Rosso Restaurant

Great experience at Rosso. We went for a family friends 60^th. We were greeted on arrival and shown to our table.
They had a lunch time offer on which was 2 courses for £14.95 and a bottle of wine between 2 for £9.95. Fantastic deal for a Saturday. I think this deal was on from 12−4pm.
I ordered the soup to start which was parsnip with breaded muscles. This was served with bread and butter.
For my main i chose breaded haddock with onions and olives.
The waiter was very tentative constantly topping up our wine and checking we was all ok

I absolutely love this place, Must say it’s 1 of my favourite restaurants in Manchester. Love the décor to. (Well I am a red). The food, the ambience the amazing cocktails. .just everything about ROSSO is fab…

When I was asked if I wanted to go for a meal at Rosso, my initial thought was GOD NO, the place looks far too hoity-​toity and a place full of people just hoping to catch a glimpse of a celebrity — no thanks. However, I accepted the invitation and went along this Friday evening.
We had a table booked for 9pm, we arrived at 8:55pm. Our table wasn’t quite ready yet but would be about 10 minutes and was escorted to the bar area. We ordered drinks and found a spot to sit and wait for our table. I personally didn’t like the décor of the place, it’s a total clash of old and new, and doesn’t work well at all. For such a beautiful building with high ceilings that are stunning, they really could of done more to compliment the foundations of the building. We got our drinks and found a place to sit, underneath a wall of photographs of every celebrity to of visited Rosso — what a vile thing to have on show. It’s embarrassing. I’m sure you’re wondering now why I’ve given this place a 4* as so far it’s not looking good. After waiting around the bar for FORTY MINUTES — we were finally seated at our table.
Now, let’s get onto the reason why I’ve given this place a 4* — the food. I was totally impressed by the quality of the food. I had checked out the menu before visiting and assume as it was A La Carte the portions would be smaller than a Happy Meal and the price of a Happy Meal times about 20. I couldn’t of been any more wrong. I ordered the Brushcetta Pepperoni — which wasn’t with Pepperoni. It arrived with 3 very good sized Brushetta’s topped with lots of roasted yellow and red peppers — it was just delicious and well worth the £5 price tag.
For main I ordered the Vegetable Gnocchi, the menu gave 2 options of size — Small £10 and Large £13. The waiter didn’t ask which we wanted and we completely forgot to specific. When the food came to the table, we each realised we had been given the large portion. When I say a large portion — boy do they mean LARGE. My dish was approximately 3 good portions worth. I wish I could of eaten more than I could of done because like the starter, it was delicious. The amount of food left on each plate was unbelievable.
6 drinks, 5 starters, 6 mains and 1 dessert it was £187 including a 10% service charge.
Would I visit again — definitely!

Originally wrote a review for this restaurant back in April 2015 after my very first visit to Rosso. In the space of 5 months i’ve dined here a further two times so in total now three times in 5 months.
I love this place. I’m not interested in celebrity spotting, what I want is a classy restaurant so when I dress up I don’t look out of place, delicious food at a reasonable price and good service. Rosso ticks the boxes of all these three. I don’t deem this restaurant to be pricey/​over priced I think the prices are very reasonable and the portion sizes are huge — don’t bother with a starter as you won’t finish your main and you definitely want to leave room for dessert. The pasta here is delicious and the steak in my opinion is reasonably priced also. The cocktails are no more expensive than you would pay in Spinningfields or Leeds City Centre. The menu has plenty to choose from, the atmosphere is great and I always enjoy my meals here with excellent service, I have never had an issue so I don’t mind Rosso adding the service charge on and I always usually leave a little extra too on top of the added on service charge also!
I travel/​eat outl a lot, doing several long haul holidays each year from the major cities in North America to the middle East to Australia and I have to say for me, this is one of my favourite restaurants out of everywhere i’ve eaten in terms of quality for the price.
Keep up the good work Rosso!

Without a doubt he greatest whisky and bourbon collection I have ever witnessed in a bar/​restaurant.
Their food was excellent but the bar was what captured my heart and soul!
The extensive knowledge of the «rare» whiskers available by the centiliter was captivating to say the least.
It was the gem of my whisky tasting experiences ever!

