SPINNINGFIELDS marches on towards complete food and drinkery.
Wahu are savvily trying to tap into an ever expanding (quite literally) gymhead crowd, ravenous for anything swimming in its own protein juice.
Let’s cut to the chase. The Avenue, for shopping at least, hasn't worked out. Instead of a destination, it's become a desert strip of luxury stores that most of us mere oiks have barely glanced at.
So there’s been a shift in focus.
Bosses have arrived at the realisation that all we’re really interested in now is gorging ourselves and getting loaded.
The Avenue
Soon The Avenue will be all food and drink. It’s inevitable. In fact, it's already under way.
Spanish restaurant Iberica are rumoured to be ploughing through into the empty All Saints store (We thought Alchemist had this one?), Thaikhun have knocked through into LK Bennett, while next door, Southern Eleven are moving into the former Brooks Brothers. Across the way Kurt Geiger has thrown in the towel, as has Ted Baker next to that, we hear they may have made way for Brazilian gaff Fazenda.
That's half of 'em bit the dust.
This isn’t necessarily a problem unless The Avenue becomes an out of hand ‘bar street’, over flowing with tattooed biceps and breasts like bronzed bowling balls poured into cellophane. But we’ll cross that bridge…
Wahu
The latest addition is Wahu, at the east end of The Avenue.
It’s an independent. We like that. The fact that the young owner and entrepreneur, Jamie Barr, chips in on the floor and dives behind the serving counter when things take a turn for the busy works to his advantage. Dirty hands indicate responsibility and a yearning for success. Good on him.
The location is a blinder, possibly the heaviest spot for footfall in all of Spinningfieldom with a hefty terrace for lots of summer lunchtime bottoms. The interior too is charming, like somebody has thrown a Dulux colour party in a greenhouse and combined that with a dangly light showroom. Odd those lights, but fun.
Wahu's point of difference is that it serves hustling 'healthy express food' and the opportunity to design your own meals, starting with a rice, pasta, salad or wrap base and moving on to the gubbings. The problem when you claim to serve 'express food' is that it needs to be fast. Wahu wasn't, on this occasion.
The counter
Ok, it's only been opened two weeks and certain creases need to be ironed out, and they will, given time, but a ten minute wait for pasta and chicken to be cooked because there's none ready deflects from the point of a jump-in-and-grab-it-joint (and at 3pm I didn't even have to suffer a queue). So I didn't pop-in. I sat down and waited for food to be delivered to a table. Express food?
The staff were perfectly polite about the situation, Mr Barr even brought the food over to the table himself and apologised for the delay citing 'stock issues' or 'Wednesday stock count' or something.
Anyway, the grub.
I opted for a lunchtime box, which at £5.95 before add-ons is probably standard these days. But 'double your 'protein' for £2 and you're at £7.95, add quinoa for 75p and you're at £8.70. Add a health drink for £2.99 and you suddenly find you've slipped into a £12 lunch. Will people spend that every day for a lunch in a box and a tidgy bottle of health plop? Couldn't prices be dropped a shade?
The grub
That said the tucker is nifty.
The pasta was fresh and bouncy, the chicken was buoyed by a perfect Caesar, the peppers were colourful, cold and crispy, the red onion though was a touch too red cabbage. Red onion should be crunchy like a Vinny Jones tackle and as potent as a wasabi paintball shot from a Panzer. The cheese was cheese. The cucumber, pineapple and spinach health drink at £2.99 tasted like all green health drinks do, like puréed cactus.
You can see what Wahu's getting at. The protein product market is booming, it's estimated that by 2017 the world will be scoffing £8bn a year of drinks and bars. Wahu want a slice of the protein pie, fuelling the gymhead crowd ravenous for anything swimming in its own protein juice, or polymers or amino acids or something.
So amongst the porridge and muesli (from £1.95) sits egg white omelettes and protein pancakes (from £3.95) for early gym'ers. For lunch gym'ers, fillings aren't fillings, but 'protein' (chicken, beef, lamb, salmon, halloumi) supplemented by extras.
Dinner though is more ambitious, the bases are cheered up by things like firecracker chicken, mediterranean lamb and a hectic sounding Tasmanian salmon.
I hope Wahu does well.
In fact, in weeks it's busier than many established operations in the area. But the devil lies in the detail, fast food, however good for you, still needs to be fast, also when 'healthy fast food' becomes unhealthy on the pocket, it could soon lose hype and appeal.
Let's hope not for Wahu.
Wahu
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
Wahu, Hardman Street, Spinningfields, M3 3HF. 0161 832 3022.
Food: 6.5/10 Touch pricey
Service: 2.5/5 Happy but needs to be swifter
Ambience: 4/5 Like the gaff
