ADAM REID AT THE FRENCH
by Carl Housbey
Those of you with more than a passing interest in food will no doubt
have noticed that the 2020 Michelin Guide launched on Monday 7th
October. I felt certain that this would be the year that a Manchester
restaurant would be awarded a Michelin star for the first time in over
40 years and thought that both Mana, and Adam Reid at The French
would be the ones to do it. I was so convinced of this that I made sure
my dinner reservation at The French was a few days after the awards
ceremony to allow Adam time to recover from the celebrations.
In the end it was only Mana that received a star this time around,
perhaps Michelin thought that Adam already had enough awards with
his wins on BBC Two’s Great British Menu in 2016 and 2019, as well as
achieving 4 Rosettes in the 2019 and 2020 AA guides, one of only thirty
six restaurants outside of London to do so. Either way you should be
in no doubt that the food cooked by Adam and his team is absolutely
superb.
Currently the restaurant offers a choice of three menus, Initials which is
a four course tasting, Signature which is a six course tasting, and GBM
2019 which as the name suggests consists of the four courses that Adam
created for the TV programme. As you can imagine the GBM menu is
very popular at the moment, but it will only be available for a limited
time, so I decided to choose the Signature menu to give you an idea of
the sort of dishes that you can expect to find on a regular basis.
To break you in gently, dinner begins with a number of small snacks
which on my visit were a flavour packed hot vegetable broth followed by
a cod roe dip topped with olive oil and paprika that gave it a lovely hint
of smokiness, this was served with some crackers and pickles that I took
great delight in dunking into the creamy cod roe before wolfing them
down. In addition to this was a plate of “Cold cuts & Tracklements”
thickly cut ham, cheese, and a small fillet of salmon that had been hot
smoked on the barbecue, and sides of whole grain mustard, chutney,
and pickled onions. These were all delicious and if ever some future
episode of GBM was themed around a packed lunch or picnic these
50 wirrallife.com
would win hands down, especially with the malted sour dough bread
and beef butter.
Our first actual course was a sublime combination of creamy raw
Orkney scallop with a slight piquancy provided by dill pickle, peppers &
cucumber, which was matched perfectly by a glass of Dobogo Furmint
2016. Next came a wonderful Tater ‘ash of aged Cumbrian sirloin with
mushroom catsup, the soft tender raw beef contrasting with the crunch
of the finely diced vegetables, all well matched by the red fruit and slight
earthy note from the tannins in the accompanying glass of Minimus
2016 Dijon free Pinot Noir.
The fish course was a fantastically firm fleshed Cornish cod that had
been lightly grilled and served with elderflower hollandaise & fried
beans that I decided were a healthy guilt free alternative to chips and
with a glass of Domaine Ostertag Muenchberg Riesling it’s almost like
two of your five a day. I was delighted that my next course was a mouth-
wateringly tender haunch and loin of Cumbrian red deer with pickled
pear, bacon & mushrooms, as I am a big fan of venison and don’t think
we see it often enough on restaurant menus.
Mrs Gastro Grazer loves cheese so the toasted St James with Armagnac
prunes, walnut & honey scored loads of points with her, especially as it
was served with a glass of Rivesaltes Ambre which is another favourite
and meant that I wasn’t going to get the chance to sneak any off her plate
whilst she wasn’t looking. However, I did get to finish off the dessert of
baked apple cake with crisp pastry & cold custard as despite it being
utterly delicious, she was getting rather full and only had enough room
left for an extremely fine Espresso Martini to finish off.
In summary the food, wine, and service were all outstanding so I don’t
hesitate in recommending that you book a table straight away by clicking
on www.the-french.co.uk or calling 0161 235 4780.
To see what else I get up to, why not follow me on Twitter @carlhousbey