Rosso, not worth the service charge!
The first time I visited Rosso was Christmas 2013 and we ate the Christmas Lunch menu, which was FANTASTIC! At the time I went for the Tacchino for the main, which was pan fried turkey breast with a ballotine of turkey leg stuffed with roast sage onion and apricot stuffing, served with mash and pigs in blankets. It perfect! I had the Salmone in Vasetto con Erbe as a starter, which was fresh salmon with toast. Very nice! My girlfriend had a curried Risotto with prawns (Risotto e Gamberi Alla Orientale) for her starter, which was unbelievably awesome! I love risotto and wish I ordered this! The only critique at the time was that the dessert was a little poor: Trionfo di Dolce. It was only a set dessert with three bitesize portions of three main desserts: Panettone with vanilla hazelnut parfait, chocolate cestino gilled with mulled fruits and vanilla ice cream. However, it was worth it for the other food.
My biggest gripe to this day with Rosso is the «service charge». I don’t like the restaurant dictating to me the additional charge or tip. Especially when there are only three of us dining! The service should be included and if the waiter or waitress takes care of us, then I am happy to give a generous tip. And I would say I was a generous tipper when it comes down to great service!
I also feel that from my two subsequent visits (November 2014 and April 2015) to Rosso, the service and food have deteriorated in quality. My visit in April, was for a friend’s birthday. It was a Tuesday and we booked a table early evening. However, that wasn’t necessary, as the restaurant was really quiet. So quiet in fact, the staff were setting up all the tables, bringing out trays of cutlery to distribute around the tables. This wasn’t great to see when you had customers already in the restaurant, and quite noisy! The service was inattentive, and despite mentioning in the booking that it was a birthday, they didn’t seem to care!
On this latest visit, I ordered the Risotto al Salmone for the starter, which was «Arborio rice cooked with a white wine cream, peas, dill and smoked salmon». Although, the salmon seemed more poached than smoked. As I have mentioned, I LOVE risotto, and can cook a pretty awesome curried Haddock Risotto, and this starter was just ok, nice but nothing special. For my main, I ordered the Polpette, which was «baked veal meatballs stuffed with smoked provola, set with tender stem broccoli, chilli and cherry tomato». Now this was very nice! Very tasty meatballs and had a nice authentic Italian flavouring. This also was the same for the starter, which my girlfriend ordered: Bocconcini del Babbo, which was «buffalo mozzarella wrapped in basil leaf and speck (cured pork loin) flash fried and set with wild rocket, blush tomato and spiced onion chutney».
The décor of the restaurant seems to rely on a wall of local celebrities or sportspersons photos who have visited. A little tacky, in my opinion. The general restaurant floor was crowded with tables, which became a little ridiculous when it was relatively empty, and I imagine would be difficult to manœuvre around when busy. Other than that, the restaurant looked quite cool.
With regret, I give this review a maximum three stars. I feel the restaurant is inconsistent with its service and food quality, and suspect the attraction is based on who the owner is and the fact that local celebrities are often spotted here.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Rosso as I have absolutely no interest in so-​called ‘celebrity spotting’ and couldn’t really care less about who owns the place but this was all that my friends kept talking about.
Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food. While it was certainly pricey, the stake was delicious and the pasta that my partner ordered was also very reasonable and the portions were huge. It was honestly a shame that we ordered a starter because the main courses were so filling. The prices of the wine are reasonable and the cocktails aren’t any more expensive than you’d pay at the Northern Quarter. It’s a little prissy and there are obviously people there that have the sole intention of showing off to their new ‘bae’ and nothing else but overall, it was a decent experience.

