THE most satisfying quality of a restaurant is confidence. You could say the same for any profession of course, but with a restaurant confidence is essential if the place is going to deliver a good quality dining out experience.
Solita has this in spades.
In some respects Anglicised Americana is the perfect modern compromise. Most people who dine out have travelled around a bit these days, many to the USA, almost all to multiple destinations within two hours flying time.
The self-assurance of the restaurant (with basement bar attached) is sky high, the staff appear motivated, the cooking levels seem right, the compact dining space is cleverly lifted by graphics and neon and the menu offers variety. Even the specials board works, offering genuine one-offs rather than more of the same.
The Anglicised Americana food style at Solita is, of course, presently so in fashion across Great Britain it's in danger of collapsing under its weight. The good thing about Solita is that it displays enough imagination to rise above most of the crowd.
A special of Manc-hattan burger with oven-bottom muffin, Lancashire cheese, black pudding, pastrami and Coney island mustard (£12.90) was a typical Solita tour-de-force. It brought a dizzying array of flavours that mushed up beautifully while the muffin showed humour. The battered black pudding was a doctor's nightmare but a foodies' delight.
Manc-hattan
The same could be said for the Classic burger with melted Monterey Jack cheese, lettuce tomato and home made ketchup (£8.90) - although the burger on the review visit was a tad overdone. The KFB with melted Monterey Jack cheese, jalapenos, bourbon BBQ sauce and Kentucky fried bacon (£8.90) was a return to top form with glorious heat and loads of fun as standard.
Details such as rooster scratchings, the house fried chicken skin pieces (2.90), and the ribs, wings, rings and things (£7.90) were exemplary.
Rooster scratchings
The pull apart, snap, and goo of the latter dish (pictured at the top of this page) was a messy challenge that the younger folk with us set about like hungry hyenas. There was nothing left after three minutes apart from boys faces covered in barbecue sauce, and shattered bones on a plate.
The star of the show wasn't for once at Solita, a burger. It was the 12oz prime rib steak (£17.90) a marbled treat, aged well, and cooked just right on the Inka grill in Solita. This charcoal powered kit roasts and barbecues at the same time and if handled well, creates a beautifully tender steak under a strongly flavoured and textured outer shell.
Excellent steak
Puddings are ridiculous in their excessiveness and thus live up to the gluttonous, gratuitous sweetness of American desserts. The apotheosis of this excess was the peanut butter chocolate fudge brownie with Oreo ice cream (£5.90). Get that doctor on the line again.
Over the top brownie
Meanwhile the lovely Cabrelli's vanilla ice cream (£3.90) came with playful bacon candy (candy looking very like streaky bacon). The cheesecake with mixed berries (£5.90) was more controlled than the brownie, less sweet, more balanced, and, for me, more rewarding.
Just right cheesecake
The food is supported by good beers from home and abroad and some decent wines as well. The Negroamaro il Medaglione, at £18, is a full bodied complement for the meaty, sticky dishes.
The challenge for Solita, indeed for all the restaurants providing this mucked about, mulched up, Anglicised Americana, is whether the food genre has legs.
Will there be a place for Solita in ten years?
Probably.
It's a flexible style and can leap between Home Sweet Home's rustic character to Liquor & Burn's manic enthusiasm (click here) to Solita's more sophisticated approach. The style leaves enough room for elements of Blumenthal trickery such as deep fried coke on the menu and for fine little flourishes such as the dusted chicken skin crackling.
Dining room and 'soul' neon
In some respects Anglicised Americana is the perfect modern compromise. Most people who dine out have travelled around a bit these days, many to the USA, almost all to multiple destinations within two hours flying time.
The food at Solita suits the British mood. We like variety, we know it adds colour to life. Unlike more chauvinist food cultures, European and Asian, we adore choice. This is maybe down to an inferiority complex, largely unfounded, about our indigenous food, but it delivers a happy result.
Solita's spark of originality makes it a proper player on the Manchester food scene. If you've not been give it a go.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
Solita, 37 Turner St, City, M4 1DW, 0161 839 2200
Rating: 16/20
Food: 7.5/10 (rooster scratchings 8, ribs, wings and things 8, classic 7, Manc-burger 8, rib steak 8.5, KFB 8, ice cream bacon 7, cheesecake 7, brownie 7)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 4.5/5
Graphically enhanced
Ice cream and bacon candy
