Avalanche Bar & Restaurant

As soon as I walked through the door I was made so welcome. The first to arrive in my party of 4, I was directed to the small bar area where the very nice barman quickly appeared with a bottle of chilled Prosecco and poured me a glass to enjoy whilst I waited for my friends. Our table was booked for 2.30pm but there was no rush for us to move. All was very relaxed and we eventually took our table at 3pm. The restaurant was very busy and remained so during the whole of our stay (we left at 7.40pm!) We chose the special meal deal £13.95 each for 2 courses plus any house wine for £6.95 a bottle… very good deal! There’s a choice for each course. I had the pizza dough strips with Parma ham n smoked cheese to start with — very tasty. I then had chicken in a lemon sauce with roast potatoes. The chicken was lovely but the sauce was tasteless I’m afraid. The potatoes however were delicious. I had tirimuisu for dessert — perfect! The wine we chose — Pinot Grigio Blush — was delicious … It must have been … we had 4 bottles! The service throughout the meal was excellent. All the waiters were very attentive. We felt very looked after. We finished off our meal with a cocktail back at the bar. I had a marguerita… It was very good. All in all a great afternoon /​evening. A fab restaurant teeming with atmosphere, good food and handsome waiters … What more could you ask for!

This was the first ever restaurant I visited in Manchester. It was my colleagues baby shower so the staff let us to our table early to decorate our surroundings and bring the cake in to sit on a side table just next to our seating area.
We had a great night — the waiting staff were amenable in letting us stay there the majority of the night and we were able to pay separately at the end (which can sometimes be tricky).
The food itself was about average — I went for the Gnocchi, which was nice. Our food was served in a timely fashion however no real big «wows» to this place…

I attended Avalanche on their re-​launch night as the resturant has recently had a change of ownership. It was busy and we ate from a set menu so I can’t comment on their full menu choices.
The décor was contemporary, mainly black and white with blue lighting for added ambience. It felt a little like a posh indian resturant but actually its menu is Italian.
The food we were served was a mix of seafood and steaks with a selections of desserts. The steak was really well cooked, and served with seasoned veg. Although the seafood was nice, it wasn’t the best I’ve ever tasted, but perhaps this was due to them cooking en masse on that evening?
Although the waiting on staff are Italian, the owners are asian so all their meat is Halal. The chefs are Italian though, so the food still tastes authentic.
The desserts were really good. A good selection that all tasted delicious and very well presented too.

On Monday I attended a relaunch event for Avalanche on Booth St. The restaurant has been open for over two years but has recently been taken over. This event was designed to showcase some of the food that you’ll find on the new menu and, as it was a free event for bloggers/​social media users, to get some buzz going.
The starters arrived and were promptly devoured by those around the table. The Arancini (rice balls) were very good. When I’ve had them before they’ve had a tendency to be a bit dry and quite hard work to eat. These were delicious. The bruschetta had the kind of garlic punch I love, although for me the toast was a little dry (not a view shared around the table).
Camembert is never a bad thing in my book and I welcome every opportunity to devour it and this was no exception.
For the mains, we received a surf n turf platter featuring prawns, sole, chicken, t-​bone & lamb along with a pepper sauce and a veg accompaniment. Everything was enjoyable but, certainly at a couple of days distance, nothing was a standout.
The puddings took things up a notch. We were presented with a trio of desserts: chocolate brownie, tiramisu & a cheesecake. Whilst the cheesecake was nice, the other two were very good indeed. I can normally take or leave a chocolate brownies but this was a moist and moreish treasure. The tiramisu was also delicious (and, even better, the person I was sharing with does not like tiramisu…)
Looking at the menu now, I would suggest it’s best to go to Avalanche on a Sunday (when I think there’s discounted prices) or a lunchtime as the full menu seems a little pricey at full cost.
I do wonder too how it will attract people with its tucked away position. Croma is close by and does pizza for less/​around the same price & other Italian restaurants in town (the San Carlo empire, Rosso etc) have a higher profile.

Living only a four hours drive away from Italy and enjoying the vast influence of Italian cuisine in Munich on an almost daily basis I do know a thing or two about Italian cooking and food. The typical recipes of the Northern Italien Südtirol region, a few sentences in Italian and what a traditional Italian restaurant look like.
The assumed simplicity of the Italian cuisine has lured many into opening restaurant chains, that mostly serve Italian inspired pasta dishes and the odd tomato and mozzarella salad at most. Yet traditionally the Italian Kitchen brings a lot more flavour and variety to the table.
The Italian restaurants I´ve tried so far were setting the bar fairly high for this evening of the new menu launch of Avalanche. Rio Ferdinand´s Rosso is one of my favourite places to go for a new meal, yet it lacked the friendly, homely and cozy feeling I got accustomed to in Italy, with waiters ranging from just ignorant to arrogant. Just a stone´s throw away Croma and San Carlo are doing an impressive job at good quality food and atmosphere.
For our blogger evening, the crowd was a good mix between all blog topics, from mummy bloggers to beauty, fashion and obviously food. The reception was nice and friendly, my coat was taken care off and I was handed a glass of wine. Good start. Having a quick look around, the kitchen offered an impressive display of fresh catch and some not so happy looking lobsters were waiting to be rescued from their imminent journey into one of the cooking pans. After a quick welcome drink, we were seated with a cooler of prosecco (DOC quality) and our starter was served quickly afterwards.
All tables were set beautifully, complementing the sleek white décor, that seems a tad bit 80s with the blue lighting at some times (but hey every Italian bar looks a bit like that).
For starters we were offered a sharing plate of three different kinds of bruschetta: classic (delicious fresh tomatoes!), red pepper antipasti (not too greasy, still fresh) and one which I presume consisted of a paste of aubergine, artichoke and courgette. The salsa it was served with tasted slightly but not overpoweringly of sweet fennel. The fried rice ball (arancini), was crisp outside and yummy hot and flavorful on the inside. I could eat more of those.
For mains we were presented with a Surf and Turf sharing platter. Sole, scampi, lamb and chicken were all to the point. Especially the lamb is to mention here, which certainly is among the best I´ve ever had (and my mum does a pretty mean shoulder of lamb !). If there is one point of criticism here then it would be the peppercorn sauce. I get that delivering a high standard of sauce for 100 people on the night is tough and chefs are tempted to not do everything from scratch but a) the sauce was not even necessary as the quality of food was outstanding enough and b) you can ALWAYS taste an artificial flavour and c) it is not really an Italian.
Dessert was a trio of cheesecake, chocolate cake and tiramisu. The cheesecake was kind of tangy and not too sweet which I like, the chocolate cake was dense and full of rich dark chocolate flavors. I would have happily just had a giant slice of tiramisu here or maybe some panna cotta instead of cheesecake or profiteroles.