This is one of my favourite restaurants the food is amazing I have been on a number of occasions and every time the service has been brilliant, Even when I went on my works do the restaurant was packed but you wasn’t rushed and the food came hot and on time. I love the décor it’s old and new mixed together and works really well. They even do a special lunch menu £14.95 for two courses and you can get a bottle of wine for £9.95 great value for money I would highly recommend

Rosso Manchester is a very nice place if you want to go somewhere that has that up market feel about the place but don’t want to pay the extortionate prices of some other places. You can have a very nice meal and wine for 2 for under £50 here which is good value in my opinion. We were made to feel welcome as soon as we walked through. We were offered drinks at the bar or we could go straight to the table. We opted to go straight to the table as we were starving! We chose to have garlic bread to share as a starter and then both had Lasagne. The garlice bread was excellent — it was cripsy yet moist and ‘bready’. The lasganes came still sizzling on top from the intense heat of the ovens. I cut into the Lasagne and a plume of steam emerged from within the Lasagne — perfect for me as I hate Lasagne when it’s served just warm and not piping. The flavour was lovely, I enjoyed it that much that I finished my girlfriends portion! Highly recommend trying this place out if you haven’t already.

This place is pretty special. The dining room is a listed building, I believe it is over 100 years old and owned by a Mr Ferdinand! :)
Love the food from here, we went at Christmas and the experience was pretty amazing. I had a chicken and crayfish dish with a white wine sauce. It was very rich but so filling and well worth the money, I’m salivating now just thinking about it.
This place offers some amazing Italian food and wine. I hope to return very soon. I have been a good boy this year, hope somebody takes me! :) hint hint!

I like here, and have been here many times. the steak which is like what i had in florence, u even could eat without any source.

Not sure what to make of this one.
On the one hand it has a great atmosphere and is a bit of a celebrity haunt in Manchester since it’s owned by footballer Rio Ferdinand. I loved the grand interior of the building and the plush sofas in the bar/​waiting area. The restaurant was very busy and the tables are close together so it has quite a noisy Italian restaurant vibe, which I like.
Unfortunately I’ve been to lots of fantastic Italian restaurants in Italy and it just wasn’t anywhere near the quality of an authentic Italian restaurant, and it cost about twice the price! For an expensive restaurant I thought the quality could have been far better. The bruschetta was basically a piece of barely toasted bread, with an almost green slice of tomato on top and a bit of mozzarella. That was it. Veal saltimbocca was good and the ravioli were fine, but I was expecting better quality produce for the expense.
I would go back here for the atmosphere, but I’ve been to better Italian restaurants in the area.

Yes, the deco is beautiful, and it is definitely a great place for team meetings or team building events.
Food is delicious, and although my beef was, alas, overcooked (very few make a medium rare right in the UK…), my waiter took it back to the kitchen instantly and came back with a juicy and tender piece that redeemed it all !!!

Here for lunch. Found the waiters to be uninterested and unhelpful, but reasonably prompt. My caprese salad starter was very poor — OK, I was crazy to order this in winter, but I had a hangover and needed something light and refreshing. This was lacking any kind of dressing and the ingredients were of a poor quality.
My pasta main was somewhat better, but I could easily cook better at home on a weeknight without much effort.
The room is grand, I suppose, but doesn’t quite have the right feeling to me — I felt like I was sat in a lobby…

Decided to have a meal with friends at Rosso on Friday 7^th December. The Restaurant was packed, but luckily we had booked in advance. The place was decorated for Christmas and looking lovely, with a roaming singer with the microphone doing all the Christmas songs to entertain us.
We chose from the Three Course menu, and I enjoyed the Baked Goats Cheese with Tossed Salad, followed by the Pan Fried Turkey Breast, rounded off with the Trio of Desserts. all were just perfect, service was good, but could not help but notice that the staff were too busy to give the air of relaxation one would have expected, no time to talk, (I would have liked some Cranberry sauce with my Turkey for instance but no opportunity to ask for it) and in fact when we were giving drinks orders as soon as we mentioned the first bottle of wine the waiter had gone before we could order the other wine and drinks, so had to get another waiter to do the rest of the order. We didn’t get the same waiter/​waitress twice so when you have a service charge added to the bill automatically I would have preferred to have had the same server, and tip according to the service and how they added to the meal and experience, rather than a cafeteria hap hazard type service.
On the negative side, the door staff are «miserable» and not what you would expect in the standard of restaurant, a hello or welcome would go a long way. The Gents toilets were a bit of a mess, with no working hand dryer, just a stack of serviettes to dry your hands on. (clearly they are doing work in the toilets)
I would return, but on a quieter day, and hope that it was a little more of a relaxing experience, and the staff were more friendly sadly I get the impression if you are a celebrity you would get the works! but if you are a regular diner it is more take what you can get!

