Ever since Marina O’Loughlin gave The Refuge by Volta a glowing review, I knew it needed to be added to my list. Up until that review, I’d been skeptical about The Refuge’s provenance. I have yet to make it to Volta in Didsbury (although reviews are on the middling side of ‘good’), which is owned by the same people, but I am well aware of the somewhat mixed bag that is Electrik in Chorlton, also owned by the Volta crew.
Add to that the fact that I rarely venture down Oxford Road now that I’m no longer a student and it leads to laziness and despondency.
Luckily for me, the decision was taken out of my hands when we visited with a small group on a Sunday – the venue having been pre-determined by someone else.
First impressions of The Refuge are good. You enter via a separate door to the main hotel (The Refuge is located within The Principal Hotel), straight into an airy bar area with high vaulted ceilings and an impressive spirits collection. The cocktail menu looks good, although the bartender’s lack of motivation to serve us at 8 pm on a Sunday meant that we were being ushered to our table before I managed to order one. Settling on a decent glass of Sauv Blanc would have to suffice.
The dining room itself continues the ‘old school glamour’ theme, with shiny tiled walls, Art Deco-style lighting and a neutral colour scheme, but the real star of the show is the glass-encased seating area in the centre, which looks more like a greenhouse than a place to down a few drinks.
I was actually a little disappointed to learn that The Refuge serves only Sunday roasts on Sundays, especially as I’d been greedily eyeing up their international small plates menu. But we ordered a few starters to share and our respective Sunday roasts and started to soak up the atmosphere.
Being a dip lover, several portions of the mutabal (Middle-Eastern aubergine dip) could have sustained me alone. The bread that accompanied it was an unusual collection of flatbread, charcoal loaf (surprisingly soft and light), focaccia and baguette. The smoked feta, beetroot and hazelnut was tasty but did rather feel like three individual ingredients placed on a plate as opposed to a cohesive dish.
Nevertheless, the starters only served to remind me what we were missing by visiting on a Sunday and not being treated to the full scope of the menu.
The Sunday roasts were huge (although, when you’re paying the best part of 20 quid for it, they should be). Two of our party had chosen to share the roast platter for two, which is supposed to be a ginormous mix of three types of meat (chicken, beef, suckling pig), but the kitchen had run out of pig and so had added in some extra beef. Judging by the size of the vegetable side plates, I’m not fully convinced they got served more food than us, so unless you really want to eat all three portions of meat, I’d suggest sticking to ordering individual roasts.
The Yorkshire pudding was great – crispy, yet light – and there was an insane amount of chicken. I’d flirted with the idea of ordering a side of cauliflower cheese, but would have certainly been over-faced. The Vimto red cabbage (a nice nod to Manchester) was good but tasted no different than any other red cabbage, so I suspect the cordial just added sweetness but the flavour had burned off during cooking. A couple of my companions commented that they felt the gravy was a bit too thin, but my only comment on that score is that I could have done with more of the stuff, because towards the end, my plate was a little dry.
One of our party had the vegetarian roast, which turned out to be half a roasted butternut squash with all of the rest of the trimmings. Despite his protestations that it was damn good butternut squash (skin on and everything), I couldn’t help feeling as though this was definitely a cheat. Surely a good veggie Wellington or nut roast could’ve been rustled up by the chefs? As someone who eats a lot of delicious (and creative) vegetarian food, I would have felt robbed out of my hard-earned £15 had I ordered that dish.
The restaurant was starting to wind down by the time we finished our meal, but we couldn’t leave without trying a dessert. Having recently learned a new rule that you can seemingly never go wrong by ordering polenta cake from a menu (so moist and sticky!), we went for the orange blossom and honey polenta cake with pistachio and ricotta. It was sweet, sufficiently crumbly, and proved my rule once again. I feel vindicated.
The verdict: Stick to individual roasts unless you’re dying for some cauliflower cheese and a taster of all three types of meat because I just don’t think you end up with any more food for a higher price. Don’t visit late on a Sunday if you’re looking for lightning-fast service, or even the whole menu to be available. The starters and desserts were proof that I need to return to sample some of the globally-inspired dishes that The Refuge is so famous for, but the size of the roasts and the quality of the ingredients was enough to pacify me for now.
- Oxford Street, Manchester M60 7HA
- Open Mon – Thurs 12pm – 2.45pm and 5pm – 10pm, Fri 12pm – 2.45pm and 5pm – 10.30pm, Sat 12pm – 10.30pm, Sun 12pm – 9pm
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