With the pedestrian end of King Street’s retail prospects rising and falling over the years despite its heavy footfall, and Manchester’s restaurant offering growing seemingly week on week it was only a matter of time before the 2 things met.
Enter Suri, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant, the name is taken from the Persian word meaning Red Rose and the team at Suri aim to bring that delicate aesthetic to the whole dining experience. We headed down for dinner to see if they’ve achieved their goal.
The first thing to note is the exceptional finish in SurI, everything feels considered, every detail works and the overall effect is really quite inviting. First stop the bar and after some gentle persuasion the barman serves us his recommended Spaniard Saffron gin, produced in a traditional still pot, the gin is made to a colonial Indian recipe that contains nine fresh botanicals with notes of juniper and orange. We browse the menu and Suri Rose Olives are a must with some Persian spiced bread & oil. Suri is living up to it’s namesake.
Interestingly the menu is arranges as Graze, Field, Farm and Waves, a really nice way to present food and I’m a big fan of a simple menu, less dishes, more consideration, I’m already excited at this point.
Our server gives us the lay of the land and we opt as usual to go with their flow, Bedouin charcuterie is out first, pickles, vegetables & cheese. A selection of sliced, cured meats, caperberries, Suri rose olives grilled mediterranean vegetables & crumbled wensleydale really good as a sharing starter with the enthusiastically recommended Manchego filo, truffled honey, baked cheese parcels drizzled with white truffle oil & blossom honey and we could see why they came so highly praised.
Ox cheek with cumin & pedro ximenez is our first main dish out, low ‘n’ slow cumin & sherry braised, pulled over crushed potatoes, with flash pickled red onion & citrus yoghurt followed swiftly by the Lebanese lamb, roasted garlic tzatziki & pomegranate both great dishes, full of flavour. We then received the 35 day aged steak with harissa hollandaise which was cooked to perfection and frankly a very indulgent extra dish but seriously tasty and we weren’t complaining.
In the interests of being thorough we started on the Waves section of the menu we opted for the Whole Fish a seasonal fish dish cooked on the bone over charcoal, with steamed shellfish & fennel and the Blackened hake, fattoush & crab.
At this point and a really good bottle of red in you’d think surely dessert is the last thing one would want to attempt, that is until you read Cardamom vanilla cream, rhubarb, rose & ginger: Infused panna cotta, rose scented compote & ground gingernuts and really it’d be rude not to.
In summary my foodie colleague and I were treated to a seriously good array of dishes at Suri, a really well considered venue and top rate service. I happened to see a couple of people I knew also dining and a quick catch up on their experience that evening mirrored our views exactly. So what are you waiting for?
