“Food deserves the spotlight”: Maya, Gay Village, reviewed

You think you know the place, don’t you? I had just settled into Edinburgh Castle, one of my favorite, most reliable places to eat in Manchester, when, bam! The rug was pulled from under me.

As recently as a month ago, Edinburgh Castle was run by Manchester chef of the year Shaun Moffat, who had overseen its reopening in 2022. Across town in Chorlton Street, Gabe Lea, formerly of Le Manoir and French, had been linked with opening Maya in the old Mash & Air site 20 months before it even opened.

But suddenly, a month ago, Shaun and Gabe made a switch; Lea took over Edinburgh Castle, and Moffatt moved to Maya.

Maya stands on Chorlton Street over three floors, with the main à la carte restaurant downstairs. The huge cocktail bar in the middle of the room is beautiful, all gold and glass and plush stools, but it’s also overpowering and leaves the dining room cramped. Diners are squeezed in tightly and I almost knock over the wine glasses on our table when I walk in, which I feel very stupid about – until the table next to me does the exact same thing when they sit down. It feels more like eating a three-course dinner in a cocktail bar than in a dining room.

Right, the cocktails are brilliant, with clever twists on the classics and genuinely interesting combinations: the banana Manhattan and my partner’s ‘salt // honey highball’ with honey, mezcal, bourbon and rosemary and black olive tonic are excellent. You can feel (and taste) that someone with a deft hand and an intelligent head had a lot of fun putting this list together.

The menu itself – written by Moffat with sous chef Georgie Hewitt – is reassuringly compact, with a handful of starters and mains, some snacks and sides. These have repeated refrains, in both of the appetizers we ordered, micro herbs explode into huge piles, two main dishes have forest mushrooms, in the snacks and appetizers, raw fish and chicken fat can be seen both in butter and e.g. crispy skin on a Caesar (and similarly, a decent fried chicken as an appetizer). This doesn’t bother me: I want to feel the character of the chef, what he thinks about cooking and eating, and I want the meal to feel cohesive rather than the chaotic tapas of the world that leaves the diner unsatisfied.

However, the short list of main dishes includes two steaks (one ex-dairy bone-in to share and one more reasonably priced hanger steak) and a hamburger. I like all of these things, but I suspect that a non-meat eater – or even someone who doesn’t like steak – might feel a little scratched by the 50% beef entrees.

Alongside our Pollen Sourdough (surely in a Manchester restaurant now?) and excellent whipped chicken fat butter, we have tuna browns; squares of crisp potatoes topped with a creamy, herby and delicious cube of tuna, perfectly coated in a well-balanced fermented chili sauce. Salty and crunchy and soft, hot and cold, rich and spicy, and the perfect two-bite snack, it can be a platonic way to start a meal.

It’s hard for me not to order fried chicken if it’s on the menu, and this one doesn’t disappoint: tender thighs, well-herbed and crispy-fried pieces sitting on a parmesan cream that requires swiping first on the chicken, then with your fingers. The tiny, electric-sharp alliums permeate the rich sauce, and even my cheese-hating partner loves it.

Does it need a huge mound of micro leaves on top? Probably not. I feel a bit like an intrepid explorer sweeping through the undergrowth to find my prize. Sliced ​​into thick coral-orange chunks, the trout is cool and bouncy; plum enjoys a great match. It’s not groundbreaking, avant-garde gastronomy, it’s just good ingredients done right, with thoughtful sauces or relishes. Cooking, in short, as it should be.

The kohlrabi, which we really order as a soup for health, is a sleeper hit. Oh my, it’s good: the kohlrabi is cooked like fondant, and it’s rich and buttery soft and deeply spiced, folding under the edge of the fork. The accompanying chicken of the forest mushroom is crispy and meaty, and the demi-glace is textbook; you can see your reflection in it.

The hanger steak is served with wild mushrooms and brave handfuls of wilted tarragon, which bind the mushrooms and the steak together; the flavors meet with each other, but collegially, and the steak itself remains the star, basting its jus. It’s probably a bit tougher than ideal (and if Maya is going to serve that many steaks, it needs sharper knives).

In small kitchens, there is always a risk that the cook is not interested or knows how to make pastries. Definitely not here: the puddings are a win. The custard is a light yellow, just a touch attached and inside a good, well-made dough. A shower of tiny pieces of crystallized orange on top of the crème fraîche is both simple and incredibly delicious, the perfect contrast to the rich custard (I’m stealing the idea for a Christmas party).

Chocolate crèmeux – a painfully trendy dish that’s like a very smooth chocolate mousse, and usually even me, the pickiest of eaters, on the surface after the first two bites is amazing. It can be monotonous both in texture and taste, and too full, too thick, too curdling. But here, a generous drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of flaky salt, a corkscrew of caramel and a drum of bittersweet crumbs all help to balance out the giant quenelles of chocolate. But the crèmeux itself is light and also finer. It’s made by someone who really understands how to put together a pudding.

Under Moffatt’s leadership, the food is surprisingly excellent. It’s thoughtful without being clever-clever. Small details time and time again elevate the dishes from simulacrums of any modern British restaurant emphasizing seasonality to something special and memorable.

Repeating the ingredients might feel a bit safe, but it’s still the beginning of a new system. However, the food seems to be at odds with the incredibly wonderful location. It’s a place for errands and intimacy, not a well-made cheeseburger. These dishes should be the star of the show, but it’s hard to see past the bar-like setting because it’s lit like a cocktail bar and I can’t see a bloody thing.

Maya, 40 Chorlton Street, M1 3HW

Maya is in the guides