MAYA Manchester Restaurant

Maya may have pulled off the hospitality signing of the year by poaching the mighty Shaun Moffat from Edinburgh Castle. South African-born Shaun is known for his inventive take on British cuisine – our love for his peerless chip butty goes way back – but what has he brought to Maya? 

First, a bit of housekeeping – there’s more than one Maya. There’s the excellent ground-floor canalside bistro which we covered recently, but for all you keen-eyed gourmands, there’s the below-ground upscale restaurant where the high-end culinary magic happens. (And below that, there’s the nightclub, but let’s leave that for another day.)

This subterranean restaurant could be one of the city’s best-looking dining spaces. The lights are dim but well-placed, the centrally-located bar means great people-watching opportunities, and gives the whole thing a timeless transatlantic fine dining feel. 

Shaun’s new winter menu showcases what he does best. It demonstrates his focus on seasonal ingredients and local sourcing, delivering flavour-packed morsels like the crunchy-then-soft tuna hash brown snacks. 

From the starters section, the fish course is a bold house-cured steelhead sea trout done two ways – thick, fresh slices on one side, diced and combined with a bright Victoria plum relish on the other. It isn’t so much reinventing the wheel as polishing and refining the wheel to a level rarely seen. 

Similarly with the chicken – the meat is soft and tender, the coating is crunchy and full of subtle spices, as you’d expect, but throw in a mellow parmesan cream and peppery mustard leaves and you end up with a plate of fried chicken fit for royalty. 

As for mains, if you know Shaun’s cooking, you know he’s all about that beef. As such, the bone-in sirloin steak (sourced from ex-dairy cows, pleasingly) is a must. The meat is cooked to ultra-precise levels of perfection, smothered with a rich, sophisticated jus. Top tip, get some of the excellent rosemary fries from the sides section and use them to soak up the sauce for probably the most memorable mouthful of a grand meal. 

Desserts provide the required level of pizzazz. Not least with the plum sorbet – two scoops in an iced glass, unexpectedly showered with a fizzy glass of Crémant at the table as you watch.

The custard tart is a personal favourite, combining an expertly made pastry with some crumbled biscuit and a dollop of crème fraîche that comes sporting a little lattice wafer hat. 

Clearly, Maya means business. This three-storey destination is based in one of Manchester’s most in-demand locations, and now with Shaun Moffat installed as head chef, it looks set to become one of the city’s top dining destinations.