When I was asked to review the 18th anniversary menu at Vermilion, self-styled as ‘Manchester’s most glamorous restaurant’, I thought two things: (a) after 18 years, why haven’t I heard of it? And (b) given Manchester’s propensity to bling, that’s quite a claim. I set off to investigate.  

Now I have the answers. I probably hadn’t heard of it because it’s a bit off the beaten track, in an industrial estate in Hulme Hall Lane, not far from the new Co-op Live arena. It’s a fairly industrial-sized building itself, next door to a huge international seafood shipper called IBCO, who own it. The rationale for this arrangement defeats me except that I imagine the managing director, feeling hungry one day, looked out over the blasted heath that is now the enormous car park and thought ‘right, we need a restaurant’.  

And it’s not just a restaurant. Upstairs there’s a cocktail bar, Cinnabar, with music at weekends and faux-leather banquettes big enough for eight people to recline and drink and do, well, almost anything really. In addition, the complex has three further spaces for weddings and other events that can seat up to 800 people. It’s huge. 

As for the glamour, Reader, I was surprised. In my experience, these industrial wedding and big celebratory resto places are blinged beyond simple bad taste. Here, it is all rather well done. Shiny, glamorous, but well done. Vermilion is the kind of restaurant that Netflix yakuza gangsters frequent, big and yet intimate, with rooms separated by black lacquer frames where a dozen or more can eat at tables with revolving tops and plot inter-gang mayhem. But what are they eating?  

Fusion food

Vermilion is a fusion restaurant. It serves a mix of ‘Thai, Modern Indian and Fusion cuisine with Japanese and Korean influences’. Full disclosure, we were guests of the resto, and they chose what we ate. We started with a cocktail, Sky Blue, a mix of gin, blue cuaracao and eggwhite, and a mocktail, Garden of Words, based on lavender syrup with strawberries, raspberries, lime juice and soda – almost imperceptively dry and delicious. Their mixologist knows their stuff. The drinks came with a fresh and refreshing sliced mango salad dressed with fish sauce and a little chilli and tamarind.   

Scallop tartare with a slightly sweet soy and miso dressing looked beautiful but somehow the dressing didn’t work with the fish (I was expecting something more citrussy). On the other hand, warm soft shell crab sushi rolls with crab roe and sriracha mayo is something I will go back for, and I’ll also return for the crispy massaman beef curry dumplings with a darker sriracha mayo, rich and beefy. The vegetarian sushi rolls had crispy veg in the middle, excellent rice and a crispy shell, but the big surprise was the kelp pakoras. I mean, kelp pakoras? There is nothing in that description to excite the palate. And yet they were crispy, kelpy, and with exactly the right ratio of batter to kelp, and came drizzled with a tamarind sauce and a much-better-than-average mint raita. I would order those again too.  

Drunken noodles was soft noodles with mushrooms and large beef wontons in a sweetish sourish sauce; substantial but not as interesting as the previous courses. However, the vegetarian noodles with eggs and enoki mushrooms in a chilli-tinged broth pleased my guest very much. The mains were served with grilled hispi cabbage in a white miso sauce which worked well together.

Meanwhile, chocolate fondant with Thai milk tea ice dream dessert was a game of two halves. The ice cream was rich and savoury while the fondant, chocolatey as it was, lacked a hot liquid interior. Berry crumble was more of a biscuit with a compote of tantalisingly musky fruit and a rather good ball of taro root ice cream which had a vanilla-coconut flavour. My guest is definitely coming back for that. 

The service we received was exemplary, but they knew why we were there. Looking around, the staff seemed to be giving everyone else similar attention. You get the impression it’s a well-disciplined team. This would be a great place for a celebration. The cocktails are excellent, the service is good, the room is very good, and the food, well I shall be thinking about that soft shell crab sushi and massaman dumplings, not to mention the kelp pakora, for some time. With Cinnabar upstairs and those enormous pods, there would be no need to go home. As the MD said to me, “it is a destination restaurant”, and it is certainly that because you need a car. But it does have an enormous car park.  

By Chris Wallis

Main image: copyright Vermilion

 

Vermilion