WOOD Manchester by Simon Wood

Elegant and high quality. It is a pleasure to eat here. My friends and I spent a pleasant night here. Because the atmosphere gave us a comfortable feeling and we talked a lot. To be honest, the dishes are not outstanding, but they are good. But I remember that they often change the menu, and I will try new dishes next time.

It must have been the best oyster I’ve ever had! It took it from a 4 to a 5 star. The dessert as well. Great combination taste wise and beautifully presented. Through those two dishes I was in heaven. The rib of beef was good and well presented as well, but the wild mushrooms on truffled toast was a bit too heavy for my liking. It was too cold in the room, and the service could have been better. It didn’t seem that coordinated or interested in their guests. Though the guy at the entrance was really friendly. This was in June.

Visited Wood for my birthday with my partner. Overall, we were both so impressed with our visit! We loved the atmosphere, the music, the staff and the selection on the menu. They were playing nostalgic pop rock music and it just felt so relaxed and non-pretentious, really added to our enjoyment! The staff were all super friendly and couldn’t do enough for us! The food was absolutely delicious, very wide selection - we were struggling to choose! Highly recommend the venison tartare, the pork main and the salted caramel tart! Also the cocktails are fantastic!

It was our 27-year wedding anniversary, so we wanted to have a great night enjoying food and excellent service. We got that and more having a 6pm table setting. They do not offer a chef tasting menu now, but you have the option to make your own taster menu and share all our food with each other. All the food was outstanding, but the standouts were the French onion soup, Rag Pudding, the pork selection with glazed carrots, and the ice cream desert with the sweet shop selections was a fitting end. We tried version tartar for the first time and were very impressed and surprised with the freshens and textures of it. Amazing.. The service was excellent, with 2 young ladies being very open and engaging at all times. When they were busy, other colleagues stepped in to assist, so we were always attended to.

What a place! The location, the decor, the welcome, the staff, the service and of course the food all out of this World. Warm welcome, knowledgeable sommelier who exudes positivity and tells you a fabulous story about the wine, I could listen to him all day. The food is served and explained and is of an exquisite nature. I often don’t even read the ingredients and just try it - and I’m never disappointed. You’d be surprised how small dishes can fill you so much. A fabulous place, and a credit to Simon Wood. We will be back again and again.

Fantastic food with excellent service, in a very relaxed atmosphere. The staff were super attentive, polite and friendly. We even had a good chat with the sommelier about desert wine. An absolute gem of a restaurant - we loved it all, and we’ll definitely be back.

I’ve given some real thought towards posting this as I rarely leave negative reviews and understand the impact they can have. However, there were several elements of our experience that I feel should be highlighted. Firstly, we did receive a very warm and kind welcome from the front of house staff who saw that we were celebrating our engagement. Sadly, it was downhill from there. We were seated at 8pm and it was almost an hour before anyone even came to take a drinks order despite our attempts to catch their attention. I’ve never been to a restaurant of any standard with service this slow. There was also no apology for this. In terms of the food - enjoyable, but the portions were SO small. I’m no stranger to small plates at higher end restaurants but we left so hungry that we had to get a second dinner elsewhere. Fair enough for the starter portions/bread, but we ordered two vegetarian mains and they were both absolutely tiny - particularly the celeriac shawarma (see photos). I really don’t believe that this can or should be classified as a main. I’ve wanted to come here for ages and this could have been a really special experience, but overall the service and portion sizes really let it down.

Sat at the chefs table which was a great experience, almost felt like a private restaurant as the main dining room was behind us. Service was 2nd to none as soon as a glass was empty it was refilled. Staff were very knowledgeable answered all questions. Interesting to see the chefs working in front of us Will definitely return for the steaks I saw being cooked but weren't on our set menu Some of the dishes weren't to my taste but that's purely personal preference.

horrible,do not visit i repeat DO NOT VIST. All these reviews flat out lies,waiter says to my husbandwhats your number! so then i said sorry hes got a wife a few minutes later she slips a note to my husband with her number saying call me! in uter shock honestly

