This quietly brilliant restaurant on the fringes of Manchester’s bustling Chinatown has undergone a transformation of late. Gone is the neon-strip frontage, replaced by a more tasteful black-and-white sign – an ethos that’s hammered home by the restaurant’s slogan, ‘we are all about the food and less of the gimmick’. As ever, the backbone of teppanyaki cooking is the chef, who uses an iron griddle in front of diners to prepare each dish. While similar restaurants ramp up the theatrics, here it’s less about the performance and more of an opportunity to watch the skilled team up close and personal, working with beautifully high-quality ingredients. We’d single out the scallops cooked in buttery soy, the mouth-watering chicken kushiyaki and the darkly caramelised beef ozuyaki – not to mention their wonderfully subtle homemade wasabi sauce. Teppanyaki’s out-of-the-way location ensures that the atmosphere is vibrant rather than raucous, while charming staff make for a wonderfully relaxed experience.