‘The dishes deserve the spotlight’: Maya, Gay Village, reviewed

You think you know a place, don’t you? I’d just settled into Edinburgh Castle being one of my favourite, most reliable places to eat in Manchester when, bam! The rug was pulled from under me. 

Until a month ago, Edinburgh Castle was headed up by Manchester’s chef of the year, Shaun Moffat, who had overseen its reopening in 2022. Across town on Chorlton Street, Gabe Lea, formerly of Le Manoir and The French, had been attached to the opening of Maya, in the old Mash & Air site, for 20 months before it even opened.

But suddenly, a month ago, Shaun and Gabe did a switcheroo; Lea took over at Edinburgh Castle, and Moffatt moved to Maya.

Maya stands on Chorlton Street, across three floors, with the main à la carte restaurant downstairs. The enormous cocktail bar at the centre of the room is beautiful, all gold and glass and plush stools, but it’s also dominating and it leaves the dining room feeling cramped. Diners are squeezed in closely and I almost knock over the wine glasses on our table when I sidle in, which I feel very stupid about – until the table next to us does exactly the same thing when they sit down. It does rather feel like eating a sit-down, three course dinner in a cocktail bar, rather than a dining room.

Rightly, the cocktails are great, with smart twists on classics, and genuinely interesting combinations: my banana Manhattan and my companion’s ‘salt // honey highball’ featuring honey, mezcal, bourbon and rosemary and black olive tonic are excellent. You can feel (and taste) that someone with a deft hand and a smart head has had real fun putting this list together.

The menu itself - written by Moffat with sous chef Georgie Hewitt - is reassuringly compact, with a handful of starters and mains, some snacks and sides. Within these, there are repeated refrains, microherbs totter in huge piles on both the starters we order, wild mushrooms are found on two of the main courses, raw fish in the snacks and the starters, and chicken fat appears in both the butter and as crisp skin on the Caesar (and relatedly, there is proper fried chicken as a starter). I don’t mind this: I want to feel the character of the chef, what he likes to cook and eat, and I want a meal to feel cohesive rather than a chaotic world tapas that leaves the diner unsatisfied.

That said, the short list of main courses boasts two steaks (one ex-dairy bone-in to share, and one more modestly-priced hanger steak) and a burger. I like all of these things, but I suspect a non-meat eater – or even just someone who doesn’t like steak – may feel a little hemmed in by 50% of the main courses involving beef.

Alongside our Pollen sourdough (surely obligatory in a Manchester restaurant now?) and excellent whipped chicken fat butter, we have the tuna hashbrowns; squares of crisp potato, topped with cubes of tuna dressed in something creamy and herby and delicious, sandwiching a brilliantly balanced fermented chilli sauce. Salty and crunchy and soft, hot and cold, mellow and humming with spice, and a perfect two bite snack, it may be the platonic way to start a meal.

I find it hard not to order fried chicken if it’s on the menu, and this one doesn’t disappoint: tender thighs, well-dredged, and fried to crunchy fragments, sitting on a parmesan cream that demands to be swiped, first by the chicken, then by fingers. Tiny, electric sharp alliums zip through the rich sauce, and even my cheese-hating companion loves it.

Does it need the enormous mound of microleaves on top? Probably not. I feel a bit like an intrepid explorer swiping my way through the undergrowth to find my prize. The trout, sliced into thick coral-orange batons, is cool and wibbly; the plum relish a fine match. It’s not ground-breaking, avant-garde gastronomy, it’s just good ingredients treated properly, with judicious sauces or relishes. Cooking, in short, as it should be.

The kohlrabi, which we really order as a sop to health, is the sleeper hit. My God it’s good: the kohlrabi has been cooked like a fondant, and is rich and butter-soft and deeply savoury, folding under the edge of the fork. The hen of the woods mushroom that comes with it is crisp and meaty, and the demi-glace is textbook; you could see your reflection in it.

The hanger steak is served with wild mushrooms and bold handfuls of tangles of wilted tarragon which tie the mushrooms and steak together; the flavours spar with one another, but in a collegiate way, and the steak itself remains the star, basking in its jus. It’s probably slightly chewier than ideal (and if Maya is going to serve so much steak, it needs sharper knives).

In small kitchens there’s always the risk that the chef has neither interest nor skill in the pastry section. Absolutely not so here: the puddings are a triumph. The custard tart is buttercup yellow, set with just a breath of wobble, and encased in good, well-made pastry. A shower of tiny pieces of crystallised orange on top of the accompanying crème fraîche is both simple and incredibly delicious, the perfect counterpoint to the rich custard (I’m stealing the idea for my Christmas trifle).

The chocolate crèmeux – an achingly on-trend dish that is like a very smooth chocolate mousse, and usually overfaces even I, the greediest of diners, after the first two mouthfuls – is fantastic. It can be one-note in both texture and flavour, and too rich, too thick, too cloying. But here, the generous slug of olive oil, a dash of flakey salt, a corkscrew of caramel and a tumble of bittersweet crumbs all help to balance the giant quenelle of chocolate. But the crèmeux itself is light and more-ish, too, made by someone who really understands how to put a pudding together.

With Moffatt at the helm the food is, unsurprisingly, great. It’s thoughtful without being clever-clever. Over and over again, the small details lift the dishes from simulacrums of what you’d find at any modern British restaurant that harps on about seasonality to something special and memorable. 

The repetition of ingredients perhaps feels a little safe, but it’s still early days for the new regime. However the food feels at odds with the admittedly gorgeous location. It’s a place for assignations and intimacies, not a well-made cheeseburger. These dishes should be the star of the show, but it’s hard to see past the bar-like setting, principally because it’s lit like a cocktail bar and I can’t see a bloody thing.

Maya, 40 Chorlton Street, M1 3HW