Fenix, Manchester… all style and no substance

The best thing we ate at Fenix was one mouthful of langoustine. One bite each, off a £39 plate.

Short answer… give it a miss. It’s one of the most beautiful rooms I’ve ever eaten in and every plate came out looking like it belonged in a magazine. But we spent £78 on two main courses and when the waiter cleared the table they were still pretty full plates, so let’s talk about what happens between the photograph and the actual eating.

So what is Fenix?

Fenix is the Greek and Mediterranean restaurant from the team behind Tattu, over on the St John’s side of Manchester. If you’ve been to Tattu you already know the register: a room built to be photographed, a menu of sharing plates, and prices that make it very clear this is meant to be visited for an occasion rather than a Tuesday tea. Mykonos, basically, a few hundred miles up the M6.

We went on Saturday 20 June 2026. I’d seen this room online soo many times and I wanted the whole thing, the proper occasion, the plates you photograph before you ruin them.

We got the room. We got the photographs.

The room. Honestly, the room

Let’s give them this, because they have absolutely earned it.

It’s all cream and travertine and soft arches, the lighting is doing a serious amount of work, and on a Saturday it’s full and buzzy without being so loud that you’re shouting across the table. The plates have FENIX pressed into the rim. The cutlery is gold. The napkins come in little leather cuffs. It is, top to bottom, a very expensive looking restaurant and it knows it.

Even the loos are beautiful.

Round stone basins, wavy mirrors, those little glowing orbs. I have stayed in hotels that did not try this hard.

So if what you want is somewhere that looks incredible for a birthday or an anniversary, Fenix genuinely delivers that. I’d love to stop the review here.

The small plates

We started with four, and this is the photo the rest of this review hangs on, so have a proper look at it.

Truffle Crab Salad, £27.00. The neat little tower in the dark dish. It was fine. Genuinely no complaints about it as a thing to eat, it just never got beyond fine, and we’d had the King Crab Taquitos at Beef Bar a few weeks earlier, their crispy king crab salad tacos, which were in a completely different league. £27 for “that was nice” is just not what you’re expecting at that price point.

Halloumi Cheese Tempura (V), £14.50. Fried Calamari, £16.50. Spicy Meatballs, £16.50. The meatballs are the four dark ones sitting in the pale yoghurt, and that yoghurt was a coriander yoghurt. Which is going to matter in about thirty seconds.

None of it was bad. None of it was memorable either, and honestly that’s the story of the whole meal.

Now. See those tiny green leaves scattered over every single plate on that table?

Hold that thought.

Now, about the coriander

Ok so. Here’s where it all came apart.

I can’t eat coriander. That isn’t just a preference, it’s a “it tastes like soap to me” thing. If there’s a big piece on top fine I can pick it off and I won’t die, but when it’s cut into small pieces and sprinkled all over my food there’s no avoiding it. And who wants to eat food that tastes like it was finished with a Fairy Liquid drizzle. So before we ordered a single thing, I told our waiter, and then I told a second member of staff as well, because I’ve learnt the hard way that saying it once doesn’t always make it as far as the kitchen.

Two people. Before anything was ordered.

The food came out, and there were those little green leaves over most of it. I clocked it straight away.

So I said something to the waiter when he dropped it off, he assured me it wasn’t so I tried a bite. It was coriander. On every. Single. Dish. And then I said it again, that the food tasted of coriander, are they sure this is right? He disappeared for a minute and when he came back I was told they had checked with the chef, and that it was not coriander.

Ok. I’ve flagged it twice, they’ve gone and asked the kitchen, the kitchen has said no. Greek cooking uses herbs I might not have had before and that’s part of why I love trying new food, and I wasn’t about to sit there telling a chef what’s in his own dish, so I took them at their word and accepted it for what it was, a new thing I don’t like and no one’s fault.

A different waiter came over to check on our drinks order and we got a couple more cocktails. No complaints there, the bar staff are excellent. I asked if he could find out what the mystery leaf actually was, at that point genuinely just to learn the name of it as it was something I’d never come across before but it gave me the same soapy taste as coriander. He was lovely and disappeared off to the kitchen to find out. Micro greens. Okay, thanks for going to the kitchen, but baby greens of what plant? He goes back to the kitchen and comes back with the final answer, the one I knew in my soul was true. It was baby coriander.

