The team choose their favourite dishes from October
Another month, another round of dishes that held our taste buds to ransom. The Manchester Confidential team share their favourite dishes from October.
Tandoori butter chicken, Eastern Revive, Wilmslow (£13.90)
When a butter chicken is disappointing you just trudge on through with a sense of duty, and when it’s done well you’re trampling over one another to ensure you get your fair share. This, from Eastern Revive in Wilmslow, was definitely the latter. The chicken came in succulent smaller strips rather than the skewered ping pong ball-sized chunks which, while perfectly nice, don’t quite give enough room to the sauce, which is of course why we’re all here.
It was the best butter chicken I’d had in quite a while. I put this down to Eastern Revive not shying away from the flavour that makes this dish so much more than a creamier curry - the sweet, sharp note of almonds and raisins cutting through.
I had it on a recent trip to review the local favourite, at the head-spinningly early hour of 5pm on a Saturday, but I'd eat it any day, at any time.
David Adamson @davidadamson123
Carciofi Fritti or fried artichokes, aioli and salsa verde, Lina Stores, Kings Cross (£9)
Lina Stores is coming to Manchester in 2025. It will be sited in a totally anonymous office block opposite the Opera House on Quay Street. I was down in London over the last couple of days talking rubbish to people in one of the function rooms of the House of Lords. The following lunch I was in Kings Cross, perhaps the most impressive regeneration of any area in any European city. Passing Lina Stores I wondered what Manchester could expect.
The interior was generic sunny Italian but with details picked out in a weird pea green that was faintly nauseating.
The food was impressive though as were the staff. The fried artichokes were bloody amazing. Artichokes are great not just because they have a ridiculous name but because they are odd. Their taste is somewhere between a traditional salad and a parsnip. At their best they are lush and moist and these were at their best. Of course they are a right pain to prepare and time right but the effort can be more than worth it. These fried versions were genius, all crispy on the outside and then almost sweet in the centre with a gloriously rich delicacy. The aioli and salsa verde were both good too but I largely ignored them because the artichokes were exquisite.
When Lina Stores opens in Manchester I want these on the menu.
Jonathan Schofield @jonathschofield
‘Liverpool’ Cheese Rarebit, Barnacle, Duke Street Market (£9.95)
The ‘Liverpool’ cheese rarebit caught my eye on a recent trip to Barnacle so I ordered a portion of that. Cheddar cheese rarebit served on sourdough toast with pickled stout syrup, served as four hefty pieces for just under a tenner, and well worth it in my eyes.
The cheddar was evenly melted, coating every inch of the sourdough and lightly scorched on top for that umami flavour. The pickled onions and shallots sat pretty as a picture, ready to add a bit more pizazz with every bite. Screw homemade cheese on toast - this is the real deal.
Read the full review here.
Harley Young @Harley__Young
XL Orkney scallop, KAJI by MUSU (£16)
You know that meal you had somewhere in the world, in that fantastic restaurant with that superb food that made your brain tingle with pleasure? The one where you kept saying if only we had one like this back in Manchester...
Mine was a Japanese barbecue restaurant in Hong Kong, a Michelin starred gaff called Robatayaka where I took my pal, Nurez Khamani, to lunch to thank him for making me take a much needed break and traipse languidly across Asia for a week or three.
The cooking style derives from the Japanese fishing villages, where they used to set up barbecue pits and grill their catch on the beach for lunch, 'kasana o kusuguru' or "tickling the fish" on bamboo skewers by teasing them over grey-hot wood embers, the smoke giving subtle flavour. Pots of oil, dangerously hot, would be used to produce tempura and small strips of wagyu hind quarter beef of various cuts were brought down by the farmers to cook over the embers, eager to join in the lunch.
Robatayake was (and still is) genius.
And the great thing? A genuine robata restaurant has been delivered here, by the MUSU boys.
It's KAJI by MUSU.
