To give you an indication of the level of dedication from the team behind one of Manchester’s newest steakhouses, it took them a 128 different incarnations to get their chips - which are fried in beef dripping - just right.
Flat Iron, which will open its doors on Wednesday (July 3), has taken over the Grade II-listed building once owned by the Royal London Friendly Society and most recently the home to outdoor clothing shop Blacks on the corner of Deansgate. Founded by Charlie Carroll, the steak restaurant delivers an accessible menu that never skimps on good quality meat.
With 13 restaurants already in places like Leeds and in London’s Covent Garden, it’s an approach that comes with a proven track record. Besides a varying offer of specials, the menu essentially consists of one type of steak - a featherblade cut - that’s available for £14. You can then load it up with additional salads and sides, like those now-perfected chips and the show-stopping crispy bone marrow garlic mash that range from £3.50 to £5.50.
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The elegant two-floor venue features a basem*nt dining area as well as an open-plan space with a centrepiece bar selling a range of curated co*cktails, alongside wines, beers and ‘house fizzes’.
But, as you would expect from any steakhouse, it’s the meat that is the real selling factor here - and it comes down to Fred Smith, who has the brilliantly-titled job role of Head of Beef, to ensure the steaks are the very best of the best.
Speaking about the role, Fred told the Manchester Evening News: “We buy from lots of different places from Scotland to south Cornwall and everything in between and beyond, so the role is very much about sourcing but it’s also about seeing things right the way through - from farm level to thinking through the cooking process and how we’re going to serve it.”
And, with Fred being such an expert, and with seven years now in the role, he says it takes a lot for him to consider a piece of steak good quality. “I think of great beef like a great wine,” he explains.
“There’s really, really brilliant wine in the south of France, in California and Australia, but they’re all different in terms of their flavour profiles, and beef is similar in that there are lots of different qualities.”
Explaining about the choice to offer up featherblade as its main steak offering - whilst the likes of a truffle triple cheeseburger (£14), Scottish Bavette (£17) and Wagyu steak of the day (£22) form part of the specials board - Fred said: “Featherblade is often just put into mince or used as stewing steak but when its prepared carefully, it can be incredibly tender and naturally marbles quite well.
“It’s a complicated process to get the featherblade to the Flat Iron steak that we serve but, going through all of that gets you to the point of a really fantastic steak that is both really palatable and affordable.”
Outside of the meat, other sides include truffled Macaroni cheese, creamed spinach and a mix of roast aubergine, tomato, basil and mozzerella. co*cktails, available for £8 each, include the Passion Fruit Collins, featuring vodka, Aperol, passion fruit, vanilla, and soda, and Tony's Margarita featuring Tequila, Countreau, lime and hibiscus.
An added novelty of the 150-cover restaurant sees each guest given a box of freshly-made popcorn as they sit down which, naturally, is also made with beef dripping.
Then after the meal, each guest is given a mini meat cleaver pendant as a token of gratitude which can then either be kept as a souvenir or exchanged during any visit for a free cone of freshly-made ice cream (which you might be pleased to know does not include any beefy products... yet).
Twelve years since the first Flat Iron restaurant opened in Shoreditch, its arrival in Manchester comes at a time when people are becoming not only more conscious of what they eat but also trying to watch how much they spend on a night out.
“There’s loads of great places out there that serve steak but they tend to be the kinds of places where you leave with a lighter wallet than the one you went in with,” Fred explains. “Our mission was to have a fantastic eating experience but not necessarily at the price point you’d expect.
“We wanted to be somewhere that people could go to and get a great quality steak, chips, sauce and a glass of wine for under £25 if they wanted to. And I think we’ve achieved that.”
Flat Iron is at 200 Deansgate, M3 3NN. Opens July 3. Bookings advised but limited walk-in's available.
