
The Cathedral-that-never-wasYou can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
MCR42, corner Richmond Street/Chorlton Street, City Centre, M1 3HW. 0800 043 42 42.
Rating: 13/20
Food: 7/10 (Chicken wings 7, rump steak 7, lamb chops 6.5, cheesecake 6.5)
Service: 3/5
Ambience: 3/5
