Restaurant Review: Pier Eight at The Lowry

Hands up if you’ve been to The Lowry to watch a show, play, gig or comedy event?

Yep? OK. Now keep those hands up if you dined beforehand….. OK most of you.

Right, hands up if you dined at the restaurant actually in The Lowry Theatre beforehand?

Yeah, no me either.

I don’t know why, perhaps it was that it seemed so open and canteen like. That I subconsciously thought, along with a lot of in house restaurants it would be overpriced and so I, like many of you I suspect, popped to one of the chain venues across the way or those in the main Media City complex. 

I think that’s all about to change. 

The Lowry have extended the building, with the useful help of some old cargo crates and created a new space. Gone is the canteen like open restaurant space – the same space is now incorporated into a good sized bar area. Instead the restaurant, renamed Pier Eight has it’s own separate more enclosed area. Gone is that feeling of dining in the middle of a foyer.

And it’s all rather glamorous. There are two sections to the bar, the first, as you walk in is somewhat plush and comforting, the second, ideally placed for dashing to in the interval for a top up, is more open, bright and striking. The restaurant area itself is dark and sleek, with a circular feature in the centre, and open windows into the kitchen.

It’s a whole new world – though don’t worry about missing your show starting, you’ll still hear the calls to your seats (as we were indeed told Noel Fielding was making his way to the stage in 5, 4, 3 and 2 minutes. I can’t help but think there may have been some stragglers). 

The menu has a good variety of choices at very reasonable prices and, unusually for us, we both opted for vegetarian options for our mains. 

For me, the toasted brioche topped with pan-fried mushrooms, Leagram’s organic soft Lancashire cheese and a poached egg required my full attention. It was a very good sized portion for the princely sum of £5, and as our server brought the dish to the table, I could smell the butter.

The egg was perfectly done, the yolk oozing over the dish, coating the mushrooms in it’s creaminess, the light acidity of the cheese cutting through the fat of the egg, and butter sauteed mushrooms. 

Mr GFB, however, went all salady on me (I know that’s not a word, but he’s not normally one for salads) with the roast onion and pomegranate salad with parsnip crisps, savoury granola and a balsamic and rosemary dressing. 

Well now, there’s pretty.

Layers of flavours and textures created a delicious salad – bitterness from the chicory, roasted sweet umami from the onion, crisp parsnip offering a light sweet nuttiness and the sharply bitter sweet pop of pomegranate.  

I’d have been jealous of this symphony of flavours, but I have issues with parsnip – we don’t get along. 

Onto mains and there was only one for me – in fact it was the reason we were delving into a rather delicious bottle of red with our meal – another hearty dish, Cheshire lamb rump, with sweetbreads, red cabbage, Lyonnaise potato and lamb sauce (gravy to you and I).

Just look at it. It was so good. The lamb was beautifully tender and surrendered to the knife easily. The sweetbreads too were as tender as I’ve experienced them, creamy, rich and delicious. Red cabbage softly cut through the flavours, and the potato was creamy, buttery and just delicious. 

Mr GFB was definitely enjoying the lighter side of the menu, as he selected the seabass with squash purée, salsify, Boulangère potato and a red wine sauce.

Another pretty dish, that Mr GFB claimed one of the best pieces of fish he’s ever eaten. The skin was crisped to perfection, the fillet still just done, not taken over an inch. With the soft butter potatoes, rich sauce and sweet squash puree, he was a very happy chap. He even ate the greens on his plate without a word.

As a side, and just to mock my parsnip issues (and as it was his choice, as I’d had heavier dishes all evening) he picked roast parsnips as the side, again a generous portion, that satisfied his parsnip craving.

For dessert, for him there was only one option, and one of his nicknames for me, the Manchester Tart.

Crisp pastry base, custard piped ontop of a layer of banana, toasted coconut shavings, raspberry coulis and fruit leather, and banana crisps. I’ve experienced a lot of Manchester Tarts in this fair city, and outside it, and this is by far one of the best. The pastry was perfectly crisp, the custard rich, the coulis sharp enough to cut through – yes it’s not traditional, and to be honest, I don’t care. 

My own dessert  was lemon posset with a salted walnut praline and rosemary shortbread. The posset was in turn rich, creamy, sharp and sweet, but not overly heavy, which considering how much I’d eaten before was rather lucky. The shortbread was delightful and the praline was somewhat addictive and I found myself dabbing every crumb from the plate.

Pier Eight is a fabulous addition to Media City. The refurbishment has created a dining experience that is both high quality and value for money – the wine menu is great and if you don’t manage dessert before your show starts, they’ll have it ready for you to enjoy during the interval. Now that’s service.

For me, I’m not going to bother with the chains across the plaza any more, I’m coming in here for my pre show dinner. The mushrooms on toast with a glass of wine, and a dessert (that cheese board needs investigating), would be perfect. In fact if they added in a bar menu, for those of us disorganised enough to be dashing from the city centre pre show, it would be an absolute no-brainer.

Hint, hint. 

This meal and accompanying drinks were supplied for free by Pier Eight. As ever, this doesn’t guarantee a positive review (if anything, I tend to be a harsher critic).

We were incredibly impressed, not only with the revamped venue, the service and the food – and the prices. Excellent quality food and drink, for a reasonable price and lovely service throughout, even when we popped by the bar for a G&T beforehand.