About Manchester samples self service Italian fare at Vapiano in the Corn Exchangec
It’s rather a strange experience, being given a smart card as you walk into a restaurant and then going up to a line of chefs,watching them assemble your order, then placing the card on a black plate to register your order.
But it works and the food was great, in fact couldn’t fault it, apart from probably ate too much, (that being down to me having a starter,a main and one and a half desserts)
Yes, this is Vapiano, located in Manchester’s Corn Exchange, which boasts of its decor, a 100 year old olive tree and fresh live herbs overlooking your functional eating area.
The team of forty chefs make pasta dough fresh each day transforming it into eleven different types using a bespoke pasta machine, the ‘Manifattura’.
Guests can then choose from fusilli to spaghetti, campanelle to papardelle and even two types of spelt pasta, as their chosen dish is cooked to order in front of them.
It may be a chain but it is a successful one. Thirty sauces and dressings are all made fresh in-house every single day in each Vapiano restaurant including Bolognese and pesto for pasta, and Caesar, balsamic and rucola for salads.
Seven desserts are also made in house every single day including tiramisu, panna cotta and baked cheesecake.(can highly recommend the vanilla cheesecake).
The concept of Vapiano is self-service, and you enjoy, rather strangely face-to-face interactions with the chefs (but it works) as you order pasta, pizzas, antipasti and salads directly from the chefs at individual stations.
The dishes can be customised and refined to suit individual tastes and specific dietary requirements, the chefs will recommend which pasta goes with each dish,( I loved the chilli flavoured Campanella, even if it did require numerous dabbing of serviette on sweaty brow to counter the heat)
Then using the smart-card payment system, you simply ‘tap in’ for each item you order and pay at the front desk upon leaving the restaurant.
Enough said? Only a couple of things to add, it was fairly quiet when About Manchester sampled the goods, on a busy day, I would hope you wouldn’t have to queue for too long at the worker stations, and secondly can recommend the Argentinian Malbec to wash it all down.
