Review: District, Manchester

It’s all about the vibe at District, a modern Thai tasting menu place in Manchester. Seriously. If you’re not into the vibe, you’ll hate it no matter what the food. And if you’re into the vibe, you’ll love it and maybe overlook the odd missed beat in the cooking.

The vibe is cyberpunky. You’ve got the clash of clean monochrome surfaces with industrial brickwork. The eye-catching logo printed irridescently on the black menu. Neon tubes and a silent cyber cityscape projection on the wall. And a pounding soundtrack of synth/rock/pop with an Asian slant.

I loved it. Even if some of the cocktails we tried were better in the naming than the tasting. Dream Gun didn’t have much bang. Though I’ll admit that Robot Blood was eye-catching and had a massive zing of uplifting lemongrass.

Some of the dishes were superb; the raw sea bass with blobs of vivid thai basil aioli in a slick broth of bright salty/sour/hot Thai flavours made for a great start. The little taco and tostada pair on the next plate were both good, the tartare beef with spicy “nam tok” (mint/lime?) on a black tostada the better. Later on, a splendid cube of chicken with crispy skin sat in a puddle of insanely coconuty but also cleanly spicy green curry, with char-grilled pieces of shimeji and baby corn that took the whole dish up a notch.

There were a couple of dishes that were still fascinating but could have been better. The pork coppa was nicely charred but had too much connective tissue to be lovely eating, and its sticky tamarind glaze clashed with the complex flavours of the sweet/sour/hot som tam salad served with it. This swapped out green papaya for kohlrabi, an intelligent change I’ve tried myself, and played around with a slippery tomato broth and sweetened little tomatoes. Interesting, but had lost a bit of zing. The local hogget belly was a really intensely flavoured piece of meat. Like sticking your nose into a sheep’s woolly flank and breathing deeply. Kinda magical, actually, but totally overwhelming any of the Thai flavours that tried to meld with it.

Pudding (“It was only a dream”) was a lovely mango cheesecake with puffed rice, and a nice ending. Overall I love what they’re aiming for at District, and I hope they never tone it down. At £40 each for the small tasting menu it’s really splendid value; the dishes that weren’t quite there are to my mind just some rough edges to sand off of a really top experience.