The Rose Garden

A sensational place to eat… finest ingredients. …unique dishes… beautifully presented and prepared.
Love how there’s always something different on their seasonal menus… I love rabbit and look forward to trying it out!

This is my favourite restaurant to go and treat myself to a lovely dinner, especially because the menu changes regularly so it’s always exciting to anticipate what they will serve up! The décor is minimal and modern and spacious — better now they have made an extension upstairs. The staff are always polite and friendly and seem to care about the food and wine they serve. I’ve been here many times and always recommend it to people looking for a special meal, even if they don’t have lots to spend — because the Rose Garden has an early bird menu with a selection of the a la carte menu on offer. We’ve also been here a couple of times for Christmas dinner parties and the service remains excellent during these busy group parties. The dishes are always presented to a professional standard on fancy plates. They are sometimes quite generous for modern cuisine too. The wines are always tasty — some of which you could pop down to Reserve up the road to buy too. I would definitely book as it’s quite popular, especially during early-​bird hours.

This restaurant is amazing. I took my boyfriend for his birthday and the meal was worth every penny. I’m not sure if it’s still on the menu but their Kentucky fried chicken dish was so yummy. They also have a really good mid week deal I think it’s £20 (or something similar) for a ²⁄₃ courses! For the quality of the food it’s a real bargain. Definitely putting this place on the list of restaurants to visit again.

This is a lovely restaurant the décor is really modern it’s really clean, the staff are very friendly and can’t do enough for you. I have been twice once with my parents and once with my partners parents both are dads are very fussy eaters but they loved everything. We had the set three course meal for £20.95 on both occasions and it’s fantastic well presented and tasted as good as it looked. Would highly recommend visiting but make sure you book as it gets full quick as the place is not very big.

The Rose Garden in Didsbury is an excellent restaurant when you don’t want all of the hustle and bustle of the city centre restaurants. It is located on Burton Road in Didsbury. From the outside you get the feel of this place — minimal but classy.
We were seated on a nice table in the window which was good to watch the world go by. The wine list isn’t the largest but sufficient. Same goes for the beers — no draft just a choice of a few different bottles, about 3 I think. I ordered an ‘organic’ lager which was ok but quite expensive at £4.50 IMO for an average sized bottle.
We were dining on the 3 course set menu (available Sunday — Friday (’till 7 on Thursday and Friday)). This is very good value for what you get. The presentation is exceptional and the quality is up there.
Overall a very enjoyable meal with excellent staff — even the coffee was good. They get there beans from Coffee Circle and the espresso I had was very nice which was a nice change from the usual crap you get after a meal!
If you’re after a relaxing informal meal with that little bit extra then take a trip to the Rose garden, Didsbury.

Still one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten in. They have a cheaper menu if you go in before 7pm.

Fantastic restaurant in West Didsbury. The two — and three course menu (£21 and £24, respectively) are a great deal. Except a few dishes, the menu for the set meal is the same as the normal menu, and the portions are the same size also. I always find it super hard to choose from the menu as everything sounds delicious. Me and my friend both had the parsnip timbale for starters which was great, but we agreed that it was topped by the fish of the day we had for main (red mullet and prawns on the pea risotto). This was one of the best risottos I have ever eaten and the fish was cooked perfectly. I opted for the mince pie with cranberry ice-​cream for dessert, which was a great finish to this fantastic meal. My boyfriend had the mussels for starters and he is still taking about how delicious they and the bisque that they came in were. The beef (Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding) was okay according to him, but he really enjoyed the panettone pudding with mince pie ice-​cream he had for dessert. They also have a good wine selection and we were very happy with the cabernet sauvignon from Chile we had. The staff was very friendly too and although the restaurant was full, we never had to wait long for our food.

