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Manzi’s was one of those West End institutions, a skate wing’s hurl from Leicester Square, that opened in the 1920s, thrived for decades selling Dover sole and dressed crab to landlocked Londoners, before fading into sad obscurity and closing in 2006. But upmarket restaurant groups, like nature, abhor a vacuum. And so Manzi’s was reborn. A brief stroll from the old site, on a less than salubrious Soho backstreet (affectionately known as Piss Alley), it was opened by the people behind The Wolseley Group – the new lot, I mean, who took over the business that original founder Jeremy King so brilliantly co-created. Anyway, it’s blue in here, a sort of icy Arctic blue that feels like being in the middle of a Fox’s Glacier Mint. And the seafood theme isn’t just winked at, rather embraced and embellished and dressed in high camp. There’s a full-size marlin as you walk in, a tribute to Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea. Poseidon gazes down sternly from a wall, holding a trident and a lamp, while lithe mermaids hold up the bar. Subtle it ain’t, but it’s all rather lovely, in an expensively rococo sort of way. There are a couple of decent dishes. A splendidly old school prawn cocktail sees a pert pile of small crustacean on a bed of shredded lettuce, enveloped in a sharp marie rose sauce, topped with a lusty sprinkle of cayenne pepper and served in a silver goblet; niçoise salad uses high- quality tinned (rather than fresh) tuna, as is right and proper. Lots of it, although points off for using fresh anchovies, not preserved. But danger lurks beneath these pellucid waters. The place is barely half full, for a start, with a noticeably older crowd. Nothing wrong with that, of course, probably tempted in by an excellent value £16 set menu. But the room has all the atmosphere of a Trappist wake. There are problems with the food, too – a yellowfin tuna tartare lacks that all-essential clean acidity, sullied by an overly creamy dressing. Worse still is my friend Olly’s hake, so aggressively salty it’s inedible. He takes one bite, grimaces and leaves the rest. Hey ho. Manzi’s is not bad, but one simply wouldn’t return. Like Hemingway’s Old Man, we cut our losses and head, disconsolately, for home. About £40 per head. Manzi’s, 1-8 Bateman’s Buildings, London W1; manzis.co.uk
