COR BLIMEY, how about 2015 eh? Wasn’t that something? A year in which, according to a new report, the number of restaurant companies in the North West rose by 13% to over 4,600. Half of which (probably) serve tapas.
...if it doesn’t involve charcuterie and a ploughman’s we’ll eat our socks
So this is bit where we roll out our food ‘predictions’ for 2016. Fine…
Avocado-infused craft beer, cereal milk bisque and something that looks like kale but isn’t ‘sooo 2015’… seaweed? Yeah seaweed will do.
Oh and no tipping, because bar and restaurant staff earn enough bloody money. Just ask those sweaty, dogged plongeurs in the back, they’re rolling in it.
Right, shall we move onto the first new openings of 2016... what you thought we were done? Pah.
NEW OPENINGS
This month sees the opening of Busaba, a Thai chain founded in Soho in 1999 by Wagamama and Hakkasan entrepreneur Alan Yau OBE - the man who ‘taught the British to slurp noodles like the Japanese’. Busaba opens on the 18 January and will occupy the former Café Rouge site at the Printworks, next door to Wagamama and over the road from Tampopo in what nobody is now calling the ‘Noodle Quarter’.
While we’re on noodles, London’s favourite ‘elfy-eats chain, Itsu, plan to open in Spinningfields’ former Samsi unit by the end of January. The Asian-inspired outfit trades in sushi, salads, seeds and (knew it) seaweed.
ItsuFollowing the hype surrounding Japanese whisky in 2015, Steve Pilling and Mark Whyte, the canny operators behind Damson, Dockyard, Guilty By Association and Liquorice, have quietly gone about opening a new Japanese whiskey dive, Lost in Tokyo, on Northern Quarter’s Stevenson Square (beneath PLY).
Meanwhile, Manchester’s Marble Brewery have ‘dun a Common’ and scared off some of the hardcore beardy hopster contingent by welcoming new punters with a happy revamp of the Beer House at 57 Thomas Street. We hear there’s even plans for a ‘proper kitchen’. No sign of a menu just yet but if it doesn’t involve charcuterie and a ploughman’s we’ll eat our socks.
Lastly, the not-on-King-Street King Street Tavern has opened on the ground floor of the new not-on-King-Street boutique hotel, King Street Townhouse, on Booth Street. Now this is a proper hotel tavern with properly dark wood, red leather, white tablecloths, moules frites and an actual moustachioed French bloke knocking together the wets. Go now.
King Street TavernAND THOSE WE’VE LOST…
Manchester's consciously camp gluten-free tearooms, Tea 42 and MCR42, have called it a day, as has the Walkabout on Quay Street and popular street foodsters, Mumma Schnitzel, at The Kitchens in Leftbank… the closure of which has pissed off Gordo (a major Mumma fan) immensely. Every cloud...
STEAL A DEAL
If you haven't yet seen our exhaustive round-up of (probably) every January restaurant offer in Manchester, well, then, what is wrong with you? With 50% off at venues such as The Lawn Club, Quill, Tattu and Albert's Schloss, there's no excuse to stay in watching Emmerdale this January. Come on, get up, put your trousers on, we're going out... read here
FESTIVAL FEAST
And because you haven’t put away enough beer over the last few weeks, the CAMRA-organised Manchester Beer & Cider Festival returns for its third annual outing this month (Weds 20 – Sat 23 January), showcasing over 500 beers, ciders and perries within the cavernous surrounds of Manchester Central. There’ll be cask, draught, bottle and no doubt some ludicrously strong craft punk nonsense that tastes like pavement. Tickets range from £4-£6 unless you’re a CAMRA member. More here
Elsewhere, more than 30 breweries and 40 bars and pubs have signed up to take part in Manchester’s inaugural Beer Week from 10 to 19 June, while the team behind Manchester’s Gin Festival have announced the dates of their upcoming 2016 event. Showcasing over 100 different gins, MGF will take place from Fri 25 to Sun 27 March at Victoria Baths.
Victoria Baths
PEP TALK
More from Busaba now as the PR whip-starts behind the new Thai restaurant unveil bosses are to hold a permanent reservation for outgoing Bayern Munich manager, Pep Guardiola, as rampant speculation links the Catalonian - arguably the world's best football coach - with a move to either Manchester United or Manchester City (or Chelsea, or Arsenal, but never mind them) in the near future. According to the spiel, chefs are currently experimenting with a Thai Catalonian fusion dish 'only available to Guardiola himself', while servers are 'being asked to learn Catalan' in preparation. Why stop there? Let's have the bartenders form a welcoming castell while the kitchen porters dance a jolly sardana. Alternatively, get on with opening the restaurant you clowns.
BLACK GOLD
YES. Finally. After all that crap about bacon giving you cancer, caffeine increasing your risk of heart failure and eggs making your kids smoke, fans of a solid English fry-up can rejoice as the humble black pudding joins the likes of kale, pomegranates and seaweed (told ya) in the holy league of 'superfoods'. Daily Mail journo, Anucyai Victor writes: "Loaded with protein, potassium, calcium and magnesium, as well as being practically carb free, it is expected to fly off the shelves." Nice one Victor. Of course, black puds do contain oatmeal (nearly entirely carbs), a high level of fat and a fair helping of salt, but who's arguing? Not us. Ours is a robust, inky, ballsy Lancastrian black please...
Black Pudding - 'Superfood'POLPOH NO
So Polpo, Russell Norman’s painfully popular London-based Venetian cicchetti group, have announced they’re to open in Harvey Nichols Leeds next month, which almost definitely means their mooted move on Manchester will not go ahead. Bugger. It's yet another coup for Leeds, which taking into account their newly won Michelin star, the fantastic Friends of Ham and the too cool Belgrave Social, is becoming a little smug for our liking. Shame really, Manchester could use more 'small plates'.
Polpo picked Leeds over Manchester... up yours too
MUGGED
You may have read that a Confidential employee was mugged this week... by Starbucks. Galloping through Manchester Victoria Station to catch a train, our ravenous editor-at-large Jonathan Schofield dived into the coffee giant's outlet by the ticket barriers and ordered a sausage butty. “Do you want it hot or cold?” said the young man behind the counter. Erm sorry?
"I sat on the platform, opened the sandwich and laughed hysterically at the miserable workhouse food that glared back at me," said Schofield, "a small, flattened, taste-free, soggy bap without butter and two and half tiny ‘Lincolnshire’ sausages which resembled the wrinkled fingers of a corpse that’s been in the ground for six months." And how much was this little horror? THREE POUNDS FORTY-NINE.
Schofield missed his train.
The horror, the horror
ELL OF A YEAR
2015 was quite a year for 24-year-old Ella Woodward, who's debut cookbook, Deliciously Ella, became the fastest selling debut cookbook of all time off the back of her immensely popular clean eating blog, DeliciouslyElla.com. This month Ella's heading to the new Pier 8 restaurant at the Lowry Theatre in Salford Quays to impart her wisdom, take questions and flog her new book, Deliciously Ella Every Day. Tuesday 26 January, 7pm, more info here.
Ella WoodwardDISH OF THE WEEK
They call it 'Tagliatelle, Hazelnut, Basil, Tomoatoes, Parmesan'. Gordo calls it Taglitelle Pesto. Apart from an execution by chef Byron Moses every bit as sharp as Henry VIII’s favourite axe man, the addition of toasted hazelnut and roasted tomatoes is genius. Bangin'. Gordo
Evelyn’s Café Bar, Tib Street, M4 1NB.
Evelyn's Taglitelle Pesto
OH STOP IT...
Come, friendly bombs...
