Dough

Dough. Everyone has raved about this place, it gets mega reviews and is one of the best places in Manchester to eat.

WHY?!

I went along because of all the praise, and was sorely disappointed!

We ordered a garlic bread pizza to start. This was basically quite a nicely baked pizza base... with normal butter spread on it... it didn't taste remotely of garlic!

For our main course, my partner had a pasta dish which he said was tasty, but by no means the best he's had. 

I had the pulled pork pizza, which came out on a thin base, but it was crunchy and burnt around the edges, and had the same texture and taste as one of those ready-made supermarket pizza bases. The pulled pork was dry (we think it was reheated) and generally the pizza was underwhelming. Frankly I've had better at Pizza Hut, and I'm being quite genuine there. 

We had Fentimans drinks, which are always nice, and the menu itself I must admit was not expensive.

The staff were civil enough, but all looked like out of work models who didn't really seem to fit in there. The girl who served us (didn't give us her name) looked like the "get the London look" girl off the TV (not Kate Moss) complete with smokey eyeshadow and gap between the front teeth. She was nice enough, but like the others, just didn't really seem to fit with the venue/job entailed. The best way I could describe the staff was kind of like if you had people on The Apprentice having to be waiters/waitresses for a day... competent but nothing special if that makes sense? Nothing really behind the eyes. No warmth.

The venue itself is modern and comfortable but pretty bland visually. A bit of art or some interesting light fixtures dotted around might liven the place up a little. As it stands, it felt like being in a function room of some sort, sat on office chairs.

Isn't it warm and cosy?  o .O

The toilets I found very unpleasant. When you have a large restaurant like that, you don't walk into the Gents and expect to find it as a single toilet in a single small room with a tiny triangle sink shoved in the corner. One toilet. For all the men there! I wonder if the ladies was the same? Also my biggest advice in this little chamber is DO NOT TURN THE TAP UP TO HOT! The centralised position is already "pretty damn warm". When I turned it up maximum (as you do, to warm water up for hand washing) it went to absolute scalding in just a couple of seconds. I genuinely felt like I burnt my hand. It also seems that it wasn't really done to a great standard... very slapdash, and not overly clean. It didn't feel like it fitted the rest of the venue really!

Cripes, a whole paragraph on the loos! I think I'll move on!

I'm not sure why people fawn over this place aside the unusual pizza varieties I guess. I'd rather have normal pizzas done properly than zany pizzas done badly!

£7.75. You can imagine how crunchy that base is, right?

We didn't bother staying for desserts when offered, but imagined it'd be another half-hearted faux-Italian offering; maybe a tiramisu and a few ice cream flavours? I bet it was.

So overall, yeah it was cheap, and yeah it "wasn't bad" but we left feeling pretty underwhelmed, and not at all like we'd been out to dinner at a restaurant. The quality generally felt like we'd perhaps been at a food court? Maybe Frankie & Benny's at a push? It just felt a shame considering there's so many great places within 5 minutes walking distance from it, such as Almost Famous, and SoLIta.

Unimpressed. Shall not return :(


Dough
75 - 77 High St,
Northern Quarter
Manchester
M4 1FS 
(0161) 834 9411
www.doughpizzakitchen.co.uk