REVIEW: Jamie's Italian Manchester

When Jamie's Italian Manchester got in touch to ask if I'd like to visit their restaurant I jumped at the chance - I love me some Italian food and it's the perfect antidote to a grey January full of resolutions!

We visited on a dark, rainy Friday in Manchester - it's on a corner of King Street (just behind Market Street) and to be honest the signage is quite subtle so you could miss it!  The restaurant is situated in an old bank, and the way that it's all been fitted out pays homage to this - it looks fantastic, really well done, without feeling pretentious.  Our booking was at 7pm and when we arrived it seemed a bit quiet for a Friday night but we must be early birds because the whole place filled up within about half an hour.

 

Our waitress was really nice, very knowledgeable and attentive without being overbearing.  The menu surprised me - to be honest I was expecting your bog standard Italian restaurant type food but I should have known better, it was really varied and a far cry from spag bol, lasagne and pizza.

 

 

I ordered Crispy Squid to start, followed by Lobster Al Forno.  I really enjoyed both, the flavours were fantastic and everything was really well presented.  The squid was perfectly cooked, nice and soft, with plenty of flavour and a little chilli kick here and there.  The lobster was really luxurious - a half lobster cooked in  rich cheese sauce, the flavours worked well together and were set off perfectly by the spaghetti pomodoro in a light tomato sauce with a little kick.  It was nice and light while still being enough fro an evening meal.

My boyfriend randomly ordered pork scratchings from the nibbles menu - they weren't really my sort of thing and were definitely what they say they are, pork scratchings with a salsa type dip.  A bit of an odd choice but there you go!  He then ordered baked chestnut mushrooms followed by a steak dish from the special's menu which was huge!  He enjoyed the starter but the real winner for him was the main - steak was done perfectly, triple cooked chips were absolutely gorgeous and the onion puree, red cabbage and onion rings set it off well.

After that my boyfriend was too full for a dessert so I ordered a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and caramelised popcorn - so nice and all the components went well together (my favourite bit was probably the ice cream though, beautiful!). Despite being full my boyfriend ate half of it!

We had a lovely night, the staff were all really friendly and efficient, the food was great and the surroundings were fab! Including drinks our bill came to about £75 which considering we had lobster and steak isn't too bad at all, there's options on the menu to suit different budgets so don't worry if lobster's not your thing!

Visit the website for more information about Jamie's Italian Manchester (including menus and details of how to book!)