I went here for the second of my birthday meals out. (Yes, I’m spoilt, and I love it.)
From the outside it looks bright and inviting. Inside it’s even brighter, and very modern and clean with trendy touches.
We were well looked after by the charming staff and within a few minutes we were furnished with water, bread, and olives.
We ordered two courses each from the set menu. I had pea and mint soup with pancetta which I loved. Fresh and creamy at the same time with little slivers of salty, chewy pancetta. For a main I had smoked sea trout. The fish seemed to excellent quality and was delicious. I really enjoyed it but the whole dish was a bit over facing, with trout, potato cake and chowder. Rich opted for the summer BBQ (chicken wing, spare rib, and a mini cheeseburger) and lemon & thyme chicken.
This was a really great meal and felt like it was well worth the money on the set menu (which is available pretty much every day except Saturday). I think the menu is seasonal so I’ll keep my eye on it and hope to head back soon.

Food:
We dined on the Monday set menu, which is a good value offer.
Starter: I had the goats cheese and mint salad, It was nice although the cheese did not have much flavour, I was looking for that goats cheese tzing and it did not deliver, still the salad was nice.
For mains I had the trout, it was absolutely fantastic, I rate a restaurant on the quality of the seafood offering and this was the best trout fillet I’ve sampled in the UK! The Rose Garden definitely sources great fresh produce.
We could not help but order dessert, and I went for the choc cherry mouse cake which was divine, so full on flavour I had to leave a little, and for a sweet tooth like me this means I was really satisfied.
Overall the food is great and this set menu was fantastic value
Service: Great waitress, very attentive, lovely manner, and I was impressed she spoke with the manager to check on a few things to ensure the correct info was provided. Scottish Guy waiter/​manager was great handling our party of 9 people too. Overall great service
Aesthetics: Bit bland for my taste. They’ve gone for über modern, but for me the table/​chairs/​décor felt rather bland and plastic. On the plus side the tableware, cutlery and cotton napkins met my approval. Fresh stem roses adorned the tables, lovely feature. I feel they could do more to make it über modern magazine cover in terms of décor if thats what they are aiming at.
Location: Great easy commute on the tram, too busy an area for parking so try to public commute on the tram for less stress.
Overall: Great tasty dinner, great service, food presented beautifully. I will definitely be looking to return soon. Ooh forgot to mention I’m not a drinker, but they seemed to have an interesting drinks menu, with great liqueur coffees, and cocktails, etc. My friend had the best latte ever, and some of the girls had fruit infused prosecco’s which looked lovely

Nice atmosphere and relaxing feel. A friend and I ate here on Saturday night. She ordered the stake (£22.50) and thought it was great. I ordered the fish & chips (£19.95) and was hungry. It was very tasty but needed a side of chips (!) or a trip to the take away afterwards.
Great service, but very pricey for what I got. If budget is no issue come and enjoy with lots of sides, starters and desserts. Or come when they’ve their midweek early bird offer (three courses for £19.95).

Great food with imaginative ideas, but not much food for your money.

