Podium Restaurant

Located on the lobby level of the Manchester Deansgate Hotel by IHG, Podium Restaurant is chic and modern, as you might expect, and so too are the well-presented dishes. Promised are locally sourced produce and seasonal flavours, with the menu reviewed every three months by an award-winning chef.

For spring starters, think new season asparagus chargrilled and served with hollandaise sauce – the norm – and a crispy curried egg – bit different. For a fresh feel to summer starters, how about tomato consommé with broad beans, basil-infused cucumber and chilli? For double the fun, how about a duo of duck, or there’s salmon two ways: poached with lemon alongside a tartare of smoked. Fish on mains street might include grilled sea bass with new potatoes and garlic puree, steamed cockles and crispy pancetta, or coley fillet with straw potatoes, Chantenay carrots, pea puree and spiced brown shrimp butter. Meaty offers could be herby chicken with fricassee of veg, or lamb slow roasted and served with classic flavours of garlic and rosemary mash and minted pea fritters. Riccioli spirals with four cheese sauce is a Podium take on a classic Rome-style vegetarian cacio e pepe pasta dish, a kind of stripped-back mac’n’cheese, if you will. For afters, there’s a regional cheeseboard with water biscuits and homemade chutney and for sweet desserts there’s plenty of choice and imagination on the part of the pastry section. Depending on season, this might include a spicy plum tart with a coconut crumble or a blueberry ripple cheesecake with, woah there, chocolate-coated blueberries and mint pouring cream. Our penchant for chocolate leads us fondant-wards – especially with a promised accompaniment of brandied raspberries and chilli jam – but then there’s the baked Alaska, which is a chocolate orange version and comes with an orange crisp and a chocolate pencil.

Digestifs? Don’t mind if we do, and you can take your after-dinner drinks and coffee in the Podium Bar, open every day with its spacious lounge area for sitting soft, or maybe grab the lift up to Cloud 23, the highest bar in Manchester, and enjoy the cityscape and twinkling lights.