IT's safe to say that Yu and I didn’t exactly get on.
Just work out what they would charge on an average Chinese menu and stick another tenner on it...
I turned up as I always do, as eager as a hungry puppy, but found that the whole experience didn’t deliver what it had promised to.
Firstly, some context; Patriarch Charlie Yu has had a string of successful Chinese restaurants, including the award winning Yu and You in the Ribble Valley, which Gordon Ramsay named ‘Best UK Chinese Restaurant’.
Now, the next generation is in charge and siblings Victor and Vinny want to modernise what dad has been doing quite successfully for decades; they have plans. They want their eponymous restaurants to go upmarket. How better to follow the money than to set up shop in the affluent, gilt-pavemented suburb of Alderley Edge?
Yu is in the old Panacea building, which seems to burn down every couple of years before rising like a phoenix, having morphed into some new poseur’s paradise. The front section has been given over to Piccolino’s and its natural partner; a car park overflowing with a fleet of shiny Land Rovers.
You’ll find Yu round the back marked by a single sign; ‘It’s exclusive’ they said, ‘so how will anyone find you?’ asked practical, straight talking me. Yu don’t advertise, there’s no sign on the street, so they’re going for word of mouth. For that low-key strategy to work, obviously existing customers need to have enjoyed their experience.
Yu, out 'n' in
We were met at the front desk by a long legged, pony-tailed dolly who tottered around on heels like a new born filly. Despite the fact that we had booked ahead, and it wasn’t busy, our table “wasn’t quite ready yet, so could we wait at the bar?” I was just positioned to park one cheek on a bar stool, when it turned out our table was ready after all.
We were handed menus, mine was stained. At this point, I went on yellow alert. As I write this, I notice that the online menu doesn’t include prices, so just work out what they would charge on an average Chinese menu and stick another tenner on it. The wine list had more numbers than letters on it. If you have to ask the price, you’ve clearly come to the wrong place.
Cantonese classics feature as well as lots of luxurious ingredients such as lobster, Wagyu beef fillet, and black cod with Champagne. Even the popular aromatic crispy duck (£26) has been gentrified, by offering only a ‘deconstructed’ duck breast. Perhaps the moneyed minority aren’t too keen to smear their lip gloss on anything as vulgar as food, but am I the only one who thinks gnawing on the bones is the best bit?
'Crispy Lobster Lemongrass'
To start, we chose the special, beef carpaccio with chilli, garlic and ginger (£10.50, main image). This was soon silently plonked down, fridge cold, by a gormless young waiter, followed by a long wait for my 'crispy lobster lemongrass' (£12.50) which, it eventually transpired, had mistakenly been delivered to another table. I would have been happy to fill the culinary void with wine and conversation, but unfortunately the drinks hadn’t arrived either.
The sirloin was tender and flavoured with a fatty roundness comparable to salami, but it divided opinion. The seafood had been masticated into an indiscernible ball and deep fried until the only way to eat it was to stab it with a chop stick and chomp through its tough exterior with my back teeth. The three balls were ok, but not £12.50 ok.
Slow cooked belly pork, rice wine and red bean with crispy crackling
King prawns in spicy XO and wild mushrooms
The main courses were better, and from then on, so was the service - mainly thanks to Costas, the eagle-eyed maitre d’, who had noticed me taking photographs and realised the rigging needed tightening. A decent sized portion of slow cooked belly pork, rice wine and red bean with crispy crackling (£18) was full flavoured and comforting. King prawns in spicy XO and wild mushrooms (£22.50) was a filling and fresh dish which could have taken much more spice and less salt. Tender stem broccoli (£7.50) was stir-fried to perfection and fried rice with spring onions and 'Lap Cheong', that gorgeously waxy Chinese sausage, was moreish enough to force me to have to undo my trouser button.
Desserts were only average. Lychee and passion fruit soufflé was ‘unavailable’, so we went for a pretty ordinary mango cheesecake (£8.50) and coconut and ginger ice cream (£5.50) which would have worked better with crystallised ginger rather than crushed biscuits.
Mango cheesecake
The service had been so slow that by the time we got the bill, only drinkers who didn’t have to get up for work in the morning remained. I spied a Real Housewife of Cheshire among a table of sycophantic fops whose vulgarity and increasingly loud sexual innuendoes were carried across the restaurant poisoning the atmosphere like an airborne virus.
Yu wants to be an exclusive hangout for slebs when they fancy eating Chinese food, but the people of Alderley Edge don’t need to spend their cash on a place that's yet to get its act together.
Yu Alderley Edge, London Rd, Alderley Edge, Cheshire, SK9 7QD
Rating: 10.5/20
Food: 6/10 (beef 7, lobster 6, prawn XO 7, pork 7, broccoli 8, fried rice 7, mango cheesecake 4, ice cream 4)
Ambience: 2.5/5 nice light fittings and a sensitive DJ, er, that’s it
Service: 2/5 polite and friendly when they turned up, but disorganised
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