Top food critic declares Manchester restaurant as ‘one of the best meals of the year’

“This is bloody good, isn’t it.”

That’s what top food critic Jay Rayner had to say when he dined at Ancoats’ restaurant Erst last week in an experience he proclaimed as ‘one of the best meals of the year so far, a succession of modestly priced platefuls, which bring on low groans and delicate signs of happiness’.

Writing in his column for The Observer, Rayner began his critique of his Erst experience with Carlingford rock oysters dressed ‘with a precisely judged spoonful of mignonette’, something he described as ‘very bracing’.

He then declared the flatbread, which is spread with freshly chopped tomato pulp, to be ‘the best £5 I have spent in a very long time’.

@erst_mcr / Instagram

@erst_mcr / Instagram

Rayner tried a number of Erst’s most popular dishes, including meaty Cantabrian anchovies, ‘floating on their olive oil pond’, garlic herb buttered anchovies, slices of cured seabass, thinly sliced lamb’s hearts with lettuce, grilled green beans and a green chilli sauce, and the ‘George Clooney of garlic breads’ which he described as forcing him to type ‘utter blathering, enthusiastic b*llocks’.

But he reserved his optimum gushing for Erst’s famous fried potatoes: “Seriously, look at them: baked potatoes that have then been crushed with force until they are a mess of crevices and edges and folds.

“We break off one bit after another. Somewhere in the middle there might be soft potato. Mostly they are just the thrilling business end of crispness right to the heart.

“It is £5 worth of glorious, crowd-pleasing fun.”

@erst_mcr / Instagram

@erst_mcr / Instagram

And this isn’t the first time the restaurant has received critical acclaim among the experts: In January this year, Erst earned a place in the Michelin Guide 2021 for offering ‘something refreshingly different in the city’.

And last year, Marina O’Loughlin from The Sunday Times sang their praises, saying their food seems to come from people who ‘genuinely like to eat’. She also sampled the fried potatoes, noting how they were ‘fiendishly good’ shards of ‘golden, glistening crunch’, adding that these things have ‘done the hokey cokey with the hot oil’.

As you can see, the review – and all the rest of them – couldn’t be any more complimentary and will undoubtedly ensure Erst’s booking list is full for the foreseeable future.

A massive congratulations to the talented team over at Erst, we can’t wait to see what the future holds for them – you can stay up to date on book on their website here.

Read Jay Rayner’s full review here.