Felicinis

Felicini has been an established Italian restaurant chain in Wilmslow, Didsbury and Monton for several years and has brought its cooking to the city centre with a branch at Oxford Street, alongside the canal and a few steps from The Palace Theatre, the Grosvenor Casino and The Cornerhouse. It is also located near the rather more traditional Italian Ristorante Giorgio which is at the base of Portland Street, up the road from the modernised and relocated Don Giovanni’s and opposite the rather more typically commercial Pizza Hut. It opened in June 2006 but still feels new, partly due to being relatively unsung and undiscovered in its location.

Manchester and its surrounding region is awash with polished Italians, including Croma, Oca, Piccolino and several Pizza Express branches but this corner where Oxford Street and Whitworth Street meet has been crying out for a modern dining experience of any nationality for some time. The stylish milk chocolate, off-white and burnt orange interior makes an immediate statement that this is a modern restaurant which chooses to serve Italian food, rather than having any themed pizzeria identity.

Although the Rochdale Canal is hardly of a standard that might be seen in Venice, the terrace dining is an agreeable option when compared to the prospect of al fresco alongside three lanes of traffic (including plenty of buses). Felicini have made good use of the terrace space with a canopy over half of the area. The clientele are comprised of office staff, business people and tourists. Felicini doesn’t quite suit students and it’s too far from the retail core and transport hub to catch shoppers.

The service is attentive without being intrusive and pitched at a healthy balance between formal and casual, although questions have been asked regarding how organised the staff are when faced with large parties. For starters, a suggested dish is the Deep Fried Chilli Prawns, which comes with a salad of spaghetti, sweet basil, lime and chilli peanuts. Sure to get the taste buds awake and ready for a main course. Those second courses range in price from £5.75 (Margherita pizza) to £14.75 (chilli seared tuna or a sirloin steak in a sauce). The plates are large as per their reputation and filled with food, which may not leave room for the passion fruit and mango sorbet, tiramisu or vanilla panna cotta (all £5.50).

The final bill is highly affordable for the standard the restaurant achieves and the ambience it provides. Although this is not necessarily a major destination, it plugs a gap in the market as far as modern restaurants on this side of St. Peter’s Square are concerned. Whether it beats Don Giovanni’s or even Giorgio’s in terms of food quality is a matter of personal taste.