VERMILION, in case you were wondering, is the name of red pigment used in Renaissance painting, and it is also the name of the reddest place you will ever visit in your life. Seriously, it makes a bordello look washed out and pale.
I suspect Vermilion is a restaurant for people who don’t care about food
Vermilion is also the most oddly situated restaurant I ever visited - a ruby of insanity nestled in the careworn palm of Newton Heath. Whoever decided to place this den of glamour in a North East Manchester carpark had taken all the good drugs that day. You approach under the glare of giant stone lions, over a small moat (who doesn’t love a restaurant with a moat?) greeted by bevies of lovelies along the way, to enter a migrainous explosion of filigree, laquerwork and coral. Did I also mention that the lighting is a tad on the red side?
Vermilion reportedly cost around £4.5m, and it looks like the vast majority of that cash was spent on glowing Buddha heads. Designed by Portuguese architect Miguel Cancio Martins, who was also responsible for Buddha Bar and Man Ray in Paris, it’s like stepping inside a giant Christmas bauble, if Christmas were in Thailand all year round.
VermilionSadly, if the interiors are the definition of overwhelming, the food is very definitely on the under side of the equation. One starter, the Morning glory with enoki mushrooms (£7), stood out as encapsulating the Vermilion ethos. Morning glory is also known as water spinach, a popular vegetable in Asian cuisines, while enoki (those long thin spindly ones you sometimes see in a mixed packet of Japanese mushrooms) are known for their light and fruity flavour. So it’s interesting that Vermilion has decided to enhance these delicate ingredients with a batter infused with that well-known and highly prized subtle Oriental flavour: extract of Quavers. How the cheesy tang of Britain’s premier light and curly potato snack was transmuted into tempura will I suspect forever remain a gastronomic secret. I’m not necessarily against Quavers per se (I lie, they are the devil’s crisp) but I certainly wasn’t expecting them with my glass of musk-rose Gewurztraminer (£30 for a bottle). The other starter, Lamb sheek kebabs (£9.95), were absolutely fine, though on the expensive side for a curry-house mainstay.
Salmon YangMains again spanned the range from humorously tedious to downright forgettable. As Vermilion is owned by Seamark, a food processing company that specialises in importing prawns, I thought seafood would be a good bet. I was tempted by the Ocean Tiger Prawn, but in this atmosphere of excess I was afraid the promise of giant tiger prawns “caught in the Bay of Bengal and then flown directly to your plate” would result in a golden helicopter hovering above my place setting as prawns the size of small whales were stretchered in. Though the risk was admittedly small, I played it safe and ordered the Salmon Yang (£19.95) instead. Reader, I regretted it. This was a dish so dull an impromptu cetacean-based reenactment of Miss Saigon would have been a welcome distraction. And it was a large hunk ‘o’ fish, which meant that though not overdone, the delicacy of the flesh had been lost in the time it took to get it cooked through properly. The accompanying vegetables - mange tout and mini corn on the cobs - were what Sainsbury’s were peddling as exotic ten years ago.
Our other main was Karahi Lamb (£15.95) a perfectly nice if not outstanding version of this dish. It compares with versions I‘ve had at Coriander or Zouk (although Vermilion’s is of course double the price). As for sides, both the jasmine and basmati rice (£3.70 each) were well-cooked. A basket of naan (£6.75) came recommended by our waiter and consisted of four mini naans, one freckled with peppers that looked so much like a plastic fake vomit I couldn’t bring myself to try it. The other plainer versions not purchased from a joke shop were all good though not remarkable.
Suspect naanAfter what amounts to a bit of a sledging, I’m pleased to report that the dessert, normally an after-after-afterthought in Thai or Indian restaurants, was actually quite interesting. Green tea cheesecake (£6.95) came with honey ice-cream, the natural bitterness of the green tea contrasting beautifully with the grainy honey flavour. Unfortunately, the kitchen had obviously decided this was too risky a gambit and opted to drench everything with lakes of yet more honey, rendering the whole thing much too sweet.
Despite Vermilion’s obvious leanings towards wealth and ostentation, the staff were unfailingly pleasant and helpful and the atmosphere was never aloof. I do think there is a place for all-out glamour in the restaurant spectrum. On one hand, it is expensive here compared to some of the more local Thai and Indian places of which it is on a par, food-wise. But then again, the pricing is similar to some of the city-centre ‘high-end causal’ offerings.
But then I suspect Vermilion is a restaurant for people who don’t care about food. For a person who secretly desires only to eat at their local takeaway but also demands to be surrounded by opulence and glamour and, crucially, is used to getting exactly what they want. I think the positioning near the Etihad, which initially seems so bizarre, is actually (both literally and metaphorically) on the money.
All scored reviews are unannounced, impartial, paid for by Confidential and completely independent of any commerical relationship.
Vermilion, Lord North Street, Manchester M40 8AD. 0161 202 0055.
Rating: 11.5/20
Food: 4.5 (Morning glory 3, Sheek kebabs 5, Salmon 3, Karahi lamb 5, cheesecake 7)
Service: 3
Ambience: 4 of its type (crazed opulence) it’s near unbeatable
Vermilion Cinnabar
