Hotel Hit Squad: The Stock Exchange Hotel raises the bar for five-star luxury in a football city
Apart from Doctor Who – a sacrament in my house – I haven’t watched broadcast television since Dot Cotton helped Ethel to end it all in EastEnders at the turn of the century. My 21st-century life choices made an evening at The Bull & Bear in Manchester both revelatory and informative. Here is a beautifully designed new restaurant – full of leather banquettes and curved booths beneath a soaring Edwardian baroque domed ceiling – with televisions sets inescapable in any sight line. These aren’t artfully inset monitors, as you may find in a gallery playing Bill Viola rarities on a loop, but huge, flat-screen Argos jobbies.
I sat at the chef’s counter, my attention shifting from the rows of rotisserie quails being plated up at the pass with black pudding, to the screens above. Each screen plays a different sports channel, complete with adverts, so between mouthfuls of generously proportioned, lush Welsh rarebit, I got up to speed with the half-price Ted Baker handbags at House of Fraser, and what families may enjoy at a David Lloyd leisure centre. This is either a restaurant for people who can’t live without the latest scores, or for whom dinner conversation is a distant memory.
You could see the televisions at The Bull & Bear as a kind of wild and irreverent Baudrillardian twist on fine dining. The sort of thing Pierre Gagnaire might mull over as a nutty concept for a private dining room in an undersea restaurant in the Maldives. But in Manchester – which is nothing if not a football city – it just comes across like no one can be expected to open their wallet for a night of Tom Kerridge small plates (eye-roll ahoy: “two or three dishes per person to share, they come when they come”) without having the telly on.
? The best of rural Spain in Surrey – inside José Pizarro The Swan Inn
I will be interested to see if the flat-screens survive at The Bull & Bear. They are so insanely incongruous with the restaurant, and the hotel in which it sits. Manchester still lacks major luxury options, and the Stock Exchange Hotel, involving a collaboration between super-chef Kerridge and the deep pockets of former footballer Gary Neville, is an attempt to raise the bar. The first three floors of the place occupy the original Stock Exchange building from 1906 (the restaurant has taken over the old trading floor), with original stained glass and marble columns the colour of swirled raspberry and pistachio gelato.
My Norfolk Suite (from ￡324 per night) on the fourth floor is part of a new-build box on top of the Portland stone heritage landmark. It has a terrace for sunny days, and a free-standing bathtub. I had to have someone attend to a funky smell emanating from the shower, and I found the vast, overstuffed mega-hypoallergenic pillows, which hotels currently opt for, impossible to actually sleep on, but those two things aside, I couldn’t fault the room.
The décor is chic and modern and absolutely five star. There’s nothing 'football' about it. In fact, there’s a lot I loved – the dark green walls around the spiral staircase, and the light sconces on them that create shadow play reminiscent of the Virgin Mary’s halo, are gorgeous interiors features.
Apart from a slightly naff fake vault door that’s been added to a private event space in the basement, the Stock Exchange Hotel looks handsome from front door to ceiling, with lots of details to enjoy: from the green and gold glazed coffee cups to the brass knuckle dusters on the drawers of the cupboards. It looks and feels like full-on luxury. As it should.
Service is impressive. I arrived after an epic delay, by rail from Glasgow. I was beyond entertainment. Greta, I applaud you and all you do – but if you had suffered at the hands of the TransPennine Express as I had, you’d rather take a coal-powered private jet than attempt the train again. When I actually got to the Stock Exchange Hotel, I was led to the residents’ lounge for a glass of complimentary champagne while I decompressed. All was well with the world.
The service is also great in The Bull & Bear, which is busy and big enough to put the most expert member of staff through their paces. Similarly impressive: the food itself. Apart from a chicken Kiev, which was violently salty, everything I had from an ambitiously lengthy menu was superb.
Two of the best meals I had in the past year were at The Hand and Flowers and at Kerridge’s Bar & Grill at the Corinthia in London. He’s a chef with such a distinctive style of new British cooking – luxing up cottage pie as 'venison chilli with toasted rice cream, red wine and chocolate', and perfecting the simple chip as a gargantuan bite of crunch and smooth potato nirvana – and it’s great that Manchester now has an opportunity to experience it, while simultaneously keeping tabs on what the score is – and when the sale at DFS starts.
Rooms from ￡160 per night, not including breakfast. There are two accessible rooms.
Read the full review: Stock Exchange Hotel