Category: Restaurants: casual-dining. Score 14.5/20 (Full breakdown below and score explained. Venues are compared with similar venues and measured against the best examples in their category.)
I’VE just been for a Brazilian in Chorlton. No need to cross your legs and wince sympathetically, there was no painful ripping of nether follicles, it was actually a pleasant experience enjoying the South American inspired food at De Nada opposite the leisure centre.
Feijoida is not an attractive dish; in fact it’s so ugly that even if it had a personal stylist, a digital filter and a giant sprig of parsley, Mario Testino could not make it look good. It’s bloody lovely though...
De Nada ExteriorDe Nada is about to enter its second year of trading but was brought to my attention only recently via Twitter with a number of local food lovers swooning in 140 characters or less.
Keeping up to date with Chorlton and Didsbury’s ‘trendy suburban neighbourhood café-bars’ is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge; by the time you’ve gone through each one in geographical sequence, you have to start over again because they’ve changed hands or new ones have opened.
From the outside De Nada doesn’t look that different from any of the others, in fact from the inside it doesn’t look that different either with its mismatched furniture, wooden floor, blackboards and fliers advertising local DJ nights.
What sets it apart is the menu. Owners Samantha and Nigel have travelled around South America extensively and wanted to provide a place for people to enjoy the genuine best of what they found there. They offer a small range of authentic homemade dishes, locally brewed craft ales, carefully chosen imported bottle beers, mostly grain based cocktails and a mid priced wine list created with the help of Hanging Ditch.
De Nada Looking Outside
It was half term but I was dubious about taking our kids to a bar until the website assured me that high chairs and nappy changing facilities are available. My kids are too old to need either, but obviously children are welcome. They also provide a small range of playing cards and games which helped our children transform into Connect 4 enthusiasts before our very eyes over lunch.
To start, or to munch through with drinks, are a number of small plates (£2.50-£6.50) including olives, bread with chimichurri for dipping, Serrano ham, Manchego cheese and other tapas.
For something more substantial there’s a whole range of empanadas (two for £4.25) The Portuguese spent centuries travelling overseas and their culinary influence stretches far and wide. Empanadas are miniature pastry parcels with assorted fillings; I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cornish pasty originated from a Portuguese merchant galley docked in Penzance.
De Nada Empanadas
De Nada offers around half a dozen types ranging from the vegetarian spinach and ricotta or humitas (sweetcorn and chilli) to the more hearty pulled pork or chicken and chorizo.
We chose three to represent the range – lamb and aubergine, shrimp and Serrano ham with cheddar (the children’s favourite.) We could see Nigel making them to order in the back so they arrived freshly baked and piping hot.
Main dishes include bean stews, sharing platters and hearty sandwiches but the thing that really encouraged me to visit was the feijoida (£6). This is a dirty great black bear of a beany ribsticking stew containing various porcine parts and spicy sausage (see main picture and below). It originates from Portugal but worked its hearty way through various South American colonies to become Brazil’s national dish.
Feijoida And Rice
There’d been some gentrified modifications as Chorltonites generally prefer beans to bones, so chef removes them once they’ve given up their marrow and imparted the best of their flavour. Feijoida is not an attractive dish; in fact it’s so ugly that even if it had a personal stylist, a digital filter and a giant sprig of parsley, Mario Testino could not make it look good. It’s bloody lovely though, warms the cockles and puts hairs on the hairs on your chest.
We also ordered the brilliantly named Lomito Completo (Argentinian steak sandwich £7.75), a baguette filled with lettuce, tomato, mustard, minute steak, sliced cheese and a fried egg. There’s absolutely no polite way to eat this, how you eat it is your problem, so just try your best and make sure you’re not on a first date.
Lomito Completo
It was pretty good and there was enough in it for us to intermittently throw bits into our children’s waiting beaks but better quality meat would have transformed it from just good to great.
We wanted to try the pancakes with dulce de leche for pudding but Nigel apologetically confessed he hadn’t prepared the batter yet. I’d much rather hear that than ‘our supplier hasn’t delivered them’ or ‘there’s none in the freezer’.
The kids happily settled for some (cheapo homogenised) ‘vanilla’ ice cream smothered in that addictive Argentinean warm toffee sauce (£3). The husband squeezed in another pint of Solstice Golden Ale from Radcliffe’s Brightside Brewing Company (£3.20) and I had an Americano (£2) which proved that as well as bikini waxing and Samba the South Americans really are also leaders when it comes to great coffee.
De Nada Ice Cream
‘De Nada’ translates as a kind of verbal shrug, the equivalent of ‘think nothing of it’, or ‘no problem’ but this café isn’t ‘nothing’, it actually really is something.
Follow Deanna Thomas on Twitter @DeannaThomas
De Nada, 127 Manchester Road, Chorlton, M21 9PG
Rating: 14.5/20 (please read the scoring system in the box below, venues are rated against the best examples of their kind)
Food:7/10 (Empanadas 8, lomito completo 6.5, feijoida 8, ice cream toffee 5)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 3.5/5