And believe me, it's every bit as good as my dream gaff in the Hung Hom district in Hong Kong.
Demonstrated by a hand dived Orkney scallop, fat as a pot of marmite, tickle-roasted and finished on one side atop a near-400kg bespoke-built grill, it was licked by a flame, kissed by the smoke of apple wood embers, and drizzled with a spoonful of sea urchin and espelette pepper butter. A squeeze of citrus puts the final tickle on one of the best scallop dishes I’ve ever had.
It was 10/10. It was £16. It was a trip.
Mark Garner @gordomanchester
Osso Buco alla Milanese, Louis', Spinningfields (£65)
In Vegas you can order an Osso Buco ‘My Way’. At a restaurant called Sinatra, naturally, inside the Encore hotel. Exec chef Theo Schoenegger used to cook dinner parties for Ol’ Blue Eyes after being introduced by one Luciano Pavarotti. That was back in the day in the Big Apple and Osso Buco alla Milanese was one of Sinatra’s favourite dishes. Good to see this elevation of the veal shank on the menu at Louis, Manchester’s own homage to a colourful New York past where guys dined dolls after Manhattans on the rocks.
Enough theme park concept with a vintage soundtrack to match. The food and cocktails are genuinely swell at Louis, as you’d expect from the team that brought the city Fenix and, before that, Tattu. Still the osso buco is a signature dish making a different kind of statement. It arrives at table like a fortress of on-the-bone long-braised flesh in a vivid moat of saffron risotto. Indeed, in Milan dialect, the dish translates as ‘bone with a hole’. In the slow braising the marrow seeps into the casserole aromatics. Think mirepoix, tomato, lemon, white wine, herbs. Combined with the risotto, where they haven’t spared the Parmesan, it lives up to its reputation for being over-the-top. I would have liked a more generous sprinkling of gremolata to mitigate the richness. When it arrives there’s enough to feed a whole ‘Rat Pack’. It’s sawed from the middle of the hind shank, which yields more attached tender meat.
I’d recommend the dish for sharing but, in the interests of research, tackle it solo. Disappointingly they wouldn’t let me take the bone and trimmings home as a doggie bag (yes, I would have shared it with our family hounds). Another Louis rule, to protect the privacy of the celeb mob it hopes to attract – they don’t allow photography, even from mobiles. So, on the plus side you are spared my own ‘soft focus’ attempts to capture this most satisfying of Italian-American classics. Nor will you ever know who I spotted in a ‘steamy clinch’ with a Dean Martin lookalike.
Neil Sowerby @AntonEgoManc
Panko coated chicken kiev with creamed mash potato, The Con Club, Altrincham (£18)
Before we start, trying to capture a plate of food under a multitude of disco balls is just a disaster, so don’t let the purple disco twinge in the photograph put you off.
Surrounded by disco balls, I felt nostalgic, and I needed a retro dish to satisfy this feeling so this dish hit the spot – yes it did deserve to be served in a cosy county pub but what the heck, anything goes at the Con Club.
This panko coated chicken kiev with creamed mash potato is a comforting twist on a classic. The chicken is coated in crispy panko breadcrumbs, giving it a satisfying crunch, while the inside is filled with a garlic butter that melts over the smooth, buttery mash below. The dish is topped with fresh herbs, adding a bit of colour and flavour. It’s simple, hearty, and perfect for when you're in the mood for familiar, comforting food with a hint of nostalgia.
Georgina Harrington Hague @georginahague
Scallops in port and butter, Hawksmoor, Deansgate (£20)
I understand why some people hate scallops.
I really do and - as someone who has been told they're incredibly simple to cook - I'm more aware than most that there's plenty of room for error.
So, when I spotted Scallops in Port and Butter on the menu at Hawksmoor I had to try them. Smothered in zingy garlic butter and white port, these are the perfect texture and browned to perfection. I've had these on my past two visits to Hawksmoor and there's something so moreish about them.
Charley Moore
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