I recently travelled up to Manchester to spend a long awaited evening with some close girlfriends. One of our party had already bee to San Carlo and rated it very highly. When we arrived the atmosphere and staff were welcoming and all boded well for the start of an excellent evening - or so we thought. Admittedly the restaurant was very busy but mysteriously someone had managed to give our table away to someone who, they claimed, had made a reservation for a party of exactly the same number under exactly the same name. What a coincidence, or was something fishy afoot? Fishy was most certainly the order of the day as the swordfish (or what I assumed to be swordfish) in my mixed grill of fish had acquired the nasty sulphuric pungency of aging fish long since departed from the sea. My scallop was cooked to squash ball consistency and my tuna had been not so much seared as ironed on the linen setting. Oversized, underseasoned and overcooked is the only possible way to describe the giant cardboard frisbees masquerading as garlic bread. That said the salads were fresh and the ingredients liberally applied though regrettably not in the combinations we had requested. But the de "fin"ing moment of this fishy tale was the unbelievable rudeness of the staff who, once overbearingly obsequious and familiar, were now demanding that we vacate our table (and this despite us already requesting the bill and being there a mere 2 hours). Clearly £30 a head doesn't cut the mustard (or the tuna for that matter) at San Carlo. If you wont spend the brass (the bass was too poor even for fish jokes) then move over for some one who will.
San Carlo – Manchester City Centre