Cane & Grain, Manchester

The Northern Quarter gets itself a new three-story drinking den where you can relax on Chesterfield sofas and sip classic cocktails. As for food: we hope you like ribs

Review by Joseph Mountain | 18 Aug 2014

Cane & Grain is the latest in the procession of Northern Quarter (and further afield for that matter) bars and restaurants to take inspiration from the good old US of A. The focus happens to be ‘rum, ribs, bourbon and beer’, which, as focuses go, isn’t a bad selection at all.  

The bar is the brainchild of the folks behind Black Dog Ballroom and The Liars Club, which reside at the apex of Manchester’s late-night bars. That is to say, these guys have plenty of experience in making places that consistently draw a crowd, and this latest offering shows their experience of tapping into what their customers want and not holding back on the delivery.

The bar itself is split over three floors, each with very different themes. The top floor wasn’t open on our visit, although a quick nosy revealed that the ‘Liars Lounge’ is more than just a nod to the aforementioned Liars Club. It will presumably more than cover the rum element, considering that Liars Club boasts over 100 different rums, matched by an array of predominantly rum-based cocktails.

The middle floor is easily the most appealing of the three, unashamedly going for an all-out speakeasy/smoking lounge vibe, complete with mahogany panelling and Chesterfield sofas. Its back bar also has a really impressive range of spirits and the menu doesn’t shy away from the classic cocktails, still too rare in Manchester. All the better, as the decor is crying out for Martinis and Negronis.

We eat on the ground floor and therefore spent the majority of our time downstairs. It’s here that the place is weakest. The layout plays homage to legendary Northern Quarter skate shop Cast but feels a bit overdone; too many different feature walls make the whole place feel hectic. The self-referential graffiti in the toilets feels too much as well. Even try-hard perhaps. 

Moving on to the ribs, though. In case you were unaware, Cane & Grain specialises in ribs. Really specialises in them. As in they only do ribs. Well, ribs and sides. Unsurprisingly, we went for ribs: the ‘dino’ rib with porter beer sauce and the baby backs with orange chipotle sauce, dill pickles and truffle mac’n’cheese on the side. My Dino rib is great both theatrically (think Fred Flintstone) and in flavour. A big rib, it is texturally varied, from giving and soft to chewy and crunchy as the meat thins out further up the bone. The sauce isn’t excessively sweet either, a stumbling block for many barbecue sauces. The truffle mac’n’cheese is rich and moreish. The baby backs I am assured are “really nice”, although would be a little lacking as a meal without the sides.

I rather unenthusiastically perused the beer offerings. The selection is fairly standard now for the Northern Quarter – which isn’t to say it’s bad, but it’s obvious that the drink passion really extends more toward the rum and bourbons. To counteract my sticking to beer, my partner grabbed the cocktail menu and picked the basil and coconut smash: vibrant from the basil and lime, the latter nicely balanced by the sweet coconut rum.

Cane & Grain will inevitably be busy come the weekend – they’ve covered more than enough bases to ensure a broad appeal. However, it may benefit from a little time to find its own identity as a bar rather than trying so hard to assert itself in an area brimming with good competition.

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49-51 Thomas Street
Manchester
M4 1NA http://twitter.com/CaneAndGrain