My godmother was staying here with her husband, as a result, I was lucky enough to spend some time in the bar and restaurant. The bar has a spectacular view of the town hall and over the roofs of Manchester, they are well stocked with good wine and all the necessities of a good bar. I can imagine the bar would be a great venue for a party or something.
I had an evening meal in there on site restaurant too which was good, although I think they are trying a bit too hard still (being newly opened) to appeal to as wide a taste pallet as possible. If they only tried to be good at one thing (or at least a combination of English and French food) rather than adding Thai broths and such to the menu. Many places suffer from making menu’s over complicated when really if you are good enough you will become known for it, to be fair the cooks here are very accomplished so they should not struggle really.
I started with the ham hock rillettes with poached quail egg and asparagus which were really excellent and not too salty which is an accomplishment in itself. For main I had the ribeye steak with bone marrow butter, chips and bearnaise sauce, the steak was great although the chips were a bit of a disappointment, I would say this is because the chips were too big so were soggy instead of crispy, either that or they needed a second fry to remedy this fault. For pudding I had sorbet, although there was a misunderstanding when ordering so instead of getting a scope of the mango and a scope of the raspberry two separate dishes arrived, however the star of the two was the mango.
The staff were lovely although they could have done with an extra person around, I do wish they knew a little more about the menu, like where the beef came from rather than the supplier name, always seems a shame not knowing how local the meat is however good it is.
The place was not busy, but this will come I think if more people learn how good the food is, and I suspect this will happen given the time. The venue could have done with being a tiny bit brighter, I am impressed with it, but I think the few things I spotted that were not quite right mean four stars instead of five.
King Street Tavern, 10 Booth Street, Manchester M2 4AW