Room Manchester

A jaw-dropping venue in the city centre, in one of the buildings where Churchill held wartime meetings, is brimming over with in-your-face contemporary styling. Climb the stairs to the Room itself, an electrifying mega-brasserie with light fittings big enough to live in, hanging from a sky-high ceiling, a glamorous cocktail bar run by bottle-tossing bartenders, and tall arched windows with views of celebs arriving in the street below. In such a wowzer atmosphere, it would be a trifle anticlimactic if the cooking simply dealt in deadpan brasserie staples, but it doesn't. There is an almost tongue-in-cheek retro note running through the menus, but the dishes are ingeniously retooled and often performed at the table, as when a bowl of neatly arranged seafood chowder ingredients has its leek soup poured over it by the waiter. Rollmop herrings come with beetroot pickled in vodka, main-course rabbit loin with a carrot cannelloni tube of shredded shoulder and pink fir-apples, and dessert might be toasted marshmallows in cherry soup, or beetroot and goats' cheese Eton mess.