The bakery will bring French toast, colourful croissants and more to the market hall
Rejoice pastry fans, there’s a new opportunity to get your mitts on your favourite bakery items with the arrival of Half Dozen Other at Mackie Mayor.
The bakery arm of Pot Kettle Black has set up shop at the Manchester food hall and will be serving its fantastic freshly-baked bread, sweet and savoury bakes, and pastries for the foreseeable future.
We can’t wait to contribute to Mackie Mayor and compliment the other vendors
The move comes as the bakery side of Pot Kettle Black looks set to expand from its city centre wholesale baking spot.
Bake it until you make it
“We’ve got a good relationship with a few of the guys at Mackie Mayor and they wanted someone to come in and offer something different.” Pot Kettle Black and Half Dozen Other co-founder Mark Flanagan says.
Half Dozen Other will replace Wolfstreet Coffee at Mackie Mayor, serving fresh pastries throughout the day along with milkshakes - flavours will change daily. The move comes as the bakery, which provides baked goods for both the Barton Arcade and Angel Gardens PKB coffee shop sites, looks set to expand into more customer-focused ventures.
“We want Half Dozen Other to have a bigger B2C presence going forward rather than just supplying wholesale business. It’s basically selling our bread, pastries and bakes at Mackie Mayor made fresh every morning and then we’re going to be doing some special stuff that’s unique to the city. We’re working on some cool stuff.”
Mark adds, intrigue and mystery very much floating in the air.
From scrums to yum yums
Ever since Pot Kettle Black launched its own in-house baking operation over three years ago, Mark says there’s always been an interest from him and his fellow former Rugby League star brother John Wilkin, in creating a high street bakery.
Mark cites a handful of bakeries in London doing high-end baked goods - the likes of Hummingbird, Gail’s and Hoxton Bakehouse - as inspiration. Mark insists they’ll have to see how Mackie Mayor goes first but the ambition is there.
“There’s quite a few cool operators that we see ourselves similar to but we don’t want to copy anyone. We want to do our own thing. I think we do as good a loaf of bread or pastry as anyone in Manchester but we also want to do something different.” He adds.
If you’re in the market for something different, consider Half Dozen Other’s wild mushroom croissant with a fried or poached egg on top with pickled mushrooms and hollandaise.
“That’s a banger,” Mark says.
Another savoury croissant option meanwhile, the chilli soy bacon, sits crispy bacon on top of a mustard cream cheese-filled croissant, topped with cornichons and dabs of black garlic ketchup with a chilli soy sauce.
Elsewhere on the menu, there are Frenchies (french toast) made with freshly-baked brioche. Rocky road and matcha are two of the more adventurous choices on offer. The latter packs yuzu lemon curd, white chocolate and match mascarpone, sesame brittle and miso caramel.
Although Half Dozen Other currently works out of a central production unit in town for its wholesale operation (due to working to almost full capacity, the team are looking for a new home), Mark says they’ll be aiming to do as much as they physically can from Mackie mayor depending on equipment, adding:
“We can’t wait to contribute to Mackie Mayor and compliment the other vendors.”
Half Dozen Other, Mackie Mayor, 1 Eagle St, Manchester M4 5BU
Read next: An insider's guide to eating and drinking on Deansgate
Read again: Pasta masters: twelve great places to eat pasta in Manchester
Get the latest news to your inbox
Get the latest food & drink news and exclusive offers by email by signing up to our mailing list. This is one of the ways that Confidentials remains free to our readers and by signing up you help support our high quality, impartial and knowledgable writers. Thank you!
