We can learn a few things about Times restaurant critic Giles Coren from his recent review of the Dakota Grill at the Dakota Manchester hotel.
Giles, knapsack on his back, bravely ventured north last week, eating at the restaurant with Countdown presenter Anne Robinson, who had summoned him to appear in Dictionary Corner, and who stays at the Dakota while filming in MediaCity.
But let’s just say Giles got a bit distracted by some other stuff along the way.
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Now then. We’re already abundantly aware of his feelings towards Manchester. It’s a place he once remarked was ‘truly one of the worst cities to eat in Europe’.
In his review, Giles gleefully parrots Ms. Robinson’s notion that ‘dinner in Manchester, by the way, requires a girl to have a spray tan, stick-on tattoos and stilettos’.
Sure, she said it. But the best thing is, he gets to repeat it while also thinking it too, all while hiding behind Ms. Robinson’s skirt. It’s a win-win.
“‘Where’s your dress from?’ Anne asks one of the girls who isn’t wearing one,” he writes, describing Robinson’s interaction with two women at the restaurant, because of course what women decide to wear when they go out is his business.
“Although the shadow of her immense eyelashes at least covers some of her chest,” he then oozes, while feeling the compulsion to note that once seated at his table he’s ‘looked after beautifully by Caitlin from Donegal'.
You know what? Maybe we haven’t learned all that much about him from this review after all. It’s nothing if not a lazy, drearily predictable picture painted of women in the north that we’ve all heard a thousand times before. Try harder.
However, we did learn that Manchester appears capable of serving him a decent meal, so well done everyone. Whether he deserves one is very much another matter.
He backhandedly complimented his dinner at Dakota, describing it as ‘unexpectedly great’ - cause for deep joy in the kitchen, no doubt - though it’s a handsome, well appointed room, and the service is excellent, so I wonder to myself why it was all so unexpected.
Oh yes, hang on. He’s in Manchester. He expected it to be sh*te. Of course.
But while we may never agree - not if we both live to be 1000 - on whether we should be passing judgement on what women are wearing, we are united when it comes to the menu at Dakota, because it is great.
Arriving on a Wednesday evening, the clientele appears very soberly dressed indeed, considering the fleshy, bacchanalian Tuesday night scenes described by Anne and my new brother-in-food-writing Giles.
Perhaps they didn’t get the memo about Anne’s ‘tatts and stilettos’ dress code. It’s busy for a midweek dinner service, and we’re seen to a comfy leather banquette in the centre of the restaurant.
I fail to ask for our server’s name, and leave with no idea where she’s from, but that’s fine too because it’s not really any of my business and it turns out that we can both be brilliantly polite and respectful to each other without it.
A small, warm loaf arrives, with a dish of sticky, very reduced tomato sauce and browned goats cheese floating in the middle, which is gone in no time at all.
We have the ‘Taste of Dakota’ menu, beginning with a faultless duck liver parfait and some warm brioche. There’s a granola type situation to the side of it, which is sweet but not overly so, with some pops of vinegar from pickled mushrooms.
Then comes a brilliant king scallop, seared outside and still barely translucent in the middle, served with a golden chunk of chicken wing, relieved of its bones.
The main event is the chateaubriand, served absolutely spot-on pink. It’s not my cut generally, the almost completely fat-free centre part of the fillet.
I’ll take a cheap and chewy hanger with some balls to it (not literally) or something, ideally, that’s dark purple-black with a strip of yellow fat any day of the week.
But this is excellent, with a crisp layer of seasoning all around it.
The french fries were abundant but too salty, something that I thought impossible, and though the lemon tart was sharp enough and lightly brûlée’d on top, the pastry beneath was soft and undercooked.
These are two minor issues, and I still hoofed down the fries, scraping up the last of the faultless bearnaise sauce with them.
The whole menu is a wildly reasonable £45 - you’d easily pay that for the steak alone in some, even most places. The wine that accompanies each course - and bumps the bill up to £80 - is all British, which is a pleasing angle.
Two are from the quirky Blackbook ‘urban winery’ in Battersea, South London, and another two from Simpsons Estate, which has vines in Kent. The Rabbit Hole pinot noir from the latter was the highlight.
So erect your spray tan tent, stick on those tattoos, sharpen your stilettos to a deadly point and totter your way to the Dakota. You wouldn’t want to disappoint Anne and Giles now, would you?
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