REMARKABLE: Why is it So Hard to Find a Good Sunday Lunch in Manchester City Centre?

I keep getting asked one question that I just can’t answer.

‘Where can I get a good Sunday lunch in the city centre?’

“…everyone thinks they make the best roast potatoes.”

I normally reel off half a dozen places that I thought would be good but weren’t, a few places where everything was tepid and sorry looking, a few places that are dramatically overpriced, a couple of hotels that are ‘ok’, and then recommend driving about 40 minutes out of the city centre to one of half a dozen places that are really good.

I think the problem stems from several places.

Firstly, everyone thinks they make the best roast potatoes.

Secondly, even people who can’t cook reckon they can pull off a roast. It’s low impact cooking, on the face of it. Put a lump of meat in an oven then wait for the dinger to go off and watch your guests steadily go down with food poisoning.

Thirdly, mams are genetically programmed to make the best Yorkshire puddings. Especially mams like mine, who are from Yorkshire. Therefore actually going out and paying an outsider to make Sunday lunch is tantamount to treason and buying frozen Aunt Bessie’s is punishable to death, or worse.

But far too often, the city’s Sunday offerings have falled too far short. Tepid spuds, cold gravy, dry meat, wet, sorry carrots.

It’s not good enough, and it has to stop.

So this is a call to arms.

A call to you, the readers, to tell us what the answer is. And to you, the bars, pubs, restaurants and carvery merchants of our fine city, to do it better or shout louder.

I Love Manchester is investigating the best ten city centre Sunday lunches as we speak. We want to draw up the best ten so this is your chance to educate the rest of us.

Don’t let us suffer any longer. It is your duty.

And don’t forget the stuffing.