I'LL come clean. I'm refusing to make any puns pertaining to any aspect of the laundry business in this review.
The afternoon was rounded off with a non-traditional knickerbocker glory for a fiver. Loved this dearly, rammed as it was with a double Cheshire Farm ice cream, strawberries, and set off with a subtle bit of honeycomb.
I wash my hands of those cheap tricks. I want to iron them out of writing. So I'm going to have cut my cloth accordingly, otherwise I'll be hung out to dry, take a tumble, get myself in a spin. Be rinsed.
So let me reiterate I'm definitely not going to be making any puns, going to keep my powder dry.
Through the concertina windows
The three week old Laundrette in Chorlton-cum-Hardy sits at the corner of Beech Road and Wilton Street. As its name reveals it was formerly a real Laundrette called The Soap Opera - honestly people will sell their soul for a cheap gag.
The chaps running the latest addition to the suburb's permanently growing food and drink offer are the same as those running Chorlton Green Brasserie down the road.
Their new venue looks perfect on a sunny day and handsome on others. The outdoor terrace is a delight, a big, solid affair that you imagine wouldn't look out of place against a beach-facing, rather than a Beech Road-facing, bar-restaurant in Cornwall or the south of France. There's a couple of issues with the finish but otherwise it's grand.
Inside, The Laundrette is equally pleasing to the eye, a big banquette to one side, a fine bar down one end, and seemingly enough room to swing a cat, or at least a rat. This is unusual with Beech Road venues which on busy evenings are perfect places for frottage freaks to engage in their pleasures. Like rush-hour trams.
The menu is a bit odd though.
There's lots of good stuff with starters, salads and puddings, but there are only three mains if you can call them that, and then loads of pizzas. So is The Laundrette a pizzeria?
Not much in the way of mains
Well it doesn't feel like one, so I reckon it should drop five of the pizzas and replace them with five real mains because Chorlton doesn't need any more pizza places. Nowhere does aside from blighted UK inner-city suburbs where any investment would be good.
I've been boring people about my holiday in Naples for a couple of weeks now. In guidebooks when they say a particular food is a regional speciality, you often find it used to be a regional speciality but now it's only found in 'tourist' restaurants and heritage centres. In Chamonix a couple of years ago it was hard to find tartiflette for example. But in Naples pizzas really are a way of life and usually light and clever and beautifully cooked.
I'm not sure what the local speciality of Chorlton is - suggestions anyone? - but the pizzas in Naples have ruined me for British ones so at The Laundrette I opted out.
The full menu
Instead I went for several Italian-inspired starters and fries on the side.
The ribs (£6.50 - main picture at the top of the page) were superb, fibrous and soft as they broke off the bone and enhanced by a fine ginger and lemon marinade, that tasted almost treacly, molasses heavy.
The beef carpaccio (£8) was not quite as good - slice that carpaccio thinner Laundrette - but was still great fodder. A couple of capers wrapped in the flesh, with a goodly moistening of the garlic and parsley oil, helped. As did a squeeze of lemon from the one provided for the calamari (£6). The latter were tightly folded but nothing special with a decent enough chilli mayo.
Pin-sharp carpaccio
A burrata mozzarella (£7) with voguish 'heritage' tomatoes and the merest hint of pesto rounded my selection of starters/tapas off. The burrata was enjoyable although not quite as moist in the middle as it could have been. Salvis in the Corn Exchange and Cicchetti in House of Fraser (Kendals) both provide better. A side of fries were mistimed and a little charred at the points.
Sunny weather food
There's an impressive list of ten reds and whites on the drinks list plus lots of bubblies. I had beer including a cracking bottled Titanic ale from Staffordshire for a steepish £4.50 called Nine Tenths Below. It knocked spots off one of the blandest beers I ever had for ages, a Mexican Modelo (£4) complete with a lime in the neck, yawn. The lime came in handy for adding to the food though.
See we do have a local and British speciality as good as pizzas - ale.
A massive bottle of Modelo and two small bookend women
The afternoon was rounded off with a non-traditional knickerbocker glory for a fiver. I loved this dearly, rammed as it was with a double Cheshire Farm ice cream, strawberries, and set off with a subtle bit of honeycomb. The description on the menu said it contained brownie rather than strawberries which had worried me as I'm not a fan, so the fruit was welcome. We should have been told though.
Knickerbocker Glory
I like The Laundrette, especially the ambience of the place. It's a handsome addition to Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Looks great. Food's decent. Service is enthusiastic, if scatty.
The place even manages to be a bit cheeky for the right-on suburb.
Its booklet cocktail list features five sexy nymphs in lingerie in the laundry and a fully-clothed young man who seems to have been wandering past and was asked if he'd mind having his photo taken to balance things up a bit.
The cocktail booklet - the staff are not dressed like this
That aside I feel the lack of three or four more mains is a missed opportunity. The starters were perhaps a pound over-priced as well.
Next time I'll have a go at the pizzas, maybe they'll be the best outside Campania - the cod cheeks and smoked salmon, flakes and wakame (£10) sounds intriguing.
But it should be remembered that even inside Naples pizzas are a limited food, a street food, and never one for a special occasion. In Britain we've somehow elevated them to the focus of a night out. How did that happen?
The Laundrette shows the type of mid-range food it can do with the starters. More of that sort of thing please.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
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The Laundrette, Beech Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy. M21 9EL. 0161 881 5777
Rating: 13.5/20 (remember venues are rated against the best examples of their type - see yellow box below)
Food: 6.5/10 (calamari 6, carpaccio 7, burrata 7, ribs 7.5, fries 5, knickerbocker glory 7.5)
Service: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5
The cleaning bill
Corner spot cleans up
Calamari and mayo
Good outdoor seating
A proper ale
The winelist
