Franco Manca King Street Manchester — Restaurant in Manchester

Six of us visited the King Street restaurant in Manchester on a Thursday evening. It was busy, but not full. I started with a couple of ‘bites’ - the pesto chicken with sliced potatoes was nice and very tasty. The mozzarella and prosciutto board was a decent size, but really quite bland and tasteless. Like it was straight out of a supermarket plastic wrapper. I then had sourdough Ham and Mushroom pizza, which tasted ok but looked as though it was seriously ill - pale, undercooked and cold and sloppy in the middle. My friend also ordered a pepperoni pizza - his was overcooked and burned down one side. Does your pizza oven need looking at maybe, or did we just get the trainee chef? I also ordered a side salad with olives etc… the ingredients were nice and fresh and the salad leaves were crisp, but the oil used for the dressing (or the sun dried tomatoes) was musty, bitter and old and ruined the flavour completely. The Montepulciano wine was probably ok, but I couldn’t taste it as it was so cold. When I asked for the two unopened bottles to be replaced with warmer, room temperature versions, I was told they were the last two bottles on the premises. Hmmm… really? The atmosphere was ok and I know its the time of noisy Christmas office parties, but the table next to us were really loud, to the point where they were even singing football chants and banging the tables with their fists. None of the staff asked them to be quieter and by this time we couldn’t be bothered complaining. The service was quick and efficient and the staff were very pleasant. I won’t be coming back here though and I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody - which is a shame because when the food was prepared properly, it was...

We decided to come here last night as it seemed quiet and I’d previously eaten at another location and really enjoyed it.

When we arrived, there were 2 men working there tables and one of them said we could “sit anywhere”

There were a couple of other tables who seated after us as well but it was still pretty quiet.

We then had to wait 20 minutes after sitting down and got completely ignored by them. One of the men actually served a table of 2 men who’d come in after us and was having a really big conversation with them so not sure if he knew them on a personal level.

I think if one of them had apologised for the wait or said they would come and serve us soon, we’d have been fine with that but it was really odd that it felt like we were being blatantly ignored. This also happened to another table who ended up leaving as well.

To add to insult, as we left one of the men was standing at the welcome desk and watched us leave, didn’t say anything like “sorry you’ve had to wait” just stared us out as we left which was so odd. Never felt so unwelcome!

Only to positive is we ended up going to Rudy’s who were a lot busier and still managed to get served, eat and pay within a reasonable amount of time - and their staff...

We made a reservation at Franco Manca King Street - Manchester, tonight to celebrate a birthday. The food and drinks were good, and we enjoyed that aspect of our visit. However, our experience was unfortunately damaged by the attitude of the staff, particularly one blonde waitress.

When my wife politely asked her to remove the water glasses from the table, she responded with a rude facial expression. Later, while we were chatting over drinks, another waitress approached to ask if we wanted dessert or anything else. We weren’t ready to decide and declined. At that point, the waitress named TJ repeatedly asked, three times, if we wanted the bill, doing so in a very rude and bossy manner. Her behavior made us feel unwelcome, which was disappointing.

After she brought the bill, I politely requested to remove the 10% service charge. TJ pretended not to hear and initially included the charge anyway, which felt like a deliberate trickery. I had to insist before she corrected the bill.

Overall, while the food was great, the poor attitude and unprofessional behavior of the staff have left such a negative impression that I personally will NOT return to...