La Pizzeria Ristorante - Northern Quarter

Last Thursday, I attended an event like no other I'd ever been to.

My prior knowledge was limited. What I did know was the following. It was a restaurant opening. It was a pop-up. It was in the Northern Quarter, on High Street, in the space above The Market Restaurant, most recently occupied by the Kahlua Coffee House. There would be free drinks and free pizza.

Great, I thought. Who doesn't like free drinks and free pizza?

Once I ascended the steps to the pleasant leafy interior, I was offered a glass of prosecco and informed that the pizzas would be coming round shortly. The guests and I were also told, with a wry smile by our hosts, that there was a twist. We raised a polite eyebrow, trying to dredge up the requisite amount of curiosity, wondering what it could possibly be.

Turns out I didn't have to wait long. I accidentally happened upon a menu and a press release which had been carelessly left on the bar, spilling its secrets to all sundry. Oops. I now knew the grand surprise.

I was surprised, alright.

Armed with this new, terrible knowledge, I made my way back over to my friend and partner in pizza crime, but I couldn't bring myself to divulge the secret.

"So what do you think?" I asked, my face impassive.

She took a bite, tearing into a too-even square topped with pepperoni and salami.

"Yeah. It's ok. Kind of tastes like a supermarket pizza? Dunno, something about the base. It's very uniform."

I nearly spat out my prosecco. "Oh right!" I said, as my stifled snort swiftly turned into a choking cough.

I hadn't even said anything but the Great Mystery was already disintegrating. I looked around. I could see it in everyone's eyes. They were thinking the same thing.

And then, several more greasy pizza boards later, it was formally announced. La Ristorante Pizzeria is brought to you by ... Dr Oetker!

I chewed on another slice, agog. Spinace, I think. It wasn't half bad, to be honest. It pleased my palate with its garlickiness. But now that this unholy truth was out, it only seemed to gain more WTF momentum.

Here we were, Manchester's media elite (well... ish :P), bundled into a room, being fed squares of oven pizza.

What.

If this is the new model for the Northern Quarter pop-up, then I dread to think what will pop up next. Perhaps the next logical iteration is a cocktail bar called, ooh I dunno, "The Bar", decked out in red and white, where the "cocktails" consist of some fizzy brown liquid poured into a martini glass and served with a swizzle stick, at a fiver a pop. But guess what! There's a twist. It's actually just Coke, served in a fancy glass! Isn't that just swell? Go buy some Coke! At the supermarket! Where it's much cheaper!

Um.

La Ristorante's predecessor, Kahlua Coffee House, succeeded because it trod the delicate tightrope between old-fashioned, out-there brand peddling and doing something a little different. Its cocktails were both good value and high quality (best espresso martinis I've had in a while), with many concoctions on the menu unique, and the food similar.

Meanwhile the cocktail masterclasses, led by local booze experts/legends The Liquorists, and weekly movie nights (showcasing a good mixture of indie, arthouse and comedy with films like The Big Lebowski, Frida and Nacho Libre) not only lent an air of credibility to the bar as an events space, but also seemed to gel well with the laidback yet discerning NQ vibe. In short, it fit in, and it added value.

I don't know how the NQ crowd are going to react to this latest pop-up but I imagine the majority of responses will range from hilarity, to apathy, right through to ill-concealed disdain. I have this image of Largarita-fuelled punters flinging burrito javelins through the window across the road over at Luck Lust Liquor and Burn.

But what am I saying, that's madness and, quite frankly, a waste of a perfectly good burrito - which, incidentally, usually consists of under a tenner's worth of massive, dirty, oozing deliciousness I would struggle to replicate at home.

And that's exactly what I'm finding so hard to get my head round here. They want to raise brand awareness, that's fine, I get that. But why would anyone pay, to go out to a restaurant, to have cheap frozen oven pizza served to them, when they know that (a) that's what it is and (b) there's a Tesco's down the road selling the exact same ones 3 for £6? Unless it's 2am and the "restaurant" is actually a van outside a club. It just. It just MAKES NO SENSE.

The irony is, I honestly quite liked Dr Oetker pizzas before this event. But now, I'm so incensed by the nonsensical and ludicrous nature of this half-baked PR pizza disaster that I'm in half a mind to visit my nearest Asda and tear down the frozen pizza aisle shouting "NO! Just no!" at the top of my voice, all the while pelting the nearest unsuspecting customer in the face with boxes of Ristorante.

Perhaps I'm being too unkind. The venue is still lovely, and no malice is meant towards the lovely staff who served us, who proved apt at keeping our disbelief at bay with each successive glass of free prosecco and wine until a jolly haze made everything seem at once whimsical and amusing.