Squiring the family about the town for Sunday lunch is no easy business.
Rooting through a minefield of tricky choices, my urges for a simple fix of Greggs had to be quashed: fast food chains are out of the question for this type of affair with a more debonair and respectable venue needed for the afternoon’s feast.
With no real idea of where or what I was going to suggest — I spotted a glistening red beast of a Ferrari from the corner of my eye, parked out in front of Rosso’s — a seemingly slick and stylish number with a tempting menu and attractive front.
Drunk on its passion red exterior (and fancy motors) I urged the team inside, hoping I could wow them with a top choice lunch spot and come out the other end looking like a respectable son, well versed in such pomposities.
A glistening marble floor, opulent domed roof and a sea of dove white table cloths certainly handed out a great first impression, and as we hunkered in a cosy leather booth I knew we’d be in for treat — my Unilocal senses were tingling.
True to form, we were lavished with scrumptious anti-​pasti — bursting with fat, juicy olives, lashings of cured meats and the usual Italian crowd pleasers. A delicately crafted Calzone (the Ravazzata) being the highlight of my fare with bottle after bottle of easy drinking red label Peroni helping things flow nicely — and at £25-£30 per head for lunch, the prices were within the reasonable (for finer dining) range too.
Firmly compounding my now highly rated choice, I spotted the likes of Beckham, Elle McPherson and Lennox Lewis adorned on restaurants’ ‘wall of fame’ visitor list as well as the entire Man United squad — I mean if Wayne Rooney frequents the place that’s the industry standard for classy joints… right?
Exiting with a pat on the back and a belly full of scrumptious Italian grub it was a case of mission accomplished.

A group of 11 went here for lunch as part of a regular trip out.
First things first, the surroundings of the restaurant are great. It’s situated in a really easy to get to location in Manchester and the building has a real character to it. You get the impression of ‘grandness’ as you walk in. We were greeted pleasantly enough and were shown to our table with the minimum of fuss.
As we were dining as a party we’d pre ordered our food from the lunch menu (£12.95 for 2 courses and a half bottle of wine). That was fine except that they’d lost one of the orders. The waiter was pretty terse with us, as if it was our fault that they hadn’t kept track of the orders.
Lunch came with a bottle of wine per two diners. This seemed to escape the attention of the waiter though as we had to remind him that this was included in the lunch menu. The wine itself was fairly bland common or garden house wine. Opinions on the Red, White and Rose all seemed to agree that it was watery and plain. Just want to re-​iterate that it was included with the deal though so it was what we were expecting.
The starters came quickly and were generally considered to be really tasty. I had the Crespelle and it was delicious. Once we’d finished, the plates were taken away with the minimum of fuss.
The mains also arrived pretty expediently, and again were considered to be pretty good. I had the Risotto Dolcelatte. To be honest, I was expecting some bold flavours with walnut and blue cheese in there but it disappointed. It has a nice, creamy texture, but not much else.
On asking for the bill, the waiter tried to relieve us of one of the bottles of wine (unused I might add) and had issues with us asking to take it away with us.
Overall, the food was great but it was let down by poor service and a general feeling that staff were putting up with diners intruding on their day. The waiter only smiled once and even this seemed forced. We also noticed that the waiting staff seemed to be using the pot plants near our table as a dumping ground for empty glassware and bottles.
In conclusion I’d only eat there again if they improved the service.
P. S. I’m not a City fan…

