Wirral Life November 2019 | Page 50

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