Wreckfish

Liverpool seems like an appropriate place for the closest thing to the restaurant-as-socialist collective. Wreckfish was funded by the people, 1,522 enthusiasts who raised the record-breaking £200,000 required, via a crowdfunding website. Accordingly, it has the feel of a place for the many, not the few. Gary Usher’s fourth restaurant, and counting, generates a warmth that somehow manages to radiate down the road. As you approach, past the huddle of no-messing black-clad bouncers and the grim bouquets for a young murder victim, there it is, on the corner of Slater Street, glowing like the farmhouse light that guides the lost on a cold and lonely night. Inside the 19th century watchmaker’s factory it’s all brick and wood, softly lit, homely and hospitable, the old building’s raw materials displayed to their best advantage: solid and reassuring. Staff have an energy that’s infectious and a calm assurance that belies their youth. Patrons span the generations but there are more than a few hirsute hipsters in search of something a little more grown up than the usual dirty burgers and burritos to nest in their beards. At Wreckfish, there’s no glitz, no pretence, no big I am, just a warm welcome and bistro food prepared to a standard that’s pretty much guaranteed to make this everyone’s favourite city centre restaurant.