A national food critic has heaped praise on a new Manchester restaurant that she’s described as ‘pointedly bonkers’.
Grace Dent, writing in The Guardian, fawned over Musu, the Japanese restaurant-cum-Izakaya on Bridge Street in the city centre. It opened in November, after a whopping £3 million fit-out.
Taking on the £110 seven-course tasting menu, Ms Dent recognised that ‘Musu isn’t for everybody’. However, she added: “If someone else is funding your wanton extravagance, then drag them there.”
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“Personally, I am rather cheered that there are still people north of Watford who have the faith and gumption to open places as pointedly bonkers as this,” she wrote. “Musu is a gigantically ambitious project serving what its owners hope to be the highest-quality contemporary Japanese food in a city that is already pretty well favoured with good and reasonably pan-Asian dining choices of every kind.”
Throughout her stay, Ms Dent was continually impressed by the variety and depth of flavour in the tasting portions, so much so that she begged her server for more desert. Her experience lines up with the ambitions of owners Vincent Braine, 39, and Marius Kamara, 41.
"We are trying to create a 2020s version of fine dining - where the ambiance and delivery is more accessible,” Vincent, who grew up in Gorton, told the Manchester Evening News last year. “If you look at the city dining scene right now, there are a lot of people out spending a lot of money at places like The Ivy and 20 Stories.
"There's a massive market out there for people to have something a little bit special but in a more informal sort of space than traditional fine dining may be associated with. It's not something that has really been done before in Manchester.
“We are a restaurant first and foremost, but with an amazing bar space and then the option of have a late night club but with restaurant-style service. We've spent four years, day and night, going through this concept and finally we are here.”
Musu, 64 Bridge Street, is open for lunch service and from 5pm-late Wednesday to Saturday. It opens from 4pm to 11pm on Sundays. It is closed on Monday and Tuesdays.
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