William Sitwell reviews Skof, Manchester: ‘A slam-dunk reason to love and admire this city’

If Andy Burnham looks a little shifty, a little uncertain, like someone has let the Manchester mayor’s tyres down, I have the reason.

He’s been usurped by a man called Tom Barnes. Burnham may gripe and grind, moan and mingle in his valiant efforts to persuade people that Manchester is the centre of the universe, but Barnes does it with a seemingly effortless sleight of hand.

He’s opened a restaurant called Skof and it is fresh icing on the cake, a slam-dunk reason – along with Salut Wines, now possibly my favourite wine bar in the universe, pandering, as it does, to the wine-obsessed without rinsing their wallets – to love and admire Manchester, that city of energy, grandeur, cool and trams.

Barnes used to be Simon Rogan’s right-hand man, his skilled gatekeeper at L’Enclume and Rogan & Co in Cumbria. And when it seemed that Barnes wanted to set out on his own, Rogan looked at how Gordon Ramsay used to deal with his senior talent (think Marcus Wareing and Jason Atherton) when they were considering pastures new – curse them and send them into outer darkness – and did exactly the opposite.

The Rogan name is not attached to Skof, but he has backed Barnes and lends support. Which may be one of the reasons why, on my visit – I think the third day of opening – the place and staff seemed so settled, you might have thought Skof had been around for years.

It’s in an old warehouse in the redeveloped area of the city called NOMA. The street is unassuming; dress it with some Lincolns and besuited mobsters and it could be Manhattan in the 1950s.

You glide up a tiled ramp at the entrance and are drawn to the open kitchen with its happy buzz of chefs: busy, smiling, tasting. Stay until the end and watch them clean; it’s a new spectator sport. The room is relaxed and bricky, with just a smattering of tables where diners brace for the tasting menu, though final courses can be taken at the kitchen counter, allowing for a little exercise of the limbs.

And yes, it’s a tasting menu and yes, I swerve them like hornets, but here’s an exception. And the first few courses (of 12) come at you so rapidly, you chuck them down as swiftly as if you were marking the entrance to the kitchen tent at a wedding.

They’re a dainty, fresh bunch of clever bites: beef, roe (sandwiched in Spenwood cheese biscuits), mackerel… We also sampled ‘BBQ lobster’ from the 15-course tasting menu (£165), quite remarkable slices of lobster draped in a thin layer of beef fat. This was the pinnacle of surf and turf – sweet lobster, becoming angelic in the melting fat with the bite of grilled sourdough supporting it.

Scallops come in a limpid, room-temperature broth with a touch of oil (think pre-breakfast dip in a calm ocean); a set custard is light and sweet and enriched by hen of the woods mushrooms – the taste of forest before dawn. And, after a couple of incidentals, along comes the duck.

And the bread. Yup, they serve the bread with the eighth course. And you will cram it in, for it’s a breathtaking layered sort of croissant; literally baking genius, all butter and crunch, as seismic a creation as the Grand Canyon. The duck itself is rich and perfect and covered in a sauce peppered with tart berries.

After which a cascade of puds ends with a grand and tasty tiramisu. What a journey and what a beacon. Skof is the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids. A monument of pure, victorious conviction.