Grand Pacific

Grand Pacific is the work of Living Ventures and it easily outshines its sibling venues in terms of pure glamour. Not in a big chandeliers, glass and chrome Spinningfields way, but with a decadent blend of colonial Raffles-style grandeur and some of the best of the city’s Victorian architecture. Grand Pacific is located in the former Reform Club, the place for Manchester’s Liberal movers and shakers. Now it’s more about cocktail shakers than progressive policies.

It’s a very impressive place – great for a date and it’s the sort of place you come to see and be seen. The food is a blend of beautifully presented Pan-Asian flavours. Dishes like tempura szechuan sea bass, lamb massaman roti and tuna tataki with mango sambal appear on the main menu, but you’ll also find “bar tidbits” to get your teeth into if your appetite can only stretch to “exotic bites from far away places”. Think deep-fried chicken karaage, a duck sausage roll or a plate of mysterious “forbidden” rice balls.

Grand Pacific has a dedicated two-course Business Lunch menu for “an exotic midday option”, and of course, High Tea with “savoury treats” and “flavours of the exotic”. Sunday lunch is a real occasion  with beef topside, roast chicken or vegan wellington on offer, with a coconut rum and hibiscus waiting for you afterwards if you can fit in dessert.

Go, order a cocktail and some tempura whatnots and soak up the majesty of your surroundings. There is nowhere in Manchester quite like it.