We stayed at Hotel Indigo. It was convenient to have a highly rated restaurant in the hotel lobby,…read moreand so we ate a couple of meals here and had drinks in the bar area.
The restaurant's chic interior celebrates the area's history. Chapel Street was where Liverpool's cotton trade was located. There are spools of thread incorporated into the very modern decor.
Our first experience at the restaurant was when we came down for drinks before our dinner reservation at another restaurant. The bar and restaurant were empty. I ordered Mother's Blush - gin, elderflower liquor, earl grey syrup, and tonic. The bartender couldn't find the recipe book and admitted that he had no idea how to make the cocktail. A second bartender returned to the bar and also didn't know how to make the drink, but he found the book after a few minutes of searching! We decided to sit in the hotel's lobby. My husband's drink was brought out after about 10 minutes, but they told me that mine would be another few minutes because they realized they needed to brew tea for it. Things were not boding well for MPW.
I was pleasantly surprised, however, with how well the drink came out. It was very smokey, fragrant, and sweet. I was not happy that I had to drink it very quickly in order to get to our dinner reservation on time. It shouldn't take 20 minutes to get a martini, especially in a vacant restaurant.
We came back the following day for afternoon tea. My husband and I split the traditional afternoon tea with champagne and the gentleman's afternoon tea with beer. Their presentation is very cute and clever. They bring it out on mini shelves, so, without a reference, it looks like you're eating an entire bookcase of food in pictures lol!
The traditional was more dessert focussed but had some finger sandwiches, giving it more substance. The gentleman's had more savory components, so we figured this would be a good mix. The sticky toffee pudding and chocolate cake in the traditional were awesome. Both were moist and rich. The small bite of fried white fish and mashed peas in the gentleman's was also very tasty. Everything else was a little unremarkable. Both came with scones, which were dry.
Oddly enough, you can't actually order any tea during your "afternoon tea." They don't have a tea menu.
We came back for dinner the following night. They're running a special offer - 50% off of their a la carte dinner menu for the month of January, and I'd imagine they'll continue these sort of deals for the upcoming cold months. You need to sign up ahead of time on their website. Highly recommended doing so if you're eating here on a Friday, Sat, or Sunday. On these days, their less expensive set menu is unavailable, and dining a la carte without the offer is very expensive.
Service was more prompt than it had been when we came for drinks and "tea." Perhaps they're better staffed at dinner. I started with the cream of pumpkin soup and my husband had the Mediterranean fish soup. Both left a lot to be desired and were ultimately a waste of money and calories. The pumpkin soup was very bland and not very pumpkin-y. We were expecting the fish soup to have chunks of fish in it, but it was a creamy pureed soup. You get the feeling that they just put whatever leftover fish they have from the day before in it. It came with roullie and gruyere cheese. The cheese and the fish soup really clashed.
After the soup, a server offered us some bread. Like literally put the bread in front of us and said "bread?" I had remembered seeing that there was a charge for sourdough bread but figured it must have been complimentary, as it's really poor form to put delicious bread in patrons' faces and then charge them for it. If you're going to charge, for something, people need to actually order it. I know some restaurants have started changing for bread, but I think it's pretty tacky for a high end steak house to do so.
We shared the roast rump of lamb, rib eye, and creamed cabbage with pancetta. It was all cooked and seasoned well. The rib eye came out closer to medium even though we ordered it medium rare. The lamb was very tender. I also had the porn star martini , which I really enjoyed. It's a sweet and strong passion fruit drink.
By and large we had an okay experience eating at MPW. There's room for improvement in their food and service.