Last night was the relaunch of Avalanche Bar & Restaurant. Tucked away behind The Waterhouse pub on Albert Square I wouldn’t have known it was there, I do now…
The restaurant is modern and fresh with blue lighting and is split into sections for dinning. This would be a great place for events/birthday’s and large groups and also has an intimacy for a romantic night with your significant other (or whoever you’ve got to buy you dinner! lol).
The Surf n Turf with Mediterranean Vegetables was delicious and my highlight of the evening. The meat and fish were beautifully cooked and high quality produce.
Considering the restaurant was full and everyone was seated at the same time, service was excellent. Our servers were attentive, knowledgable and very happy to answer any questions or cater to any requests we had.
I love Italian food and with the waiters being actual Italians it felt like a little slice of Italy.
Thank you for a lovely evening, I’ll be back!

I’ve eaten at Avalanche twice and have mixed feelings about the place. The first time we waited over half an hour to order our food. Our server seemed incredibly confused and we were swiftly served by the owner once he realised we had been waiting so long. I ordered the trio of bruschetta to start which was perfectly tasty. My issue is it was ¹⁄₃ more expensive than nearby Rosso and not as good as theirs. My chicken main was delicious. The meat still moist and the creamy sauce had a lovely flavour. My friend ordered a veal cutlet dish but this wasn’t the meal that arrived at the table. He was halfway through it when I asked why it had a red wine sauce rather than a cream sauce was described… turns out there were two veal dishes on the menu and it was the other one! He was happy enough and said it was good but I was concerned that this mistake could be huge for people with allergies.
Service was much better on our second visit but, once again, expensive compared to Rosso. The salmon and prawn salad starter with a citrus dressing was clearly fresh yet expensive for its simplicity. Dessert was a trio and the cheesecake was beautiful yet teeny in portion size. The chocolate fudge cake looked and tasted just like a supermarket bought one and the strawberry ice cream was clearly shop bought and bright pink in colour with not a single piece of fruit in sight.
Such a shame as this place has a beautiful building and some great wines on the menu to lure customers away from Rosso and San Carlo. Sadly I’ll be trying those first next time.

After much back and forth and decision making, we ended up at Avalanche for a colleague’s baby shower. Having never been before, I wasn’t sure what to expect — tucked away past Croma, just off Albert Square, it’s not really a prime location and many people probably wouldn’t take those extra steps.
However, they had room for us and the experience was what we needed; easy and something to make 10 very different people happy.
They gave us a large rectangular table, fitting us all comfortably, though not making it easy to speak to each other. The service was friendly enough, if a bit slow when it actually came to bringing us menus/​taking the drink order. They were very accommodating considering the amount of noise we were making!
The menu has plenty of Italian fare, with pizza/​pasta/​risotto/​salads, though some strange additions — olives on a pepperoni pizza? I tucked into a creamy pasta dish with chicken and pine nuts, which was tasty, but not worth the £12 price tag in my opinion. Our prosecco was served perfectly, with no pop of the cork, and went down well but, again, expensive compared to other restaurants.
Would recommend, but only if you’re not really sure where else to go or looking for a last minute meal.

This place just scrapes three stars, it deserves four but our visit was let down by poor service from one member of staff.
The food is not wildly adventurous but then you would not expect that of italian food. It is however very well cooked and presented. I had the mushroom porcini which was very creamy, rich and tasty: proper italian fare.
The atmosphere is fabulous. The bar tenders are decked out in bow ties and put on a wonderful display shaking up cocktails next to the open frontage of the kitchen where a chef if firing pizzas. What appears to be fresh produce is out on display giving a very homely italian feel. It is a lovely ambiance.
Our waiter let down the whole restauraunt though with a catalogue of errors. I will be completely objective: olives and tap water were requested but not brought, he didn’t set the table properly with oil and vinegar when we arrived until we requested this, his personal dress did not match the standard set by his colleagues. Luckily he was a friendly chap.
Service aside this is an impressive place because for the same price you would pay in Zizz’s or Ask or something similar you are getting far superior food and a much higher class dining experience. Honestly, I would recommend.

As this is a new restaurant in town so we didnt know what to expect. My boyfriend and I was fed up of the same restaurants in town so decided to give Avalanche a try. Very nice place and very attentive service from the staff. The menu was full of dishes that makes your mouth water. We ordered the fresh seafood they have on display as well as a bottle of white wine. We left thinking what we gonna order next time we come back. Highly recommended!