Fresh salt and vinegar crisps @ Manifest
4a Watkinson St, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool, L1 0AG
Do you remember when the Baltic Triangle was cool? Before it was conquered by theme bars and vape shops.
Well, it still feels cool at Manifest. No eating ‘dirty fries’ out of a cardboard tray here.
All exposed brick walls, iron columns and concrete floors, the restaurant makes a feature of its former life as a warehouse (even if the lighting can feel a bit too industrial, depending on where you end up sitting).
The wine list — packed with natural and biodynamic bottles — is also very cool. The menu is less modish, instead there’s a focus on regional produce and seasonal flavours (a well-worn concept at this point, but a solid one).
On our last visit we ate torched mackerel, the smoky char on the fish offset beautifully by the sweetness of the heritage tomato it was served with. And a rich duck hash on a bed of earthy celeriac puree, topped with a beautiful duck egg yolk of almost fluorescent yellow.
Another highlight was the ex-dairy cow steak tartare, which was so much more tender than you’d expect — and so strongly laced with mustard it has the unmistakable flavour of a Big Mac (in the best possible way).
Given the focus on seasonal ingredients there are, unsurprisingly, few stalwarts on the menu at Manifest. But one thing that always features, and should always be ordered, are the freshly cooked crisps. Still warm from the frier — but not at all oily — they are wafer-thin, crunchy and caked in heady, house-made salt and vinegar powder. Delicious.
Make sure you also order some of the beautiful sourdough bread with rich and farmy whey butter. That way you can combine the two and make the best crisp butties you’ll ever eat.
Is this a suitably cool thing to do? Definitely not, but there we are.
