Water Lily Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Manchester

Situated in the centre of Chorlton, above a row of shops/restaurants, The Water Lily is a great mix of fantastic food and top notch service, in a really welcoming atmosphere.

Me and my partner visited on a Saturday evening, and the place was full - we'd booked ahead of time, so if you are visiting on a Friday/weekend, I'd advisd booking ahead.

We started with drinks from the well stocked bar, featuring an array of cocktails, including all the classics. My partner got a margerita, and would recommend it to others! They also do a range of signature cocktails too.

Our starters were a platter of dim sums (photographed). Though they took a little while to come out (as they were freshly made/steamed), when they did arrive they were incredible. Served in a round wooden box with the steam still pouring off, they were a mix of crab, prawn and pork dumplings, alongside soy sauce and chinese vinegar. They were little parcels of deliciousness, very rich and tasty, and I would highly recommend. Because they took a little while to be cooked (which is understandable!), our waiter kindly brought over some comped prawn crackers, which was really good service.

For our main course, we had pi pa duck with hoisin sauce and tofu with chilli, beef and szechuan peppers/sauce (photographed). Again, both were absolutely delicious. The tofu dish in particular was a nice surprise - we ordered it as it's not something we'd usually have, and the tofu was nice and velvet-y, and the accompanying sauce, beef and chilli was all fantastic. The portion sizes were very generous (we took some home for lunch the next day).

Along with the mains we had a bottle of the house white wine (a decent tipple from Navarre), some egg fried rice, and soft noodles.

The final bill was around £91, which for what we ordered was very reasonable. It broke down as around £30ish for the drinks (a pint of beer, cocktail, bottle of wine), £21 for the dim sum platter, £40ish for the two mains and sides.

Eating at The Water Lily was a fantastic experience, and I'd highly recommend to anyone after a Chinese meal in Chorlton!

(One practical thing to be aware of, for anyone with mobility issues - due to their location, the restaurant is up some stairs so could be difficult to...

We celebrated our twins 21st birthday with a party of 17 people on 30.8.24 The food is very nice even though the portions are small for the price. Reason for only 2 stars, 2 meals that was ordered did not arrive and trying to explain this to the staff was a bit of a mission asking for salt and black pepper again a bit of a mission one person was sat for 90 minutes with no food whilst other people were eating I did not receive my main meal till a lot later and most people had finished there meal and started to leave the bowls of rice did not arrive with the main meal but when asked they suddenly turned up ordered 3 Irish liquors with whisky and after about 20 minutes was informed that they didn't have any, so we ordered another flavour and after another 20 minutes we ended up with 3 Irish liquors with whisky having spent the best part of £560 I would've expected a better service plus you would think the staff would have a better knowledge of English

would I recommend or go to this restaurant...

My family and I booked a table for five for 8pm on Friday 16 Feb 2024 to celebrate my youngest son's birthday. On arriving punctually, we were told that our table wasn't free; we'd need to wait a couple of minutes. Fine, we said. No problem. After 25 minutes of sitting near the bar, we were given complimentary prawn crackers. After a further 20 minutes, with no sign of our table being readied, we left. Clearly, we had been double booked. Other customers were waiting, nibbling impatiently on prawn crackers. While it was good to see the restaurant busy and buzzing, the (inexperienced) staff seemed to have no sense that keeping customers waiting for 45 minutes for a pre-booked table is unacceptable. Despite having my contacts details, the restaurant did not contact me to apologise...