The restaurant scene in Manchester is tough at the moment, with lots of places closing within months of opening. It seems places are really struggling to find what works but there are hidden gems that have been around for years and Croma are celebrating their 20th birthday this year!
The independent gourmet pizzeria have a host of deals to celebrate, which included prices at what they were 20 years ago for the whole of January. While you have missed this deal, they are currently offering their entire wine menu at the price of house wine, including sparkling wine. There is no excuse not to visit and the food will help too.
Never one to sniff at a cocktail, I really enjoyed the Margarita which is tart and not overly sweet. The signature cocktail, Croma Champagne is also lovely with strawberry schnapps and strawberry presse. Again it isn’t overly sweet and the use of strawberry is a lovely change to peach or orange with champagne.
For starter we decided to share the Mediterranean Charcuterie board with cured ham, bresaola, chorizo, salami, olives, sun blushed tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. The meats are clearly good quality and the tomatoes are a lovely touch for some sweetness. The rosemary bread has a good crunch and is perfect when topped with the mozzarella. My only complaint would be that there is just 1 piece of each cured meat per person and it was so good, I wanted more!
We tried a pizza and a pasta dish so we had a good selection from the menu. The Crab and King Prawn Linguine is a generous portion size with lots of crab mixed into the linguine with a light tomato sauce and topped with plump prawns. I think it had been on the pass for a while as it was a little dry and I saw another portion come out that was much heavier on the sauce, which I think would work better.
The pizzas are also huge and we went for the Inglese – smoked pancetta and cumberland sauce on a tomato base with mozzarella and drizzled with Worcestershire sauce before being topped with a fried egg. The base is light and crisp with a slightly charred underneath from the oven, which I love. It could quite easily have gone soggy under that egg but it doesn’t and the runny yolk is perfect to dip those crusts in.
Despite the epic portions, we managed to squeeze in dessert with a warm Chocolate Fudge Cake and the Banoffee Mess. The chocolate fudge cake was gooey and rich, as you would expect. The banoffee mess, however was the star of the show. A Croma twist on the classic eton mess, with ginger biscuits, toffee sauce and bananas. It is heavy on the cream so I wouldn’t recommend it if you are stuffed, as I was. They had to roll me out!
I’d highly recommend you go along this month to help them celebrate their big birthday and I’m sure they will have other deals throughout the year to continue the celebrations. I’ll see you at the bar for a Croma Champagne.
Croma, 3 Clarence Street, Manchester, M2 4DE.
I was invited to dine as a guest of Croma and was not asked to pay.
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