Adam Reid at The French

Adam Reid at The French is a tasting-menu restaurant in the Midland Hotel on Peter Street, Manchester. Its chef-patron is Adam Reid, a winner of the BBC's Great British Menu.

The French was among the first restaurants in Britain to hold a Michelin star, in the guide's first edition, and the Beatles were once turned away from it for their clothes. The room reopened in March 2013 under Simon Rogan, with Reid as head chef, and won the Good Food Guide's award for the best new entry in its first year. When Rogan's contract with the hotel ended in the autumn of 2016, Reid stayed on, took over the business and relaunched the restaurant under his own name after a short closure.

Reid cooks for a Belle Époque room with grand chandeliers and deep blue walls, listed along with the rest of the hotel, and a refurbishment brought new lighting, wall art and a chef's counter of seven stools. Chefs bring dishes to the table and finish them there, and the menu runs in sections with names such as A Warm Northern Welcome and Today's Tea. The Good Food Guide rates the restaurant exceptional, the only one in Manchester with that grade, and it holds four AA Rosettes.

Reid's cooking builds intricate dishes out of simple parts. His Golden Empire, the dessert that won Great British Menu, is a golden apple of blown sugar over meadowsweet custard and hazelnut crumble. Other dishes have included seared scallop with trout roe and a roasted onion broth, salt-aged duck with beetroot and pickled elderberries, a Lancashire cheese and onion pie with lovage and eel, and smoked eel macaroni with hazelnut and chicory. Dishes like the cheese and onion pie take the food of northern England into one of the grandest rooms in the city.