Frankie & Benny’s Christmas Menu Trafford Centre Manchester Review

Reviewed by Louise Totton

My family (my husband and I, and our 2 daughters, aged 6 and 3) always really look forward to eating at Frankie & Benny’s. Not only is the food right up our street – and there really is something for everyone, we’ve always found it incredibly child friendly and for some reason, has a real sense of occasion for the children.

We have, however, not eaten at the Frankie & Benny’s at the Trafford Centre before, so we were even more excited before we set off for our meal. Whilst the branch is the Trafford Centre branch, it isn’t actually located within the main building. Instead, it’s a standalone unit, located within the Orient car park.

Obviously the Trafford Centre is really well signposted from the M60, and the website had told us we’d find F&B’s within the Orient car park. We found it really quickly and got ourselves parked up and walked over to the building. We always find F&B’s really inviting and appealing from the outside, and this branch was no exception. It’s really nicely lit up, and there was music playing outside as we walked up the path.

We arrived and were greeted by a really friendly and efficient member of staff, Joanna, who found our booking and really made a fuss of our children. They were delighted with their balloons and little activity pack that they were given, and even more excited that we were shown to a booth rather than a ‘normal’ table and chairs.

I asked for the gluten free menu, which was brought over, along with their evening menu, festive menu and children’s menu. On this occasion, there were 5 of us, as my dad was joining us for our meal. Joanna took our drinks order, and was super patient with the children as they couldn’t decide what they wanted. She also asked if we’d like to stare with some garlic bread, and even brought the children plain bread and butter when they said they didn’t like garlic.

We then turned our attention to the huge menus in front of us. My husband was feeling rather festive, so he opted for ordering from the Christmas menu. He chose the 2 course option, choosing Frankie’s Festive Dinner (half a roast chicken with pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, rosemary roasted potatoes, mixed vegetables, and red wine gravy on the side), followed by a Red, White and Blue Sundae (Layers of strawberry and blueberry ice cream, crumbed shortbread biscuit, red berry and blueberry compote, topped with cream). My dad chose a sirloin steak, which he requested to be cooked as rare as possible. I was really impressed with the gluten free menu, there really is loads to choose from on there, I ordered the baby ribs with a jacket potato and coleslaw. The girls ordered pizza and chips and sausage and mash. Again, we were super impressed with outer waitress, as when my daughter expressed that she loved roast potatoes the best, her order was changed to sausage and roasties, which totally made Abigail’s day.

When our meals arrived, they were absolutely perfect, and cooked exactly as we’d asked. The roast dinner that my husband ordered was very generous in size, and he said it was all cooked really really well. The chicken was really moist and all the trimmings were delicious. My dad’s steak was cooked to perfection. It was one step away from blue, which is what he had asked for, and he said the meat tasted fantastic. It came with a generous portion of chips, mushrooms and crispy cooked onion rings. He was really delighted with his meal, much more so than he had expected to be as he admitted he’d always thought of F&B’s as a ‘plastic’ food chain.

My gluten free meal was also really good; I had a very generous portion of ribs that literally fell of the bone. This was served with a lovely pot of BBQ bourbon sauce, a really nicely cooked jacket potato, corn on the cob and coleslaw. There was plenty of food on the plate and it was all fantastically cooked and presented.

My three year-old’s pizza looked really appealing too. It prepared exactly how a pizza should be; crispy around the edges, but soft and gooey in the middle. She had it served with chips and salad, and polished off virtually all of it, pronouncing it ‘deeeelishus’.

My older daughter had her sausage with the promised roast potatoes and was also delighted with it. She is very much an eater of plain food, and did find the sausages a little herby for her palette. My husband tried them and said they were really good sausages, just not quite plain enough for our daughter. She did, however, eat about half of them, along with all of her roast potatoes and she said she’d really enjoyed her dinner.

If we thought that dinner was good, puddings were even better. Both my dad and husband opted for the red, white and blue. This comes really nicely presented in a tall sundae glass and is a lovely layered desert of vanilla and blueberry icecream, mixed berry compote and crumbled shortbread. They both polished off the lot, despite both claiming they really weren’t keen on sweet food.

There wasn’t a great deal of choice on the gluten free menu for puddings, but fortunately for me, one of the options really appealed. I had the most fantastic banana split, served with honeycomb icecream, chocolate icecream and toffee sauce. At one point, I had a mouthful and was convinced it contained biscuit. I queried this with our waiter who went straight off to the kitchen to check. They confirmed it was honeycomb (gluten free), and all was well. I was really impressed with their knowledge of gluten free food, as well as their willingness to check everything out for me.

We all had a superb meal, in a lovely environment. Every single member of staff we encountered was faultless and really helpful. Everyone went out of their way to make us and the children feel welcome and we simply have no complaints.

Thank you so much for a wonderful meal, Frankie and Benny’s. We will return!!

Wholeheartedly recommended!

Rating: 5/5

Frankie & Benny’s Christmas Menu cost £16.95 for 2 courses or £19.95 3 courses. To view the Christmas menu click here.

For more information or to make a booking visit:
www.frankieandbennys.com/restaurant/frankie-bennys-trafford-centre

Frankie & Benny’s, The Orient, Trafford Centre, Manchester, M17 8WW | 0161 747 1600