Marco’s New York Italian

Champagne afternoon tea for two.
Priced at £25pp, you get your own selection of tea in a rather large pot. And a cute little outdoor wooden bench brought to your table… but it’s what’s on the bench that counts!
There was a good selection of different nibbles here from bite size fish, chip and peas, to scones, dohnuts, sandwiches, macaroons and more, all very lovely and tasty. The waiter then brings over your glass of champagne which was very light and refreshing.
The service was great, smiles all round. The environment was classy, very clean and well respected and the waiters were more than happy to give you information about anything food and drink based.
We had a window seat so the views were good, but nothing to shout about.
Sometimes they have offers on the afternoon tea for a buy one get one free, so that’s a guaranteed yes yes.
Would definitely come here again.
Very nice.

Wow what an experience! We had an amazing time at Marco’s and the afternoon tea was one of the best I’ve had in a long time. Firstly it was presented beautifully on a wooden platter and looked very inviting. There was some very inventive stuff to try such as mini fish and chips, Moroccan bites, doughnut and a smoothie presented in a shot glass with a straw. I liked the fact they hadn’t played it safe with the usual cucumber sandwiches and had tried to do something different. However it did come with the traditional scones and cream which I was pleased about. Our waitress Sandra was fantastic and made sure our tea was topped up. There are several teas to try and I had the passionfruit Ceylon which was very good. The place itself is smart but relaxed with views over Media City. Unfortunately it’s the back of Media City so not a brilliant view but with top class service and fabulous food that is only a small complaint.

Arrived at the restaurant and we had the champagne afternoon tea. As we sat down the waiter came with the tea menu. They then came with the champagne and we ordered our tea from the menu. The afternoon tea was wonderful. It had a selection of sandwiches, ham, cheese, tuna, mini shepherds pie, mini fish and chips, mini pizza and then lots of cakes and fresh scones with jam and cream clotted cream. As we were sat enjoying our afternoon tea some people had vacated one of the nearby tables. They came and cleared the table, put new tablecloth on and then they brought an iron to iron all the creases out! This is the first time I’ve ever seen this done.

Champagne Afternoon Tea courtesy of Marcos NY Italian in Media City. A faultless experience for myself and a friend on a Sunday lunchtime. Served our chilled glass of champagne on arrival. The Afternoon Tea included a selection teas or a coffee of your choice, sandwiches, scones and home-​baked treats (including doughnuts), English preserves and clotted cream. Beautifully presented, as I hope you can see from the picture provided. Service was excellent; although we had booked our table for the opening time of the restaurant at 12.30pm — so it was fairly quiet and the Sunday before a Bank Holiday. A very nicely set out and elegant restaurant, and I had visited before for dinner; must say I enjoyed the Afternoon Tea experience more. In addition, we were fortunate enough to have booked on a deal of 25% off — normal price being £22.95 per person — so well worth checking out if possible.

I just want to hug Mr Marco Pierre White. I suppose I can justifiably call him a food hero. This restaurant of his proves certain and important truths beyond doubt. First, good food doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive food. Second. Real food, that isn’t factory processed within an inch of its life, really has great taste too. Third. Good, real food can be dished up without pretension. Fourth. It’s possible to serve up decent portions of good, real food at reasonable prices. So what am I raving about, well, basically a lunch time hot ‘dog’ & chips at a tenner actually. The ‘dog’ was a meaty, giant, plump juicy full of flavour and natural — skinned pork sausage, perfectly cooked. The bread roll that the ‘dog’ was nestled — in was a soft, light sweet dough. The bread to meat ratio is well balanced, in other words I didn’t have a mouthful of chewy cloying bread to pretend to tolerate. The bread roll had a smear of tangy tomato sauce within. Then there are the tasty, crunchy, moreish crispy onions, that I know as tobacco onions that were sprinkled over the ‘dog’. There was only one problem with the onions, just not enough of them. Then to the triple — cooked chips. Chip heaven. I mean a chip doesn’t get much better than this. When I first saw them in a mini, hot copper cook pot on my hot plate, and being a pig, I thought, oh dear there’s not enough. Wrong. The portion was not simply great tasting, it was filling too. As for the taste: these chips are wonderfully crispy and mega fluffy light — years away from the factory — made awful anaemic chips that so many restaurants & pubs cheerlessly think are good enough for their customers and they must know that they emphatically aren’t — just bone idleness, and worse still they are rubbish. His triple — cooked chips are also light years away from mean portions served by Mc Donald’s & BurgerKing, limp flavourless ‘chips’. I also liked the coleslaw, but I would gladly sacrifice this for extra crispy onions. As my photo shows I had Colman’s English mustard on the side and also Heinz tomato ketchup (didn’t spiv business and minimum wage paying Mc Donald’s stop trading with Heinz not long ago?) Colman’s English mustard is simply the finest mustard on earth and no arguments. My companions had beef and chicken burgers respectively around £12 and these were tough choices to make. The beef-​burger had a tangy melted cheese and crisp bacon topping. Superb. We all praised the food, the mega friendly and caring service from the staff and the comfort. The cost of lunch was about twice the price of a low grade industrially prepared Mc Donald’s or BurgerKing meal and about a third dearer than Harry Ramsden’s large fish & chip but really so many, many times better in every other way. (I mean look at my review on what Coasters in Sale charged me for a small bacon & scrambled egg breakfast). With people like Mr White about all is not lost. This place is pitched at the end of the market to compete with the food chains nearby and it does so honourably. Not Ricky Stein at £100 a meal, nor the great Raymond Blanc at LA manoir at £200 a meal. One grudge though a 330ml of diet coke at £3 is more than I like to pay for a product priced at production at just pence a gallon, but profit has to be made, and this is a minor quibble. It was served up ice cold with a glass with ice and lemon; the waiter even poured it for me. Can’t wait to return.

Having recently moved to Salford when my Dad suggested going for something to eat I thought why not try Marco’s New York Italian in MediaCity.
Table was booked for 8:30pm and when I got there I hadn’t actually realised it was on the second floor of the Holiday Inn hotel.
This didn’t matter though as the restaurant was a nice, open space with huge windows looking out across MediaCity (well at an Astroturf football Pitch that’s located by Booths Car Park).
Me and my brother opted for the New Yorker antipasti to start and it was massive: ribs, wings, corn, nachos, loaded potato skins and crab cakes. It was nice, not particularly anything special, but there was more than enough for the 2 of us. My dad had garlic king prawns, however, which were a lot more refined!
For my main, I followed suit, and had the New Yorker chicken which was a big chicken breast with melted cheese on and a slice of very crispy prosciutto. Served with coleslaw, fries, rocket and BBQ sauce (the same sauce that had smothered the ribs and wings on the antipasti).
Again my main was nice, the chicken was cooked beautifully but it wasn’t anything that was going to set the world on fire. My brother however had a meat filled calzone which was both huge and awesome!
Last up I had ice cream — dark chocolate, vanilla and white chocolate with honeycomb. This was simply 3 scoops of ice cream but it was deliciously smooth and creamy, with all 3 being very flavoursome!
If you’re in MediaCity and looking for somewhere nice to have lunch or tea I would definitely recommend.