The Rose Garden opened in 2011 in the place of Sous: Chef Manchester (a shop that sold «posh» ready meals — very tasty but sadly not very popular) and has already been shortlisted for Best Newcomer in 2011 and Best Restaurant in 2012 in the Manchester Food and Drink Awards, achieved Number 1 Restaurant in Manchester on Trip Advisor and has been reviewed in The Guardian.
As I live in West Didsbury I’ve been 5 or 6 times over the last year and have only ever had a couple of plates of food that fell below ⁷⁄₁₀ (which included a chocolate dome so thick hammering the base of my spoon into it only just broke it… sadly whilst it broke the chocolate dome flew off my table, hit me and fell onto the floor!
The décor, from the outside, is minimalist and bright white, however it’s much more cosy when you’re inside and when full there’s a good atmosphere (if not a bit too noisy, which is impressive given it only seats c20 people at once)
Price wise it’s as you’d expect for a good restaurant with starters around the £6 to £7 mark, mains between £15 and £20 and desserts at £6.50 so a meal for two with wine and coffee comes in at around £100. However if you go on a Sunday to Tuesday at any time (or before 7pm on Weds to Fri) you can eat there much cheaper on their Set Menu (which is usually 3 or 4 items for each course off their normal menu) at 2 courses for £14.95 and 3 courses for £16.95 (with occasional small supplements depending on what you choose). In fact the 3 courses for £16.95 is pretty much the equivalent of «pay for your main and get your starter and dessert free». A good indication of the value of this deal and how popular it is that when I started going you could walk in on a Monday evening and have your pick of tables and now you have to book on a Monday to get a table!
So as to the meal I was there on a weekday night for the set menu so had 4 starters, 6 mains and 4 desserts to choose from. The starter was a very easy choice given my irrational hatred of mushrooms (ruling out Leek and Wild Mushroom Soup), eggs (ruling our Mackerel Kedgeree) and eating food with my hands (ruling our Lavender chicken wings) so this left me with Spring Veg Tortelloni — this was watercress, broad bean and cream cheese tortelloni in a spring veg consommé with caper butter. This is a definite example of something I would never normally order but was glad I did — very delicate flavours of summer (the meal was late summer /​early autumn). If only all healthy food was this tasty (although admittedly it wasn’t hugely filling) 7.5÷10
The main course was the trickiest choice with a few things catching my eye such as tea smoked duck, The Rose Garden Shephers Pie (made with lamb shank instead of mince) and Shetland Halibut. In the end I chose something I didn’t remember having before (which came with a £2 supplement) — Two-​way Guinea Fowl — redcurrant glazed breast, confit leg, celeariac fondant, savoy cabbage, bacon and redcurrant reduction. The photo doesn’t do this course justice as the reduction looks way too thin and watery (which it wasn’t). All the elements of this dish came together, which it really should have given the classic combinations used (redcurrant and game (although guinea fowl is no longer a game bird apparently)) along with cabbage and bacon. The parmesan crisp on text was a nice texture addition. This was definitely the best plate of food I’ve had at The Rose Garden so I hope it makes a return to the menu soon! ⁹⁄₁₀
And so to dessert — there was only ever one choice, which at first glance goes against my «irrational hatred» that I mentioned earlier. Dessert was «Egg and Soldiers» — a duck egg crème brulee with strawberry jam yolk and shortbread soldiers. I won’t say much about this as I think the photo speaks for itself but making the brulee from a duck egg made it much thicker than a normal brulee — for want of a better phrase it seemed a «more luxurious» version of a crème brulee. Was it as good as it looked? Probably not quite — ⁸⁄₁₀.

The Rose Garden is a small restaurant (around 30 covers) on the «food mile» of Burton Road. They serve modern British food, and do it very well indeed.
The décor is plastic white, and I’m not entirely sure it’s the right feel for a restaurant — it looks more like a yoghurt bar — but it doesn’t prove to be a real problem.
We started with some decent bread, dipping it into some decent oil and a sweet balsamic. My starter was mushroom spinach pasta in a consommé. This had a lovely flavour, the pasta in particular was very good, although I would have expected more than just three pieces. Having said that, I wasn’t left hungry at the end of the meal.
My companion’s starter, wood pigeon wellington was cooked perfectly, with the pigeon still nicely pink inside the pastry — no mean feat. It came with a nice rhubarb chutney.
My main consisted of an excellet fillet of beef alongside what amounted to a rosti of slow-​cooked beef shin and onions. Both showcased the different ways beef can please the diner. The accompyaning tomatoes were also delicious. I ordered a side dish of chips, were very good, though perhaps unusually they came unseasoned, so I needed to salt them myself.
I chose the cheeseboard to finish. This was sizable, but had a couple of minor problems. All four cheese were strong, and whilst I’m a big fan of cheese that pack a punch, it would have been nice to have at least one more subtle cheese. There was some dressed watercress on the board, but no easy way to eat it. It would have been nice to have a biscuit or two as well as the crackers supplied. The port recommended me by the waitress was very good.
My companion’s lemon posset was very, very good.
Service throughout came across as relaxed without being over-​friendly and was pitched just right.
A newcomer it might be, but this is unquestionably one of the best places to eat in an area that is not short on options.