Another food review, you say? Well, heck yes! I really love food, so I’m getting into these, and when I was invited along to try the latest restaurant opened in Manchester City Centre, I just had to pop along. Say hello to one of the newest additions to Manchester’s bar and restaurant scene: Urban Cookhouse*.

Located on Princess Street, it’s just at the bottom of Canal Street, so pretty central and the perfect location for popping in for a pre-night out meal. So, let’s see what I thought…

Urban Cookhouse has it’s own bar area as well as restaurant, and serves all your standard alcohol as well as it’s own house cocktails. I didn’t want to be a basic bitch (duh) so sampled a few of their own creations whilst I was there. The first I tried was Urban Sunrise, a refreshing citrus cocktail with lots of lemon in – I loved it. The second was a Cherry Sour, which tasted like, you guessed it, Cherry Sour! My plus 1 had Merlot and said the red wine of choice was also lovely. PS we didn’t drink them all at once.

To start, I chose the Halloumi Stack (£6.25), which had 3 or 4 pieces of halloumi integrated with raw tomato. I LOVE halloumi so I was all about this starter, although personally I don’t like uncooked tomato so just kinda left this bit. The portion was just enough for a starter.

My plus one went for the Crispy Cod Cheeks (pictured directly above). Can I just say that this has nothing to do with the food at all, but the name of this started literally turns my stomach: crispy cod CHEEKS. WHY be so specific? As a vegetarian it makes me feel sick. But, I am sure that’s just me and doesn’t reflect the food at all. In fact, my plus 1 tells me these cod (I want to say nuggets?) were absolutely delicious. This came with three cod cheeks/nuggets on a bed of strips of peppers and cucumber and was a nice size. However, at £7.50 for a starter, I do think this is pretty pricey.

Next up, main courses! As the restaurant claims to take inspiration from the New York dining scene, that in itself means that the food kinda doesn’t have a theme? There’s inspiration on the menu from American food, British food, Asian food, etc – a whole range which I actually really like! You can kinda choose what you fancy.

As a vegetarian, there were a couple of choices for me and I went for the Tandoori Paneer. I’ve had paneer many times in a curry so expected the dish to come like this, but instead the paneer came almost like halloumi slices grilled at the side of the dish, with a tin container of sag aloo curry next to it. The menu claims this comes with mini samosas and mango chutney, too, but I wasn’t served any of this.

The curry itself was really nice and had a lot of vegetables and potato in, but I think it could have been a lot spicier! Maybe I just have a chilli mouth, but I love a good curry and feel like this was pretty mild. The paneer was nice and was really different to have it as a side to the curry, which I enjoyed, and the portion size was absolutely perfect for me.

My plus 1 went for the New York Strip Steak for his main. We asked what this came with before it arrived and as it only included bread (we assumed like a quirky sandwich), we also ordered a side of chips. These chips were chunky and were really nice – I like a good chunky chip and they lived up to expectations.

The steak we assumed would come like a sandwich, definitely did. But it was like a FULL ON steak sandwich. Not like, chunky farmers market bread at the side, with a fried egg on top, but it’s literally a steak put on normal sandwich bread with an egg inbetween. And yeah, I KNOW this is meant to be quirky. I get it. I really do, but I also don’t get it? I don’t know, maybe it’s TOO quirky for me, and heck I didn’t eat it so I can’t comment, but if I had paid £12.50 for a steak put on Warbuton’s medium sliced white bread I can imagine I might be slightly disappointed…

However, to be fair my plus 1 did say the steak itself tasted really nice – and he didn’t leave one bit! – so it must have been good.

And now you see me in my natural habitat: tucking into a delicious dessert! I decided to finish off the meal with Chocolate Tort, and what a good choice it was. I LOVE a good warm chocolate pudding with icecream and this did not disappoint. The Torte tasted homemade and had a really unusual consistancy, and the icecream and red pepper taffy complimented it really well. I wish I could have finished it all. Heck, I gave it a good old go.

My plus 1 was a little more fussy and due to nut allergies couldn’t have the same, however, Urban Cookhouse were really good about it and whipped up a place of Vanilla Bean icecream all the same. I think this was really good of them to do – they could have just said there was nothing on the menu suitable, but instead they went out of their way to find something my guest could have and even made it look pretty too!

Over all, I really enjoyed my visit to Urban Cookhouse. The staff were great – so welcoming from the get-go and really friendly. Nothing seemed like too much trouble. The location is central and easy to find, and the decor is right up my street. The drinks were INCREDIBLE and I would 100% return to the bar for cocktails. But would I return for the food? Honestly, I think the full price is a little expensive for what it is. But I would totally encourage you to try it for yourself to see what you think. And considering Urban Cookhouse were kind enough to treat me to my visit and I didn’t have to worry about that, I had a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday evening – thank you Urban Cookhouse!