This month we embrace a fine bivalve, big-up the pastry chefs and rediscover the best chips in the North West
CLAMS & SOMETHING - Tapeo
No, clearly, that's not the proper name but it was on a blackboard and it was behind my head and the food was that good, so, you know, I just wasn't paying full attention. (Not as imprecise though as my son who just now reported that he's found a deep-fried Mars bar a hundred miles south of the border in Manchester-sans-Stars and loved it but couldn't place where. He said he'll find out for me.) This dish of clams was nigh perfect, shells open like an embrace, the flesh as plump as a fantasy, with best of all a stock so instantly fishy and saline, solid and herby, that it was almost a dish in its own right. It needed a spoon. Dunking sough dough helped too. The garlic content was eleven points out of ten, fried shards arranged over the clams like shells over a sandy beach. I'll remember the sheer Latin-ness of these clams and their salty soup for a while. Jonathan Schofield
209 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3NW
CEVICHE OF GILLARDEAU OYSTER - El Gato Negro
Of all the Spanish-inspired places in town this, newly garlanded with a Bib Gourmand, is the one that stretches the boundaries, understandably with a classically trained Yorkshireman at the helm. So it’s no surprise to see Simon Shaw pairing Gillardeau oysters from La Rochelle in France with the Japanese citrus yuzu. For his bespoke Manchester Food and Drink Festival banquet ‘España Moderna’, though, he took it one step further – with an oyster ceviche that replaced the yuzu with an even trendier condiment, kimchi oil, on a bed of avocado purée. A saline, pickled, superfood blast. I tackled Simon about the provenance of his kimchi. Bought in. So, in the spirit of Gangnam, I delivered him a dollop of my home-made stuff (‘delicious’ he texted) and some coarse Korean chilli flakes to make his own with. So, bivalves, watch this space. I may demand royalties. Neil Sowerby
15 King Street, Manchester, M4 4LY
SARDINE STARTER - Sugo
I was going to write about a burrata and caponata dish I enjoyed at Sugo this month, but apparently we include a Sugo mozzarella dish in our roundup almost every month. So instead, I’ve chosen the other starter, sardines – as long as it’s a given that burrata dishes at Sugo are exemplary.
Someone who knows what they’re doing had taken these small fish and painstakingly deboned them before stuffing them with a delicious paste of anchovies, toasted pine nuts, tomato paste, garlic and all that is good, rich and soulfully Mediterranean. They were served on a shredded fennel salad spiked with red chilli and sweetened with plump golden raisins, making sure, as usual, that no levels of taste or texture have been overlooked.
However, that was last month. Sugo’s monthly changing menu has now been turned over to warming autumnal dishes featuring things like pumpkin, figs, slow cooked pork and nuts. Unlucky. Deanna Thomas
22 Shaw's Rd, Altrincham WA14 1QU
MORCILLA - La Cantina
Despite it's hasty transformation from suburban restaurant bar to buzzing tapas joint (in a city increasingly stuffed full of diddy Spanish bites) La Cantina - a sister restaurant to Damson next door - appears to have hit the ground running. During a recent visit the morcilla was a real favourite. This blood sausage has a bit of a looser texture than black pudding, but retains all the meaty flavour with a little more spice like a haggis. If you are not a fan of the ‘nasty bits’ then that description with hardly sell it to you, but I promise you are missing out (besides, black pudding is apparently a superfood so if you are worried about clean eating, worry no more). Lucy Tomlinson
113 Heaton Moor Road, Stockport SK4 4HY
AFTERNOON TEA - Harvey Nichols
Kerrie, Harvey Nichols’ pastry chef is a hidden gem. For the past nine years she’s been modestly beavering away in the second floor kitchens, going into geeky levels of detail to make complex sweet things of perfection. I went along last week to try her new autumnal afternoon tea. Autumn is an annual highlight for the pastry section. Chefs are joyful to work with a bountiful harvest of orchard fruits, late berries and aromatic warming spices; cooking for a more receptive audience who have put their swimwear away for another year.
