Asian cuisine gets a decidedly flashy makeover in Alderley Edge as Janet Reeder discovers
Manchester’s Chinatown is arguably the best in the country for restaurants but in Alderley Edge they’re upping the ante with flashy new addition Yu.
This is a future- generation Oriental restaurant with a large helping of contemporary style thrown into the mix. It’s the perfect destination for those with plenty of dash and a certain amount of cash.
At Yu there are no stainless steel pots of green tea, or paper tablecloths, 3D pictures of waterfalls or fish tanks. A nod, (or should that be wave) to tradition is one of those kitsch cat ornaments waggling its paw behind the well stocked bar. Other than that, Yu is decidedly a Chinese restaurant aimed at a designer-savvy clientele.
From its decadent Bernard Carroll decor with beautifully carved wood partitions, dragon details on chairs and quirky uber cool stylised portraits, Yu serves up a visual feast. I could be in Alderley Edge. or I could be in a colonial hotel in Hong Kong waiting for an assignation with a man in a white suit and panama hat. Oh how I love a place that excites the imagination!
This is a restaurant that aims to be about the ‘experience’, why else the in house DJ? And that includes how to actually get into the place - a discreet barely signposted entrance behind the new Piccolino restaurant, how trendy nightclubs used to be before they realised they needed more footfall.
Clearly no such problem here. It was Friday, 8pm when we arrived and the stunning room was full of beautiful people. We ordered Singapore Slings (naturally) and perched for a while before being led to our table.
The menu from award winning chef Victor Yu who runs the restaurant with brother Vinny, excites the imagination too. There’s dim sum, small sharing plates, starters, mains and we were tempted to try almost everything. We began with the vegetable giaozi dumplings which were a little bland but the elegantly crisp vegetable spring rolls were a cut above anything you’d get in a traditional Chinese restaurant.
This being the fizz quaffing capital of the north we just had to try the roasted black cod with miso and champagne which was yummy. The fish was meltingly temptingly sweet and sticky and enthusiastically polished off with tenderstem broccoli in ginger and garlic and fluffy rice.
A vegetable dish of tofu, mukyui and seasonal vegetables in chilli and blackbean was a delight, light, with a hit of chilli fire and presented with what we by now knew to be Yu’s customary visual flair.
As you might expect, the wine list is extensive. We opted for a bone dry zesty Muscadet that worked well with the mixture of spicy, sweet and fresh flavours and shared a trio of ice creams to round it all off, picking as our favourite a scoop of slightly bitter green tea flavoured ice.
London Rd, Alderley Edge, Cheshire,
SK9 7QD
01625 569 922
