PEOPLE really do like a list, and when it comes to restaurants they make a pretty handy reference point of decent places to eat when visiting a new city, but can seem a little bizarre when covering your home turf. Who decides these things? Is it the opinion of one or more random judges scouring the UK with limited time and an even more limited budget, or has it been decided via public vote from the likes of Jonny Troll and his sense of entitlement?
If there’s a more random collection of restaurants on one list, we’ve never seen it
Two hospitality organisations, Harden’s and Open Table, have just released new top restaurant lists and we’re struggling to make sense of them.
Harden's, ‘the UK's most comprehensive restaurant guide available in bookshops’, published their 2017 list of Best UK Restaurants today and 52 Manchester restaurants have made the latest edition. The guide is based on a detailed survey of regular restaurant-goers whose nominations form the basis for the inclusions and ratings. Harden's 26th poll of diners, surveyed 7,500 participants who contributed 50,000 reviews.
Manchester's total number of entries was the highest outside of London, and included five restaurants on the guide's list of UK Top Scorers. The guide has divided these into two categories: above £60, with Manchester House (pictured top) and Hawksmoor, and below £60, there's Yuzu, Akbar’s, This & That.
If there’s a more random collection of restaurants on one list, we’ve never seen it.
Other Manchester restaurants judged as performing very well in the below £60 category (achieving a score of 4/5) include: Yang Sing, Wing's, Lime Tree, El Gato Negro, Rose Garden, Glamorous, Red Chilli, Tai Pan, Siam Smiles and Rudy's Pizza.
Glamorous? Really? It isn't even the best restaurant on Oldham Road.
Glamorous: one of the best restaurants in the UK?Meanwhile, OpenTable, the online restaurant-reservation service company, have also published their top 100 for this year, which they determined by analysing more than 465,000 reviews of more than 5,600 restaurants across the UK – each having been submitted by verified diners.
Once again it’s like someone’s closed their eyes and stuck a pin in a map of Greater Manchester.
Only six of the best made this list including: Albert’s Shed, El Gato Negro, Evelyn’s, Hawksmoor, Tattu and The Cherry Tree in Blackrod near Bolton.
The Cherry Tree? New one to us that, but if Albert's Shed is one of the Top 100 restaurants in the country then Gordo has a 30" waist.
Now, while we're on poxy lists, how about Manchester's top 23 city centre doorways?
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