There’s no easy way to say this, but I’ve never been to Katsouris until today. It feels like a shameful secret, one that’s weighed on me for a while, but now I feel lighter.
Well, I did feel lighter before my lunch. Now, I feel much heavier again and also drowsy. This lunchtime institution, with its grand gothic stone entrance on the corner of Deansgate and John Dalton Street, has been a standard in the city for nearly a couple of decades.
I consult an oracle of the hastily snatched lunch in the city, a crime reporter of some significant experience and repute. “Oh yes, a court lunch favourite,” the text fires back quickly. “The ‘rice box with meat’ is enough to keep anyone - anyone - going for a whole day. Solid value and just the right amount of spice.
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“Been visiting for what’s probably nearly 20 years, and it’s as good a value budget lunch as anywhere in the city. It’s controlled chaos queuing, and attracts all walks - from the office workers to the barristers in Crown and the men and women they’re either prosecuting or trying to keep out of jail.”
I’ve been missing out, there’s no two ways about it. The original Katsouris was a deli stall in Bury Market before it opened up in Manchester in the early 2000s. And ‘controlled chaos’ is indeed a befitting description of its queuing system.
Like a US deli, you’re politely barked at, numbers being shouted every few seconds, as punters queue for the sandwich counter or the carvery section, the latter I’ve already decided will be my inaugural Katsouris experience.
There’s a ‘one or two meat’ decision to make, with spiced paella rice and free reign at the salad bar. Sure, the umbrella term ‘meat’ could do with a bit of finesse, in terms of appealing menu description, but they don’t seem like they have time for that sort of thing. Katsouris is not about finesse.
And anyway, it’s markedly better than ‘protein’, which some places seem to think is an OK way to describe part of my lunch. It is not.
When it’s a choice of one meat or two, of course it’s going to be two, in this instance the spiced peri-peri chicken and what turns out to be a mildly obscene Parisian style sausage, which comes buried under onions and the place’s homemade salsa.
My number is called, and there’s already so much on the plate, I wonder where the salad will go. I bravely manage, burying the already buried chicken and sausage with salad leaves, potato salad, olives, stuffed vine leaves and olives, before immediately regretting ordering a portion of french fries too.
With a drink, this vast lunch costs £13. I can confirm that the french fries - well seasoned and crisp - were unnecessary, as was the decision to have two meats, to be honest. One or other would have been ample, either the obscene sausage or the excess of chicken.
So while £13 is not an everyday lunch price - that’s heading into ‘occasion lunch’ territory - this would have sent two people dozing into the afternoon, let alone one. It also feels pretty virtuous and healthy. Well, it would have done, without the french fries.
But it’s a fine place to sit and take in the city, a mish-mash of legal types, office folk, builders, tourists and the generally, but briefly hungry.
A couple of notes from a first timer - not they need them, they’ve managed nearly 20 years without me getting involved. The chicken was a bit woolly. Use thigh fillets instead of breast, and not only does that solve the issue of the chicken drying out, it’s also a fraction of the price and more delicious.
Some dressing at the salad bar wouldn’t go amiss either. Other than that, don’t change a thing. This place is an institution for a reason.
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