Vermilion Cinnabar

We'd like to hazard a bet that Miles Platting doesn't feature on your list of places to go for a lavish meal out. The City of Manchester Stadium dominates the area, pulling in plenty of football fans but very little in the way of large-scale regeneration money, and as the credit crunch really starts to bite it is unlikely that things are going to look up anytime soon.

Therefore, Vermilion comes as a huge surprise to the uninitiated. Standing outside, the only hint of the kind of restaurant hiding behind the factory-esque exterior comes from the array of expensive cars parked in the car park. Step through the doors, however, and it’s another story. Vermilion is the result of a £5million outfit presided over by interior designers Miguel Cancio Martins, the brains behind Buddha Bar in Paris and Opium in London. Black lacquered floors set off the crimson coral sculptures that hold up the ceiling, friezes and mosaics adorn the walls and Cinnabar upstairs boasts six individual cocoons in which the glitterati sip their complicated cocktails.

The menu is presided over by chef Chumpol Jangprai, who worked for 18 years at the Blue Elephant Restaurant group serving authentic Thai to the cream of Thai society before making the journey over to the UK. His menu is a dizzying affair, offering salads, starters, two a la carte menus (Asian fusion and Authentic Royal Thai) and four set menus ranging from £20 to £50 per head. He sources local ingredients where possible and ships over exotic ingredients direct from Thailand to ensure authenticity. And, as the restaurant is owned by seafood impresario Manzur Iqbal, all the prawns on the menu are caught by the restaurant’s own trawler.

This attention to detail doesn’t come cheap but if you’re prepared to meet the costs, you’re in for a meal you won’t forget. Highlights include the spicy poached tiger prawn salad with lemongrass cream, salmon roe, baby rocket and sweet basil dressing for £7.25, the blue crab meat starter stuffed with water chestnuts and cream cheese with a plum sauce for £8.95, the Kheang Ped Yang (a main course of grilled Barbary duck fillet in red curry with lychees and sweet basil) for £12.90 and the whole grilled Dover sole with asparagus, lemongrass emulsion and white truffle oil for £25. Side orders of jasmine rice, noodles or nan breads come in around the £3.50 mark.

The wine list is a carefully considered affair that is likely to delight connoisseurs and frighten those of us who just want a bottle of plonk, with five kinds of champagne and a wine list that starts at a modest £15 and goes up to £490 for a bottle of 1992 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1er Grand Cru Pauillac.

Vermilion deserves to do well. Its menu stands up proudly beside Chaophraya in proving that Thai food can equal any gourmet cuisine in the city, and its décor is head and shoulders above the tired interiors of some of Manchester’s most well-regarded restaurants. However, the reason we’re so firmly in support of Vermillion is not only because of these reasons, but because we believe it is vitally important that restauranteurs are supported when they’re brave enough step outside the King Street / Northern Quarter area. By setting up in Miles Platting, Vermilion has given itself a big challenge – but if it can continue to draw the crowds in, it could well make this part of Manchester its own.