Bluu Monday (Bluu Restaurant & Bar (Manchester))

Member Name: flodombey

Product:	Bluu Restaurant & Bar (Manchester)
Date:	23/06/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great location, good food, friendly staff

Disadvantages: Confusion over wine prices

Bluu is a quirky and quite trendy restaurant and bar in Manchester city centre. I have been there a number of times, most recently as part of a large group on a hen night and have always been impressed with the food and the general ambience.

Located as it is in Smithfield Market Buildings, it is well situated for the main train stations of Picadilly and Victoria as well as the popular and lively Deansgate area. Marketing itself as a Bar and Brasserie the atmosphere is different during the day to how it is at night.

The ground level which you walk in at is seperated loosely into a bar area at the front and a more formalised eating area towards the back, on visiting as part of a large hen group (around 20 of us) they had totally segrated the back room section into one long table for us and this worked perfectly and ensured we had some privacy. We had pre-booked the table in advance and they held it for us with a £5 a head deposit which was then knocked off the bill at the end.

Full of swanky leather chairs and heavy duty wooden tables, this place feels every inch the upmarket wine bar. The toilets are located downstairs and this area is used as more like a nightclub section in the evenings. Not particularly disabled friendly because as well as the toilets being downstairs (and I have not seen a lift anywhere) there are some steps upstairs between different areas too.

The downstairs area, known as The Basement, plays host to regular DJ nights at weekends and local bands during the week, a schedule of events can be found on their website.

I have to say that the food here has always been excellent in my opinion. I like the fact that the menu has something to suit most tastes and budgets, some great sandwiches for around £5, my personal favourite is the caremlized steak baguette which seems a bargain for a fiver and they do also do nostalgic options like old fashioned chip butties (£3.50) and fish finger butties (£5).

For our hen group meal we all ate of the 'proper' restaurant menu, I ordered a corn fed chicken breast stuffed with chorizo and served on a bed of parmesan mash, this was £12.50 and thoroughly delicious. Everyone seemed impressed with their food and personally I was very impressed that given the size of the group they got everybodies mains out in around 5 minutes so we could all eat together.

The menu ranges from sandwiches, burgers and wraps to proper main courses with a good range of vegetarian options, starters are around £3-5 and mains range from £8-14. The desserts are about a fiver and there are a good number of sides for under a fiver to add to your meal. They do also offer a tapas menu in the evening (although I have never tried it) which is priced at £4 per dish or 3 for £11. Their website is well worth checking out for further details on the full and current menu.

The choice of drinks is extensive and they have a great range of cocktails available too. Beers, wines and spirits are all present and correct and in terms of price I would say that they are pretty standard, middle range wine bar, a glass of wine is around £4 and a pint around £3.

We did have a slight issue over the wine list and I would urge caution with this if you are in a large group. Basically at the start of the meal a decision was taken to simply order 3 bottles of each of the house red and white wine to share among the group and split on the bill. We definitely ordered house wine which was around £13 a bottle, however, what they gave us was not the house wine but bottles from the normal full wine list which meant that when the bill came it was considerably higher than we were expecting, the wine we had had was around £16 a bottle. It meant an embarressing few minutes while people dug around for extra cash and tried to figure out what they owed - we did query this and were told that we had definitely ordered what we were given. We disagreed but they did not offer any kind of compromise and basically we just had to pay the amount on the bill.

Aside from this unfortunate error we had no problems with the service or the quality of the food and they do seem very adept at dealing with larger groups (although I would defintely recommend booking in advance for this). On every occassion when I have visited, service has been very good.

There is no dedicated parking for Bluu, because of the central location but there are a couple of NCP's nearby so parking shouldn't be a problem.

All in all this is a great place to meet for drinks or food, excellent choice and quality, good service and friendly staff - just make sure you received the wine that you ordered before you pay!

I notice from the website that this branch is actually part of a chain with other restaurants in Birmingham, Nottingham and London (one in Hoxton and one in Moorgate).

Summary: A great place for meeting friends