AN INSPECTOR CALLS

His mission: To test hotel hospitality to the limit

YOU used to take your life in your hands walking around here,’ says one of the managers at t he Abode Hotel i n Manchester. Which is surprising given that it’s only a short hop from Manchester Piccadilly station.

‘What, recently?’ ‘No, a hundred years ago,’ he says.

Go back another 100 years and this building — now Grade 2 l i sted ( mainly because it was one of the f i rst to have a central elevator installed) — was a factory outlet belonging to a textiles baron.

Today, with its huge castiron pillars and high ceilings, it’s an evocative place to stay, despite the best efforts of the Abode chain to introduce modern touches that at times seem out of keeping with its heritage.

But f ull marks to the modern touches on reception, where a bubbly woman offers an upgrade at no extra cost, then lends me her phone charger because I’ve forgotten mine.

I’m on a package, which works out at £109 for B&B, plus a two-course dinner. That’s cheaper than the Malmaison across the road, which, like Abode, trades on its breezy, funky vibe.

My fourth-floor room has a parquet floor, low-slung bed and wallpaper showing several piles of books.

There’s some Yoko Ono art in the corridors, plus rock posters, including one of Jimi Hendrix’s from 1968. But it’s not a rock ’n’ roll hotel. Certainly there’s little in the way of excess in the bar and grill. My smoked salmon starter is so tiny it’s gone in a couple of mouthfuls.

The fish that follows isn’t much bigger. I have to order a side dish of broccoli. A waitress asks if I want black pepper. ‘Yes, please.’ But it never arrives.

And I could do without, ‘everything OK with your meal?’ asked by a man who turns on his heels before I offer a half-hearted ‘fine’.

Everything’s no more than fine next morning when my soft-boiled eggs arrive hard and the hot milk is tepid. It’s all a bit hit and miss, a work in progress. But good value.