Among the afternoon treats that arrive, waiting to be discovered in compartments of a wooden stand, were macarons, a sticky toffee Battenburg, scones and a miniature lemon meringue tart. With signature levels of care and attention, the crisp pastry shell had been brushed with a layer of white chocolate before being re-baked with a lemon set cream. On top of this was a crisp disc of violet-hued French meringue and, for contrasting texture, a blackberry infused smidge of Italian meringue. The HN afternoon tea is available seven days a week from 12-5pm. I’ll see you there. Deanna Thomas
21 Cathedral Approach, Manchester M1 1AD
THIRD BURGER - Hawksmoor
Sorry Mancs, but at the risk of ‘doing a Giles Coren’ (by implying a London import is the only restaurant worth a shit in Manchester), I’m still yet to find a burger in the city that can top Hawksmoor’s, with its Ginger Pig-sourced ground beef, melty globules of bone marrow and raclette-like Ogleshield cheese. In addition to this and the Kimchi burger (which despite universal reverence I still can’t figure out), every few months chefs at the recently crowned MFDF 'Restaurant of the Year' put their clammy heads together and create a special seasonal burger, the 'Third Burger', which they trial with staff before offering to Peter Punter. Previous incarnations across the Hawksmoors have included a Filipino burger, an Umami burger and a fried whiting burger.
This month in Manchester it’s a fried chicken burger which I’m pretty sure, should the Big Man have seen fit to plonk a KFC in heaven, would taste something like a hign-end Zinger; crisp, salty and yes ever-so-slightly greasy chicken with beansprouts, shredded carrot, guac and a Srirachi mayo. Order with triple cooked fries and a dippy anchovy hollandaise for a near celestial experience. David Blake
184 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WB
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APPLE & BLACKBERRY CRUMBLE - River Restaurant, Lowry
Indonesian pastry chefs have not had a huge impact on the Manchester culinary scene, but the spring arrival of Ririn Biggs at The Lowry Hotel has been a sugar rush of talent, transforming the afternoon teas and impacting on the dessert offering at The River Restaurant. Even the humble crumble – Bramley apple and blackberry – has been elevated into a creation of rare beauty. I came to it on the back of a disappointing example elsewhere – a scattering of soggy crumbs over mushy apple, baked in a pastry case. Yuk. Here the Bramley slices were al dente and the ample crumble topping had a splintering crunch. Equally fragrant vanilla ice cream accompanied in a little side car of apple crisp. Neil Sowerby
River Restaurant, Lowry Hotel, Dearman’s Place, Chapel Wharf, M3 5LH
CHIPS – Linda’s Pantry
Although clichés should always be avoided like the plague, it’s hard to think of a more apt description for Linda’s than this, so here goes… it's a hidden gem. Diamond in the rough? Perhaps the Pearl of Back Piccadilly. Anyhow, this lovable greasy spoon on the corner of Ducie Street and Peak Street, just around the corner from that hidden gem of a boozer (ah bugger), The Jolly Angler, has been quietly going about its business, fuelling both hairy-arsed builders and hungover hipsters for almost three decades now. Quite an innings. And while tales of Linda’s Friday cheese & onion pie have been told, not many know that Linda also does the best chips in the North West; thick, twice-fried for extra crisp and as cheap as, well, chips. David Blake
23 Ducie St, Manchester M1 2JL
SAUSAGE ROLL - Tariff & Dale
Sausage rolls are becoming a thing for Gordo, just last month the Great North Pie sausage roll blew his skirts up at Altrincham Market, this month it’s one of the beauties at Northern Quarter’s Tariff and Dale.
No, we ain’t looking at 98% pork meat here folks. You need a good 15% (20% can be better) of high quality rusk, having been seasoned with white pepper, good cheap salt and a fresh herb or two. Then you can be assured that the meat, ground almost to a paste, presents well on cooking with the rusk taking up the fat to give a bang on silky mouth-feel (as some in the industry say).
Tariff and Dale is a relatively new gaff in the Northern Quarter, but a place that's really floated Gordo’s boat, both upstairs in the bar, and with the cracking restaurant downstairs. Try it. Include a sausage roll. They have pork n pistachio, black pudding, lamb n rosemary and mushroom & Lancashire Blue (for veggies).
Gordo had the black pudding sausage roll and nearly passed out with joy. It’s everything a sausage roll should be, made with pigs brought up on farms in Middle Earth, managed by Frodo and his pals. Great. Really Great. Gordo
2 Tariff St, Manchester M1 2FN
Hungry for more? Then why not work your way through our favourite dishes from September, August, July, June and May.
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