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THERE are some meals that you'd like to remember all your life.

Meals so good, they stop even me pulling my usual trick of spending the first half of a review making witty comments about the clientele and actually concentrate on the food.

And yes, The River Restaurant at the Lowry Hotel is the place to have one of those meals.

In fact, just reeling off the menu would be enough to have most gastronomes drooling in delight.

To start, I had oyster ravioli with leeks and smoked bacon foam (£9.50). It's not often you actually taste oyster in anything other than Chinese cooking, as the lasting idea I've always had of them is something to be consumed quickly, generally under the most debauched circumstances possible.

In circumstances where you are actually at leisure to enjoy the taste and texture instead, the oyster was less salty than I remembered, fleshy and satisfying.

My partner had egg cocotte with asparagus and wild mushroom cream (£8), a perfectly cooked egg submerged in a glass of light-as-air fluff.

The starter menu, which also included ceviche of scallops (£10.50), tuna sashimi (£11.50) and slow cooked foie gras (£12) served to heighten our excitement about the mains, where despite an excellent selection of fish, including swordfish, sole, sea bass and lobster, we both plumped for a red meat option - Cheshire beef fillet with garlic snails and horseradish mash (£25) for me and a 16oz T-bone with crispy Spanish onions (£30) for him.

Unlike supermarket beef, proper meat tastes of . . . well, meat. It makes you realise what you've been missing. Yes, there's something a bit gory about it, especially when you have yours rare as we both do, but it's still immensely satisfying to tuck into a piece of fillet that doesn't appear to have been conjured out of thin air using entirely synthetic ingredients.

There was a tiny, tiny disappointment over dessert when my creme brulee (£7.50) didn't come in a pot - cracking the lid is one of my favourite things - but the spicy vanilla-ness more than made up for it, as did my pirated bites of the cheese board (£9.50), which came with a charming explanation about each variety from the French waitress.

A word, too, about the staff who seemed to magically appear every time a napkin needed re-folding, a chair pulling or a glass topping and then - like the Scarlet Pimpernel - magically disappeared.

The wine was not only excellent, but also Fair Trade, the decor (although it has been criticised elsewhere for resembling a hotel too much - doh) soothing, and luxurious without being ostentatious. All-round, rather fabulous.

The River Restaurant, The Lowry Hotel, 50 Dearmans Place, Chapel Wharf, Manchester. Tel: 0161 827 4000. Food: ***** Service: ***** Surroundings: *****

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