WELCOME, welcome, please, gather round and listen in to Manchester's only bi-monthly food and drink digest (ok it's been a month, sorry).
Northern Quarter tea and cake peddlers Teacup are reportedly set to takeover Manchester Museum's joyless Cafe Muse
It probably hasn't escaped your attention that Manchester's food and drink scene is humming, so much so, someone suggested this week that the number of new restaurants in Manchester this year (roughly 60) might be some kind of record.
So we looked into. According to Hot Dinners around 240 new restaurants opened in London in 2014, per capita that's one new restaurant for every 36,000 citizens. In Manchester this year it'll be roughly one new restaurant per 45,000 citizens. So not quite, but we've had a fair crack.
Anyway, less about the sums, more about the gums.
Here we go...
FIRST THE COMINGS...
It's been over a year in the offing, but the much-hyped Asha's Indian Restaurant will finally launch on Peter Street on Thursday 17 September. The 100-cover, two floor bar/restaurant - owned by the prolific UAE restaurant group ARIL - has cost somewhere in the region of £2m and by all accounts is more lavish than a BungaBunga round Liberace's. Asha's is inspired by veteran Bollywood superstar Asha Bhosle (below) - the most recorded artist in music history with around 12,000 songs to her name. Meaning Bholse has recorded around 150 songs a year since the day she was born. Her early stuff must have been crap...
Most assumed Sleuth was pulling a fast one last month when he announced Italian TV chef, Gino 'Ay Where's-a My-a Pants' D'Acampo, was planning to open a new restaurant in Manchester's £30m Corn Exchange redevelopment. Turns out Sleuth's intel was legit. Gennaro 'Sheffield' D'Acampo (yes, really) has teamed up with Individual Restaurants (RBG, Piccolino) founder Steven Walker to launch 'Gino D'Acampo - My Restaurant'; a 250-cover restaurant and cicchetti bar later this year.
Bollywood superstar Asha Bhosle (right)While we're on the Corn Exchange, London-based Vietnamese noodle soup chain Pho opens fully to the public this week opposite Manchester Cathedral. Pho's menu revolves around pho (pronounced fuh), a piping-hot, aromatic noodle broth considered to be Vietnam's national dish. It's one of a dozen restaurants opening in the rejuvenated Grade II-listed building between now and 2016. Cosy Club, Pizza Express and Zizzi have also launched, but the less said about those...
Big news last month as Revolution Bar founders Roy Ellis and Neil Macleod announced they'd acquired a 50% stake in Manchester bar group Trof (Gorilla, Trof, Deaf Institute) and formed 'Mission Mars'. According to the blurb, Mission Mars will launch 'the best entertainment venues and bars in the world', starting with Albert's Schloss - a £3.5m 'Bohemian Pleasure Palace' serving Pilsner and pretzels in Peter Street's beautiful Grade II-listed Albert Hall. £3.5m? Wow. Let's hope they don't make a schloss... More here
Albert's SchlossAncoats food and drink renaissance continues apace with the announcement that new 'neighbourhood restaurant', the Cutting Room, will open on Ancoat's Cutting Room Square in the former Koffee Lock unit this September. Cutting Room is a new project by young friends Adam Regan and Sophie Jarvis - the same pair behind the Goose Fat & Wild Garlic restaurant opening over the square in a few months time. Two new restaurants. One public square. Stick all those eggs in this basket would ya? More here
Steve Pilling, the prolific greengrocer-turned-restaurateur behind Damson, Dockyard and Northern Quarter's Guilty By Association looks set to open a new place alongside business partner Mark Whyte next door to GBA on Stevenson Square. "We've been to Japan and drank a lot of whiskey," says Pilling. Japanese whiskey bar, Steve?
Argentian beef outfit CAU - the new, younger and slightly cheaper cousin of the Gaucho chain - plan to open at 700 Wilmslow Road in Didsbury Village in September following the success of the Wilmslow branch which opened in March 2015. You can read our review of CAU Wilmslow here.
CauOne of Manchester's finest restaurants, 63 Degrees, has moved from its noisy surrounds on Church Street and reopened on Northern Quarter's High Street, in the much more comfortable former Market Street Restaurant. 63 Degrees comes from a bunch of Parisians by the name of Moreau and is one of the only properly French places in Manchester. Well worth a visit - see here
MCR 42, the latest venue from the blokes behind Northern Quarter's campiest, cakeiest gluten-free teashop, Tea 42, has opened in The Village within the former Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill. Expect chintz, white leather and pinky wall shadow cut-outs reminiscent of old school Indian restaurants called something like Amritsar Palace.
