Restaurant review: Lucky Cat by Gordon Ramsey, Manchester
Gordon Ramsey’s Lucky Cat restaurant is new on the Manchester food scene, serving delicious Japanese small plates.
This is the second Lucky Cat restaurant in the UK. The original opened in Mayfair back in 2019, and it's exciting for us Northerners that they’ve opened a second in Manchester.
The restaurant website describes their food as ‘Asian inspired small plates’, however they seem to be almost exclusively Japanese, and should perhaps be described as East-Asian, to be more accurate about the kind of food they are serving.
This was my first visit to Lucky Cat, and I have to say I was impressed. Not just with the quality of the food, but also with the service. The staff were very helpful and attentive, explaining the menu options when we arrived, making sure we had enough to drink, and regularly filling up our water glasses.
The restaurant is located on King Street, and you can’t miss the large floral archway entrance. They’ve clearly thought about those Instagrammable moments with the design! Inside the restaurant is a huge space which feels bright and open.
First up… drinks
The drinks menu is extensive with wines, cocktails, sake, and non-alcoholic cocktails. I was impressed to see a coravin wine menu too - if you’ve not heard of coravin, it’s a way to pour wine without removing the cork so it preserves the wine, allowing restaurants to serve some higher priced wines by the glass without the risk of having to waste part of the bottle.
Onto the food…
We had a look at the A La Carte menu, but decided to go with the set lunch option instead. The set lunch menu consisted of four starters to share, a choice of three mains, and then a choice of three desserts.
The starters were a highlight for me, I especially enjoyed the pork & kimchi gyoza with yuzu shichimi. The kimchi gave this a subtle chilli kick, and there was a really generous amount of filling in the gyoza.
I also really enjoyed the vegetable tempura, we had sweet potato, broccoli and peppers. This came with a tasty dipping sauce. And the sushi was excellent, so fresh!
For the mains we both ordered the salmon and shared steamed rice and side salad. The salmon was marinated in a delicious mandarin teriyaki sauce which had a really nice balanced flavour and went well with the fish.
My other highlight was the dessert, again my friend and I ordered the same and we went for the chocolate tofu. I wasn’t sure what this was so I asked the server, and he explained that it was like a chocolate mousse which sounded great! It was rich and creamy, and had some other elements like little bits of biscuit that added a nice crunchy texture.
The portions were fairly small, but for a lunch-time meal it was a good amount of food, and such good value for money at £35 each.
The A La Carte menu also looked amazing, with so many small plates to choose from. The menu includes sushi, tempura, dumpling & bao, and meat, fish and veggie options too. The monkfish tempura with yuzu sea salt and yuzu koshu mayo sounded right up my street, and I’ll definitely be visiting again one evening to try this menu.
Is Lucky Cat gluten free friendly?
I didn’t go with Nick, so not sure about the gluten free options. But the server asked if we had any dietary restrictions, and they’d be able to point out which options on the menu are suitable for a GF diet. But if you aren’t sure, I’d recommend calling to ask before you book.
Is Lucky Cat vegetarian / vegan friendly?
There are quite a few vegetarian options on the menu, with snacks, veggie sushi, tofu bao buns, and the smoked BBQ aubergine sounds delicious too. Looking at the menu, it seems like a lot of the vegetarian options would also be suitable for a vegan diet.
The low-down on the Set lunch menu…
This is served Tuesday - Friday between 12pm to 6:30pm. You have all the starters on the menu (four different options) and then you can choose one main and one dessert, both from a choice of three. For £35pp this is such good value for money.