Two £39 mains, and no trust left

I know it sounds daft but at this point I was just exhausted, I had a bad taste in my mouth and it wasn’t just from the coriander, it was from being repeatedly lied to and made to feel like a problem. On a more serious note this is a huge red flag for me from a restaurant, my soapy mouth is nothing compared to how this would have played out if someone had a genuine allergy.

Orzo with Langoustine & Feta, £39.00.

The langoustine was genuinely delicious. No notes on it at all, it was lovely. It was also, and I’m being literal here, a mouthful. One mouthful each. Alex took his in a single go, and honestly, I couldn’t stop laughing when he realised what he’d done while I’d cut mine into tiny nibbles.

For thirty nine pounds, one exceptional mouthful and a bowl of (not great) orzo just isn’t worth it.

Lamb Shank Giouvetsi, £39.00.

Alex loves lamb and he enjoyed the meat on this one, so that’s a genuine win and I’m not taking it off them. I couldn’t get on with the flavour at all and left it after a bite or two.

By that point I had zero trust that anything green on that table wasn’t secretly more hidden coriander. The orzo was full of a mystery green herb and I was just a bit done with this place.

Beef Paccheri, £32.50.

This one I genuinely liked. It’s rich, really rich, though I found the truffle overpowered the beef a bit. It works as a sharing pasta alongside everything else rather than as a main on its own, and I don’t think I could have got through a whole bowl of it by myself.

Alex couldn’t get on with the flavour at all. And I have never, not once, seen that man leave slow-cooked short rib on a table.

And then there’s the service

This isn’t just a story of coriander though, all of the food was entirely average, and the service just wasn’t what I’d expect at this price point. We didn’t get offered any drinks until they came to take our food order, not the end of the world but not a high end experience. There was also just a general vibe that we were inconveniencing the wait staff by being there. It wasn’t just us either, and this was before the coriander issues. Multiple tables around us were looking around for staff, sitting with empty glasses and having to flag down people for service.

What happened next

They took two drinks off the bill right at the end, and that was it. I don’t complain for free food, but I’d expected a bit more off the bill given how much of the food we left uneaten. It also felt like the whole thing was totally brushed over, they made half of my food inedible and lied about it repeatedly, a drink off the bill at the end doesn’t fix that.

What you’ll actually pay

The four small plates came to £74.50. The mains were £32.50 for the Beef Paccheri and £39 each for the orzo and the lamb shank, so £110.50. That’s £185 of food, plus we threw in a couple of sides.

The bill came to £250 between us, and that’s with the two comped drinks already off it. £125 a head, for plates that went back to the kitchen still pretty full.

These are June 2026 menu prices, so do check before you commit to anything.

Top tip: if you can’t eat something, don’t just name the ingredient and leave it there. Ask them to check the garnish and the sauce separately, because “micro greens” is hiding a lot on menus at the moment and a garnish seems to live in a completely different part of the kitchen’s brain to the recipe. And if the answer comes back as “the chef says it isn’t”, ask what plant the micro greens actually are. That’s the question that finally got us a straight answer.

Quick answers

Is Fenix in Manchester worth it? Not for us, no. The room is stunning and the plating is lovely, but at £125 a head the food and the service both have to hold up too, and on our visit neither did.

Is Fenix the same people as Tattu? Yes, same team. It’s the Greek and Mediterranean sister to Tattu’s Chinese, and the same eye for a room that photographs beautifully runs right through both.

How much is dinner at Fenix, Manchester? Ours was £250 for two in June 2026, which is £125 each. Small plates run £14.50 to £27 and mains were £32.50 to £39.

Is Fenix good if you can’t eat something? On our visit, no. I told two members of staff before we ordered that I can’t eat coriander, was then told twice by staff that a dish didn’t contain it, and it did. I’d check the garnish on every single plate, and I’d push past “micro greens” as an answer.

Final verdict

Give it a miss. 2 out of 5.

I wanted to love this one, I really did. It’s a stunning room, the plating is beautiful, and on the photos alone it’s an easy five. But you can’t eat a photograph, and once you take away how good it all looked, there wasn’t much left underneath that justified £250.

Two stars for the styling, which is honestly excellent, and for one very good mouthful of langoustine. Not a great deal beyond that.

Manchester has an awful lot of very good restaurants in it. We’ll be giving our next Saturday night to one of those.

Prices are what we paid in June 2026. Things move, so check before you book.