Go to any city in the world and as a rule of thumb, restaurants that are near the market are pretty likely to be decent, simply by virtue of their proximity to all the good stuff.
Four Seasons is barely a swimming pool’s length from New Smithfield Market on Ashton Old Road. And it’s good.
Case closed on that one, then. “We don’t stock much,” says the place’s manager Ma, as he surveys the tanks of live seafood. “We come here every day.”
The truth is, they don’t need to stock much. Few restaurants in Manchester – if any, in fact – have the luxury of being able to stagger across the road into perhaps the best stocked larder in the city.
It also falls very firmly into the ‘hidden gem’ category too. You’re simply not stumbling upon this place on the main drag in Chinatown, and it’s not like Four Seasons is tucked in a neighbourhood full of thriving local eateries.
It’s more a case that if you know, you know.
With owners Simon and Wendy, this humble restaurant is producing some of the best Beijing-style hotpot there is, ingredients travelling direct from the market into the soup pot which bubbles away like a cauldron on your table, as gold-coloured extractors drag the steam up into the ceiling.
If barbecue is more your style, you can fire up the on-table grill with hot coals, fill a bowl full of condiments and curls of lamb, beef and pork, and get grilling.
Ma was a pharmacist in China, serving up traditional Chinese medicines for ailments of all kinds. The hotpots, wholesome and hearty as they are, almost certainly have comparable healing properties in the same way that kosher chicken soup is often dubbed ‘Jewish penicillin’.
This is good for what ails you. In fact, everything at Four Seasons is pretty uplifting, from the food on the table to the welcome at the door, not to mention the potential for karaoke, and maybe a nip of strong Chinese booze, for those after putting some hair on their chests.
It’ll give you the gumption you need to belt out Eye of the Tiger.
Gems don’t come much more hidden than this place.
Four Seasons, New Smithfield Market, Unit M8, Manchester M11 2WW
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