But sorry, Dr Oetker. Wine or no wine, my conclusion remains the same: No. Just no.

Ode to Byron

From the outside, Byron looks, by all accounts, like somewhere or something I ought to hate. Painstakingly shabbified, it looks like it would be much more at home in Shoreditch than Angel, and cuts a slightly incongruous figure amidst the chains, boutique shops and cosmopolitan eateries of Angel's Upper Street. It also wasn't immediately obvious to me what it was... a new contemporary art gallery, perhaps? An opium den? Somewhere where all the cool cats congregate, dressed in, God I dunno, pyjamas and bowler hats? (I'm so not down with the kids....)

But no! Byron is, in fact, a restaurant dedicated to the art of hamburgery. It is also a chain, with ten restaurants around London, each with its own distinct flavour and decor. And I'm glad I overcame my initial prejudice because beneath the unvarnished, untreated veneer of pretentiousness is actually a bloody good restaurant, with lovely, friendly staff and possibly one of the best burgers in town.

My personal favourite (although, admittedly, it's the only one I've tried) is the Blue Cheese burger; the only word I can think of to describe it is: FIT. This, plus fries, plus Oreo milkshake (oh yes) = perfection. All the burgers at Byron are cooked medium unless specified otherwise. They come pink in the middle but not bleeding, juicy, and enveloped in a soft, white bun; a warning though, if you attack it with as much gusto as I usually do you may end up with an unattractive flour beard. Not a good look. I don't particularly care for the odd and rather sad looking gherkin garnish, but that's inconsequential. Best thing of all, it's possible to eat here for under a tenner. I've yet to try the desserts, but only because everytime I've been in I've been too full/satiated, but I bet they're delicious. Byron, I salute you!

mmmm

shabby chic

supperclub: near miss or missed opportunity?

Yesterday, the sun did something funny to my brain. After so many months of wet, grey, dreary weather, the sudden appearance of sunshine, warm and golden, was like being hit by a big (squishy) bat of hope and optimism. I was suddenly seized by the desire to do...something! One of my madcap ideas was to hop on a train and get out of the city for the day, to Bath, or Brighton, or somewhere (crazy, I know :P), but unfortunately I couldn't recruit someone to go with me at such sort notice.

Eventually, I settled on West London as my destination of choice, seduced by the idea of drinking Pimm's in a pub somewhere and wandering down Portobello Road, happy-snapping blossom trees and multi-coloured Georgian terraced houses.

However at the time I made this decision, it was lunchtime and I was hungry. So off to Toptable I went, looking for somewhere nice to go for lunch or dinner. Along my travels, I came across a very intriguing looking place called 'supperclub'. At this stage I should have realised something was potentially iffy - after all, any eating or drinking establishment which insists on putting its name in lowercase usually has something to hide. If it were a person it would probably be stroking its beard and peering ponderously at me over thick, oversized black frames muttering something about Sartre.

But maybe that's a bit unfair, so I'm going to let the blurb from Toptable do the talking:

Step inside Notting Hill’s supperclub and you will feel like Alice in Wonderland tumbling down the rabbit hole. All white inside, the supperclub is an extension of a worldwide brand of restaurant which was originally launched by a group of Amsterdam artists. Instead of being seated at tables, diners lounge around on oversized white mattresses while being fed kooky four-course meals by waiters in conceptual fancy dress that would put Lady Gaga to shame. Despite the overly avant garde approach – supperclub is actually a lot of fun and plays a great mix of electronica, camp disco and 80s tunes throughout the night. Fussy eaters beware – there is no menu to choose from – you simply eat what you are served.

Interesting eh? It sounds quite good on paper, but the phrases 'originally launched by a group of Amsterdam artists' and 'overly avant garde approach' rang more alarm balls in my head. Only a few weeks ago I suffered the crushing disappointment of a night out at Shunt, where I was served four courses of 'pretentious wank' with a side of 'attitude', and where 'tunes' were, sadly, strictly off the menu.

Anyway, the google reviews finally clinched it for me - an average rating of 3 stars out of 5, and the 3 most recent reviews all gave supperclub a measly, damning 1 star. Suddenly the prospect of spending £45 at a place described by Fluid Foundation as "not cool, chic or classy in any way what so ever" became very unappealing.

Here is the official website:
http://www.supperclub.com/

What do you reckon? Should I have gone? Should I maybe try it on a Wednesday or a Thursday when there's 40% off? I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who's been before.

Luckily, though, the day was not a waste. I did have Pimm's, and I did happy-snap a blossom tree! :)