The French by Simon Rogan at The Midland Hotel

The definition of a Michelin three star rating is a restaurant with exceptional cuisine that's worth a special trip. With The French's 10-course tasting menu available for £79, two hours by train from Euston, food-loving Londoners should take a long hard look in the mirror if they're not making a reservation here soon.

Our tasting menu had the perfect balance between deliciousness and innovation. Some restaurants deliver fantastic yet familiar tastes, while others serve up surprises and novelty while not necessarily being, for want of a grander word, yummy. The French sits in the sweet spot: unusual ingredients and radical preparations, but again and again strikingly delicious flavours. Our party of three argued all night about which was the very best dish. It was an intensely pleasurable and fascinating meal.

Is it utterly perfect as a restaurant experience? Not quite, not yet. The room is pleasant but not a perfect match for the innovation in the cooking; given the number of vacant historic buildings in Manchester's city centre, it's a bit odd for Rogan to have set up in this somewhat stuffy hotel. While the restaurant staff are terrific – friendly, well informed, helpful, enthusiastic – standards drop like a stone once you set foot in the hotel's bar (unaffiliated). The wine list is very short for a restaurant of this calibre but this is apparently down to having inherited some of the previous restaurant's stock and a new list is being built. Strangely, given the very fair pricing of the meal, the cheese supplement is charged at an eye-watering £18, but the staff did offer to split one order between us. None of these should be substantial enough to discourage anyone from visiting.

For me, Rogan is the best chef working in Britain today, so with the closure of Roganic and the inaccessibility of L'Enclume, the opening of The French is the best news I've had all year.

Disappointing return to Midland French

After having frequented the Midland French over many years my wife and I returned to it last night with guests for the first time since it reopened. Our expectation was high. When we entered the room the first thing that struck us was the lack of atmosphere. In my opinion the austere wooden tables without covering are the sort I would expect to find in an upmarket fast food restaurant. The atmosphere of the Old French Restaurant had disappeared.
We received the menus and were surprised only two choices were offered – a six course fixed menu, and a ten course fixed menu with no A la Carte options. All in our party of four selected the six course menu expecting six courses to be sufficient to satisfy an adult. We were served the courses with an attendant explanation of each by the waiting staff. Whilst adequate in flavour and texture the portions were truly miniscule in volume, and not to the liking of all the party. Wines were good and the service excellent. However, overall my wife and I consider this to be the most disappointing restaurant experience we have had in all our years of international first class travel. My overall impression was that this was a pretentious and self indulgent exercise lacking in the basic objective of a good restaurant which is to provide good food in sufficient volume to satisfy the palates and stomachs of it's clients.