THIS visit was Jack Spratt's loss.
The edgy little place on John Dalton Street was supposed to be the destination but shouted me out. The place was full on a Thursday lunchtime but I wanted a chat with a friend and the music was way too loud.
I turned on my heel and looked across the road.
Vertigo was in plain sight and also had an attractive menu for an attractive sum of money on display. True they didn't have burgers, the object of the Jack Spratt visit for our Best of Manchester Burgers article, but at ten quid for two courses it wooed me.
The Vertigo Lunch Menu
Vertigo was formerly Ithaca restaurant, a singular exercise in preposterous vanity from 2008, that somehow began life providing some of the best food in the North West until the chef cracked and ran.
Vertigo is a much more solid operation, although there are echoes of its Hollyoaks starlet days.
The Ithaca wallpaper remains. This looks and feels like shiny silver pebbledash while the aggressive lampshades - to continue the Ithaca Greek mythology theme - hang over heads like little swords of Damocles about to plunge. Other fixtures and fittings echo those heady days of wine and coke (Coca-Cola of course, what else?).
Vertigo outside, frightening lamp fittings inside
From the lunch menu we had the salmon and 'heritage' tomato starters followed by the steak frite and the pork main. If the steak had been properly medium rare as requested there would have literally nothing to put a downer on proceedings.
A heritage tomato is a tomato grown exclusively within the walls of ruined castles, taverns, bordellos and monasteries. It only ever talks in latin.
I'm lying. They're nothing of the above, instead they are an 'open-pollinated (non-hybrid) heritage cultivar of tomato'. In otherwords they can be lots of different colours other than red and they're less sweet.
I loved my heritage dish, the tomatoes were stubborn but delicious, offering succulent juice boosted by a combination of breaded and fried mozarella and basil. The picture of this simple glory lies above at the top of the page and below. I crave those tommies now. The snap of teeth through the skin, the burst of flavour.
Tomatoes of many colours
The salmon was prepared as well, and perfectly decent with good sauce for moisture and watercress adding bite and definition. My dining partner snaffled this and the steak frites to follow. As noted above the steak frites failed in terms of being cooked as requested but was fine enough given the price, the frites impressed with correct crispiness. The 'sun-blushed tomato butter' would be better separated from the meat rather than draped over it.
Salmon
I adored my old spot pork chops with crushed potato and gooseberries. The latter word throws me back to being a small kid in the garden and finding these tempting but bitter berries hanging out under a hawthorn hedge. Love them used as a sauce especially with pork. That's a marriage made in heaven. The crushed potato was a little on the unyeilding side but since I was lost in delight with the pork and gooseberries that didn't really register.
Pork and gooseberry
That this clever little meal cost us just £20 was a bonus. Shame we didn't have time to dally for a pudd. The options include blueberry streusel, raspberry mousse and a cheeseboard. The three course menu is £14.
A cheeky class of Torrontes from Argentina, the Piuquenes, at £6.75 for a large glass didn't go amiss on our visit. Service was good throughout.
It's curious to name a restaurant after a phobia, maybe the owners are Alfred Hitchcock fans? But the fine lunch certainly encouraged a repeat visit in the evening for the full a la carte.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield
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Vertigo, 36 John Dalton Street, City, M2 6LE. .
Rating: 13/20
Food: 7/10
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 2.5/5
Steak frite
Part of the wine list
