Confessions of a Wino

Just popped out to the local…..sort of.

Monday night is not the best night out ever in Manchester.  Even Cloud 23 is half shut and cordoned off.  Worse still, the bit cordoned off is the bit where you can do a jig and a reel on a glass “porthole” looking straight down 23 floors to Deansgate…if you dare (and I did, but only after a cocktail).

Cloud 23 is unsurprisingly on the 23rd floor of the Hilton Hotel in Manchester which is part of the rather impressive Beetham Tower.  This building is apparently the tallest residential building in Europe and was designed by Ian Simpson.  Mr Simpson (to me) designed some of the most impressive modern buildings in Manchester and is moving from his slum in the penthouse of No 1 Deansgate, to the massive (and I mean massive) top floor of the Beetham Tower.

I know his place is massive, not because I have been there, but because the floorplate is the same as Cloud 23.  I reckon he has room for an 18 hole pitch and putt course up there.  Like Cloud 23, his apartment is also two stories tall.  However, the big difference is the view.  From Cloud 23 you can only see the Pennines, Manchester Airport, Blackpool Tower and Leeds Town Hall.  Whereas from Mr Simpson’s 47th floor lookout, I hear that views of the Eiffel Tower, the hanging gardens of Babylon, Brooklyn Bridge and Sydney Opera House are visible on a crystal clear day.

Anyway Cloud 23 was OK but the wine prices were astronomical.  I have encountered Sancerre Les Collinettes before but never ‘oop North at £36.

However, slagging off Cloud 23 for expensive wine prices is beside the point.  Nobody in their right mind goes there to drink wine when you can get a magnificent Cosmopolitan (and other great cocktails) for about £7.50.  This price is only OK because you get served by an über cool waiter/waitress and you can stare at some of the richest (I guess) people in the North.  Isn’t it strange how genuinely rich people are normally completely genuine and yet partly and newly rich people are generally arseholes?

So do I recommend Cloud 23?  Yes but only if you book, so you can get a reserved window seat.  Oh and make sure you go to the toilet.  In the gents you can take a piss looking out over the Bridgewater Hall (really!) and in the Ladies (apparently) you can wash your hands with the same view.  Nice…

Do I recommend dancing on the porthole?  Er you need some bottle – seriously!  But from the Editor of Confessions Of A Wino you would expect me to have plenty!

Cloud 23, Hilton Hotel, Beetham Tower, 303 Deansgate, Manchester.  M3 4LQ.  +44 (0) 161 870 1750.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under bars and pubs, rip off restaurant mark-ups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.