IT'S beginning to sound like sloth, the fourth of the seven deadly sins.
Last week I reviewed Neighbourhood which I can glimpse two hundred metres away from my office. This week I'm writing about the Lawn Club which is a suicide leap from my window.
Sloth: Neighbourhood in the distance between the office buildings and the Lawn Club below
I'd like to say pressure of work is forcing me closer and closer to the office so I can maximise time and produce more finely crafted paradigms of the writer's art.
But that'd be a fib.
The reason I've not strayed far is because I want to sing a song of praise and joy for the food Dave Gale has designed at The Lawn Club.
The pork pie with a boiled egg as loose and free as summer clothing was as tip top as anything previously sampled.
I can't recall a menu more perfectly attuned to summer as this one, but we've always known Gale's good at Confidential. His food at the Podium in the Hilton balanced a high level of technical fluency with creativity and strong flavours. This menu is no different. When he gets his own place in the city - the sooner the better - let's hope the skill levels translate.
The Lawn Club is a temporary structure that looks very permanent bordered by, as the name suggests, a well-manicured lawn. The building comes in threes, a dull indoor bar, a glass house with a retractable roof and big doors and finally, an open-to-the-air flower-bedecked third space.
It's got a wicker wrap and some ivy on the outside which is struggling but putting up a fight. The views are extravagantly summery.
Summery view including man wearing a big blue umbrella
The food makes the place special. It isn't cheap and comes in small plate proportions, so Yorkshiremen beware, yet one bite of the £6.50 poached salt cod with garlic mayonnaise is enough to let you know The Lawn Club is sorted for grub. There's a gentle elegance about the fish, enhanced by the carefully selected leaves and the jolly tomato. The fact it's a cold dish should in no way put you off.
The potted brown shrimp and crab with melba toast (£8.50) is even more refined, although piled on its log plate it looks thrown together. The fibres, zestiness, sea ozone of this is a marvel and scooped with the rich butter onto the toast works a treat.
Shrimp and crab
I didn't try the steak sandwich but apparently as an ensemble it could have performed without embarrassment at the grand concert halls of Europe.
The pork pie, with a boiled egg as loose and free as summer clothing, was as tip top as anything previously sampled. The bread was superb from Bakerie in the Northern Quarter, so too was the thick roast ham.
At £10.50 the dish was high on price again (not sure why it couldn't be £8.50 max, surely the ingredients in the fish dishes were more expensive?) but it was lovely. The pie came from that insanely magnificent butcher with its own flock of sheep and cattle herds, Mettricks in Glossop.
Pies and butter and eggs - glorious
I could go on, only the mackerel dish wasn't as 'just so' as the other food.
In any threesome there's usually one too many. Starter, main, pudds. Usually the pudd might be duff, especially for a savoury fanatic such as me, or the starters are too finicky, or the mains too clumsy. Here all courses work.
The heart of the trifleThe Manchester mess was a proper mess, in the correct disconstructed meringue way, while the sherry trifle was on the second visit eligible for the Margaret Thomson Memorial Award (my long gone grandmother, a quiet woman scared of everything except making trifles, sweets, cakes and peace).
Nuts and chocolate topped a cream like compacted snow, over proper cold custard and a sherry rich sponge to deliver a memorable and very British 'afters'.
I started this finely crafted paradigm of the writer's art mentioning sloth.
Given the drinks list, see the sample in the picture below, together with this food, The Lawn Club is a fine place to cultivate that fourth deadly sin this summer. Slack away the hours, snaffle some egg, a little crab, cold salty cod maybe.
Some of the drinks available
ALL OUR SCORED FOOD REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL. REVIEW VISITS ARE UNANNOUNCED AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ANY COMMERICAL RELATIONSHIP.
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Rating: 16.5/20
Food: 8.5/10 (salted cod 9, steak sandwich 8, mackerel 7.5, poached shrimp and crab 9, pie 8.5, trifle 9, Manchester mess 8)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5 (depending on the weather)
Wicker and vertical grass
The least interesting mackerel
The Lawn Club
A properly fine mess
The menu
