LET's all meet up in the year 2000/ won't it be strange when we're all fully grown / Be there 2'o'clock by the fountain down the road.
As 17,000 venues have opened in Chorlton, n'er a single one has troubled the scene in Collyhurst, Harpurhey, Openshaw, Blackley.
Or something like that.
The first food review I did was for City Life magazine in all its paper splendour in 2000. There was a new chef in the pioneering bar called The Bar, in Chorlton and I was sent to write about it.
A couple or so years earlier this place had opened in a former shop unit bringing with it real ales, decent wines, good scran, settees and a formula we now take for granted.
Back then it seemed remarkable so people remarked on it.
In the subsequent fifteen years retail has been on the run in the city centre, Chorlton, Didsbury, West Didsbury and Heaton Moor. Bars with food, and restaurants with bars, have festooned certain Midas locations like fairy-lights across a Christmas tree. Meanwhile in other suburbs of inner Greater Manchester retail has also been on the run but instead of bright young entrepreneurs opening kookie drinkeries with sharing platters and ironically titled cocktails, the shutters have come down and stayed down.
While (in no particular order) Yakisoba, San Juan, Electrik, Parlour, Odder, Dulcimer, Beagle, De Nada, Pii, Cellar Key, Palate...and 17,000 other venues have opened in Chorlton, n'er a single one has troubled the scene in Collyhurst, Harpurhey, Openshaw, Blackley and so on.
This is telling, providing stark evidence of the great Manchester divide, that truculent 'them' and 'us' gap that has bedevilled the city for generations. This is painfully obvious, as Jim McClellan wrote in 1998, 'Manchester’s size makes the social processes more visible'.
When the East Didsbury to Rochdale Metrolink line opened in 2013 I took a tram with my partner from Firswood, between Chorlton and Old Trafford, to Shaw to take a walk on the hills above the old mill town. The tram was packed, thinning as people alighted at St Peter's Square, Market Street, Shudehill and Victoria Station, by which time there was not a single person on from the tram I had joined.
Storm approaching: Manchester from above ShawThis sort of took my breath away. North of Victoria, here be dragons.
On reflection I shouldn't have been that surprised, it's clear from the way people express themselves that not many bourgeois socialists from south Manchester want to become acquainted with 'North of Victoria'. Yet I reckon if there were to be an entrepreneur who'd open a 'Chorlton bar' in say Harpurhey they'd make a killing. The market is there, it just needs someone to test it. These places just need to be given a chance.
Back in The Bar in Chorlton the beer was going great. The impressive ranks of handpumps delivering a particularly impressive Magic Rock Brewery number called Ringmaster which was as smooth as a spiv. Sadly the food had gone backwards since 2000. I ordered a beef and lamb roast, both £9.95, walked back to the table and only just beat the dishes. This was the first fast food Sunday roast I'd ever had.
And it wasn't very good. The carrots, cabbage, parsnips and much of the potato had been hanging around over-cooked waiting to be reheated for a very long time. They were mush, or, given I quoted the band at the beginning of this review, Pulp. The meat was decent, especially the beef topside. The Yorkshire pudd and the gravy were good too but overall this was very functional food, a stomach-liner for the beer, fuel for the tank.
The lack of love was evident with the cheese board. The best feature (£5.95) was the pickles. I'm sure the Harrogate Blue, the Somerset Brie and the Drunken Burt (a Cheshire cheese) were fine but I couldn't tell because they were frigid with chill. The kitchen should have had these out of the fridge reaching room temperature a long time earlier. The brie in particular was destroyed, becoming a vaguely cheesy iceberg.
The Bar might have a slipshod attitude to the grub (a too-frequent occurrence in Chorlton) but it works perfectly as a place to linger and chat. Fifteen years on from that first review The Bar has remained faithful in spirit to the original. Certainly on our visit the neighbourhood atmosphere was jolly, the mood convivial. As a group of friends we arrived at 2pm and left at 7pm so, I suppose, the clumsy roasts proved invaluable.
Still, it'd be good if some of that atmosphere could be exported to Manchester's less well-served inner suburbs. Life is unfair, and in this segregation in Manchester we have all the evidence we need for that old cliche.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
All scored reviews are unannounced, impartial, paid for by Confidential and completely independent of any commerical relationship.
The Bar, 533 Wilbraham Road, Manchester M21 0UE. 0161 861 7576
Rating: 12.5/20 (remember venues are rated against the best examples of their type - see yellow box below)
Food: 5/10 (beef roast 5, lamb roast 5, cheese 4)
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4/5
PLEASE NOTE: Venues are rated against the best examples of their kind: fine dining against the best fine dining, cafes against the best cafes. Following on from this the scores represent: 1-5 saw your leg off and eat it, 6-9 get a DVD, 10-11 if you must, 12-13 if you’re passing,14-15 worth a trip,16-17 very good, 17-18 exceptional, 19 pure quality, 20 perfect. More than 20, we get carried away.
