Diecast — Restaurant in Manchester

I feel this is between 3 and 4 stars, went for 3 hoping for some improvement. Feel dead rude because my baseline is five stars but just had a lot of difficulty here.

Great food and drinks, kind of naff service. Worth it for drinks to support a new place though.

A few types of food done really really well, pizzas are great, burger was incredible, green chilli waffle fries were unreal. Perfect level of spice.

Daiquiris are kind of gimmicky but do taste really good. Amazing selection of beers. Wines seemed good but kind of resented that the price per glass was a small glass and they didn’t say that on the menu.

Mostly though, it was the confusion of how to order etc that was so difficult.

1. Sat outside for drinks. Lovely. Wanted to order food.
2. Went inside and ordered more drinks and ask for menus. Got menus.
3. Flagged someone outside to order, he apologised, said we were told wrong and shouldn’t have been given the burger menu, it’s just pizzas outside. No bother, but we wanted a burger so just decided to move inside to the tables by the kitchen area. He was nice enough, said there’s table service there. Really doesn’t bother.
4. Sat inside for a while, no service, tried to flag someone. He said it was bar ordering only. Ok no worries. Other guy must’ve been mistaken.
5. Went to the bar, he said we were instructed wrong, it’s just table service. But we explained that we were told otherwise, and they said no worries, they’ll send waitstaff to our table because we did have a table number.
6. Back to the table, waited ages. Flagged someone. She was very nice, said it’s bar only. So we explained that we’d been sent back, so she kindly said she would go get an iPad to take our order. She was no longer than five mins, but clearly the original person who had been tasked with coming to take our order, came to us within that time. Said absolutely not, this area is not for food. We’d have to live elsewhere.
7. About to decide whether to leave or move again (quite hungry) but the other lady had come back with the iPad and took our order.
8. Got our food and it was absolutely amazing.
9. She came to us for payment straight away because we were technically in a different area, she was worried she would forget us which absolutely didn’t bother me.
10. Card reader had no signal. We said no worries, we will just pay at the bar.
11. Went to the bar, turned us away. Explained there was no signal on the card machine where we were, so that’s why we were sent to pay at the bar. They declined and said we must return and pay at the area we came from with waitstaff.

Honestly, it was just really really hard work. Brand new place so there’s always kinks but just felt like everyone needed better tech and a bit more critical thinking. And really could’ve done with a manager just managing. Someone to keep everyone on focus. Really could’ve done with quite clear rules as well. And when they’re not clear, it’s not great to be met with just barriers.

Overall, I’d go again for drinks, not straightaway but in the near future. I will not return for food for a while because needs to get organised a bit first.

I would also happily change my review when some of the kinks have...

This review comes after dining at Diecast twice. Once for their Sunday Roast and once with friends for Pizza and Daqs in a Caravan!

Sunday Roast: off the bat the one thing I was most looking forward to was the variety of frozen Daiquiris! Especially on a warm Sunday afternoon…these bad boys are £10 each and you can either try one flavour or mix two together…my favourite combination was their spiced banana and pina colada! You got to try it.

The main event, the Sunday Roast, I ordered the beef with all the trimmings for £21. This was a really tasty cut of 32 day dry-aged Lancashire beef…delicately sliced with a delicious gravy. The veg selection was good but I could have done with a couple more carrots and parsnips…however I’m sure if you asked they would top you up! All in all it was a decent roast and the whole environment was fantastic, we even had a pianist entertaining us whilst we ate.

Caravan with friends: this is a great set up for a group of mates! Who wouldn’t want to drink and dine in a tastefully renovated and repurposed Butlins caravan? It was perfect for a group of 4 of us and the booths could definitely fit up to 6/8 people comfortably. Some booths are bigger than others. We were sat next to a hen party so it did get a bit loud but not enough to damped the experience…these caravans are external to the venue in the “rum garden” so they can get a bit chilly depending on the weather.

We ordered a margarita pizza, garlic bread and truffle and Parmesan waffle fries to share, we didn’t want to over face our selves before a night out, but everything was delicious…the pizza was fantastic but the stand out for most of us was the waffle fries! Of course we have the daiquiris again…had to be done! Sadly we did have an issue with our first round of drinks taking over 30 minutes to reach our table, due to the ticket machine breaking, but the issue was rectified and these drinks taken off the bill. Our server was fantastic!

Diecast is an amazing addition to the Ducie Street area and Manchester in general. Brought to us by the same minds behind Firehouse and Ramona they definitely bring their hospitality flair to this venue but heightened for the sheer size of the venue. I loved it and it is definitely a go to place for me, especially when taking out of town friends for...

Welcome to an Instagrammer’s Paradise, but just remember, Instagram is pretty far from reality- especially when it can easily gloss over disadvantages. The food is decent, £10 for a pizza isn’t bad. Sitting in the Leno Ex Machina section is a nice place to be, very well finished with a proper lighting rig, sound system with Funktion One sound, and huge bar. We had two hours at our table. Drinks were already too expensive, at an incredible £6 for an unbranded lager, Diecast Helles Lager, which isn’t that nice, and it pretty bitter and sour.

After our table reservation had ended, we continued through to the Brooklyn Beer Hall. A live band was on, which was really lovely. However, on a Saturday night, the band finished at around 8:30pm, leaving the atmosphere thoroughly dead, especially with a DJ that clearly couldn’t read the room and played the completely wrong genre of music. He may as well have asked people to leave. The lighting was also set to a really dingey and dim red, making it really hard to see and made the atmosphere incredibly boring.

Come 9pm, your already extortionate drinks get even more expensive, which the company say “we don’t charge entry and it’s to pay for the performers”. This is ridiculous. A poor excuse, and makes the place a complete rip off. We weren’t even in a room that had any dancers on, they were somewhere else. There is literally no need for this company to do this. They’re clearly raking it in, and it’s profiteering. Diecast is incredibly well built and furbished. It seems audacious for them to have a lighting rig and sound system of that spec, and make the public pay extra. That’s £1 extra on every drink, £3 on bottles of wine/prosecco, and £5 on champagne. Paying £7 for an unbranded lager is shameful and out of order. The staff won’t even alert you, until you’ve had your heart attack from reading the price presented to you on the card machine and question it yourself. They can afford to pay their dancers, and you’re being ripped off. Even small pubs in the middle of nowhere can pay a band £500 for a 4-piece....