Cocktails: 1987 bourbon whiskey cocktail came in a little jar filled with ice so when you pour it into the glass it's still v chilled. Groovy! My lemon & ginger vodka/yuzu concoction was delightfully refreshing, would return just for that. Incidentally there's also a massive gin menu. Food and wine: We took advantage of the January 2 for 1 tasting menu deal which is great value for 7 courses, although the 5 course tasting menu is worth a look even at full price because I think it works out close to a 3 course a la carte meal. - First course was a lovely butternut squash and goat's cheese amuse bouche - evocative of classic Bologna stuffed pasta fillings. Unusual rose vino verde was not the stereotypically sweet rose, not a particularly memorable wine though. - Second course was a celeriac and truffle soup. This came out very hot so I was just staring at it for ages. It smelled amazing but oddly didn't taste of much for me. Probably my least favourite dish although I think this is the one that came with a Hungarian white wine that was absolutely wonderful - Third course was beef short rib cottage pie! The short rib was absolutely delicious, the potato didn't really have much flavour. Served with a really delightful Malbec (I think! Slightly forgetting the order here...) - Fourth course: stone bass (never heard of this fish before) with various interesting sweetish accompaniments e.g. nuts. This course was delayed behind it's pairing wine so long that I'd actually finished the wine before it arrived! Also it was a little cold so perhaps it had been forgotten for a bit. However the taste was still pretty good, the texture of the fish was quite firm which I liked. Thought it was a bit strange to switch to fish and white wine after the previous dish, but I suppose beef followed by duck might seem too heavy. - Fifth course - duck - very well cooked with a great rich flavour, one of my favourite courses. I believe this came with a southern Italian wine made using the passito method. - Sixth course was a little lemon sort of mini magnum. Yum! - Seventh course was a take on tiramisu that was also great (sorry am losing energy here, but you get the idea. I'm normally not as keen on desserts but I thought these two final courses balanced each other really well and carried through the standard of some of the best earlier courses). Décor: boyfriend liked it, I thought it was quite boring and not very attractive. However it definitely is not stuffy or intimidating, which is nice Music: classic rock! Bf spotted many of his faves e.g. AC/DC, Ozzy Osborne. A great feature of the restaurant Service: generally good and very friendly although timings of one of the courses seemed off as mentioned above. Also we were abandoned a bit at the end, my pet peeve. Overall: might not pay full price for the 7 course tasting menu as the food wasn't outstanding across the board, but would definitely consider the 5 course tasting menu and the very reasonably priced pre theatre menus are a no-brainer. A great addition to Manchester's dining scene, especially as it caters to so many different occasions/budgets and both the cocktail and food menus are interesting and different to other options. I will definitely return!

TL;DR - One of the best meals of my life. We came here for Sparky's birthday dinner. Make sure you book ahead because it gets busy, and if you've got a reservation and are running late they'll only hold the table for 15 minutes. We arrived and were seated in the bar area and ordered a couple of gin & tonics, but were then whisked away to our table before the drinks arrived. The barman tracked us down though and served them up whilst we perused the menu. The way the food is described on the menu is minimal to say the least, but rest assured - it's all fantastic. For starters, I had the mushroom raviolo (essentially a single large piece of ravioli, served in a mushroom broth) and Sparky had the pork belly - his eyes rolled back in his head as he ate it and he said it was as soft as butter! For our mains, I had venison and Sparky had duck. We both got decent sized but not huge portions. Each dish comes with a few bits and bobs (mine and some cavolo nero, blackberries and a little bit of a mash) but you're going to want to order some sides to go with it - we went for creamed potatoes, cabbage and bacon, and roasted root vegetables. EVERYTHING was sublime... this was truly some of the best food I've ever eaten in my life. Our waitress was fab too, explaining all the different flavours and what we were enjoying. Desert and Mark ordered a baked tart which noted on the menu it could take 20 minutes to cook, I went for a chocolate/coffee/salted caramel dessert. After 20 minutes there was no sign of dessert but our waitress came over and gave a very plausible apology - there had been a rush on souffles, and they couldn't open the oven or they would sink... so that had delayed getting Mark's dessert in to cook. Our reward for our patience was a round of drinks on the house so we didn't complain - and our dessert was only about 5 minutes late anyway! Oh yes - I forgot to mention, we ordered some red wine (primitivo) with our meal and it was fab. I can't really praise this place enough. The food is just fantastic. Sure, it's not cheap (three course dinner for 2 from the a la carte menu plus drinks came in at about £140), but there are cheaper set menus available at certain times - the key is to book ahead. This place is really special, with amazing food and great service. I just can't fault it.