Do we really need any more Italian restaurants in Manchester? Especially one that’s the lovechild of Rio Ferdinand? Straight away we know City fans won’t like it, after all Rosso is ‘red’ in Italian. Booooo…
But what with it being so pretty, I thought I’d give it a shot. But it was a treat, remember. I mean, Rio’s restaurant ain’t going to be cheap now is it. Starters are between £6 and £9 for starters… hey, I didn’t realise I did that! Starters, starters. I’ll be quiet now. Soups are a lot more reasonable at £4.50 each and bruschettas and foccacias can set you back between £3.95 and £4.25. But aside from the prices, what of the ambience? Is it going to be stuffed to the gills with wannabe WAGs, silicone boobies and Alderley Edgers?
Luckily not. Thankfully Rio found himself a very down-​to-​earth partner who used to run a budget Indian restaurant back in the day. The boys have promised a ‘relaxed and classy’ atmosphere, and for once, they’re as good as their word. Yes, you’ll find the odd blinged up blonde in here but there were also happy families with tots munching on garlic bread and even… God forbid… people in denim! They haven’t completely modernised and hence molested the gorgeous Victorian interior, in fact it’s nicely in keeping with the building’s historical architecture and feels calm and pretty as a result.
The lobby seems to be the hub of activity in this restaurant. There’s an open fire with comfy chairs where diners can wait for tables alongside a beautiful bar. Managers, all Italian and smart, greet you warmly upon arrival. The waiting staff are mature, attentive but not clingy.
The food is delicious. I found a bit of truffle in the dishes I’d ordered which was used sparingly, subtly but noticeably. In the end I was glad I’d given it a try. Not perhaps somewhere I’d come every week, but I’d certainly come again. Come on City fans, you’re not traitors if you eat here…

Here we go again, another day, another Italian restaurant. I love Italian food. The textures, the colours, the flavours, and I love a restaurant that can deliver all these things, in spades, without charging me a million pounds. Don’t get me wrong, if the food is good I will happily pay through the nose, I just don’t like paying through my nose for slop. Luckily, slop is not what Rosso’s got.
Housed in an old bank, Rosso is of grand proportions and grander food. The concept, of a restaurant-​cum-​bar, works well on weekends though it can be a little… flat during the week. The décor is truly decadent, which is what you want when you’re out for a posh meal.
The food is great, and the menu is incredibly varied. The starters are priced around £5-£7, and there really is something for everyone. I would recommend the beef carpaccio. The pasta dishes are good value, priced between £8.25-£14.50, and the portions are very generous. I had the penne al provolone, which is a vege dish, with some pancetta added, and it was lovely. I think they added a quid to the bill for my meaty addition, and I was really chuffed that they were so accomodating. The boyf, never one to economise, plumped for the lobster spaghetti, and pronounced it delicious. Next time we go back, I have my eye on their veal shin.
The wine list isn’t the longest, but it is broad in flavours and price. The prices are perfectly reasonable, starting at £14.95 for house wine (perfectly respectable). For red drinkers, I’d recommend the montepulciano, which is below the £20 mark and certainly hit the spot. The cocktail menu is pretty good, and I substituted dessert for a vaiiiiry nice passionfruit and vanilla bellini. They have a great selection of spirits, which seem pricey at around £8 inc mixer, but the spirits are served in 50ml measures as standard, which goes some way to lessening the blow. Plus, they serve Tanqueray 10, so shush up and sup up!
Rosso is great for a romantic date, or a special occasion. Rubbish for big groups, I’d say, but then the bar can get quite lively, so perhaps OK for groups on weekends. It definitely gets a recommendation from me, and from the boyf, who really won’t shut up about that friggin’ lobster pasta…

Rosso is a new restaurant just opened. Its classy, stylish and very expensive!
It has AMAZING food, and ridiculously good service. The room is really grand and very stylishly decorated with an abstract black and red colour scheme and huge retro photos of Italian film stars and sports figures adorning the walls.
Owned by Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand, Rosso is a rival to the well respected San Carlo on King Street. This means there are often rows of flash sports cars outside, which I’m sure have a direct impression on how many customers the place attracts. Whether the majority are enticed by the Jags and Ferraris or put off I can’t quite work out.
Although the restaurant is very good, the Bar concept doesn’t work at all, as people tend to eat and leave. The bar is always empty, because it is obviously very hard to pull off classy restaurant and lively bar atmosphere all in the same room.
Definitely worth going to!
I had the prawn and scallop pasta and it was ace.