Northern Quarter beer merchants Beermoth are planning to open a new 'modern, Belgian style, beer cafe' on Brown Street - opposite the Post Office. The design statement reads: 'Our aim is to provide a comfortable, relaxed space to enjoy a carefully curated selection of beer and coffee'. Beer? Coffee? That'll never work.
Meanwhile, the folk behind MediaCity darlings Love Conquers All and Penelope's Kitchen have expanded their operation in the North West's broadcasting heartland with Penelope's Deli in the ground floor of The Studio. Take a look @PenelopesMCR
63 Degrees, High StreetNOW THE GOINGS...
Looks like Spinningfields BBQ outfit, Southern Eleven, have packed up and left. According to a post on social media, the restaurant was 'closing for the next few weeks due to an extraction upgrade'. However, there's been no sign of life for weeks; no tradesmen, no staff, zilch. Even the Christmas trees outside have copped it. Shame this... now will we get our ribs, wings and burgers? Well, anywhere really.
First it was Lucha Libre to go in Great Northern Square, now pour-your-own-beer establishment Taps has called it a day. But worry not (not that you were), the bar will be replaced by a new beer gaff called No1 Watson Street... guess the address?
Sad news as one of Northern Quarter's best brunch and Sunday lunch spots, and one of the coolest dining rooms in the city, Superstore, looks set to close before the year is through. Sax and Haz Arshad, the brother team behind Rusholme's insanely popular Mughli Indian street food place, have taken over the reins and plan to launch a new restaurant with everywhere-chef David Gale.
Oh and the Ducie Bridge pub by Victoria has closed. Oh don't pretend you've ever been. Though there's a funny story about the Ducie. The Ducie was one of Nancy 'Dickie Bird' Cunningham's many boozers. Nancy is famous as being the most arrested person in the city's history. She was nicked 173 times for being drunk and disorderly while also being a well known 'singer and whistler'. Her funeral in Manchester General Cemetery was attended by thousands. God loves a wastrel.
Superstore no moreIS THIS THE YEAR?
So we begin the build up to Manchester's usual Michelin woe come September with the unveiling of the Waitrose Good Food Guide's Top 50 Restaurants. For those that are bothered by such lists, the 2016 list featured the usual NW suspects: L'Enclume (1), Fraiche (9), The French (17), Freemasons (42) and Northcote (50), alongside the North West's only new entry in Ambleside's Lake Road Kitchen (48). The Michelin Guide 2016 will be released on 17 September, with most expecting The French to finally make the cut after last year's surprise snub. Is Michelin still relevant? Does it matter? Probably not, but it'll shut Confdiential's Gordo up and that's reason enough...
OTTOLENGHI COMING TO MCR
No, not to open a northern outpost, just for a natter. The prodigious Israeli-born chef and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi will join Ramael Scully, head chef at one of Otto's five London restaurants and co-author of his new cookbook, NOPI, for a chat and cook-off at the Royal Exchange on 28 September. The pair will be discussing food, travel and family while fending off waves of drooling Chorlton-cum-Housepricey Mumatrons with massive yams. Tickets £10 here.
Yotam's heading to ManchesterBATTLE FOR B.EAT STREET
76 events and over 75,000 punters later, food slam collective B.Eat Street have unveiled plans for their next big project. Taking over five empty terraced units in the ginnel running between Deansgate and the Great Northern, B.EAT STREET will feature a street of three new bars, six micro-diners and year-round covered outdoor seating. Applications to occupy one of the six diners have been pouring in for the last month or so, with a cook-off last week pitching ten of the finalists against one another. THE WINNERS ARE: Big Grille Style (grilled cheese sarnies), Bali Beach Hut (Indonesian), Wong’s Happiness Diner (traditional Chinese fare), King of Brindiana (Indian mentalists), Dutchess/Poffertjes Kings (Dutch pancakes and snacks) and Fabulous Burger Boys (guess?).
B.EAT STREET should launch late-October to early-November.
PORT-A-PUB
A new portable boozer is coming to the 20-acre, £800m NOMA development by the Co-op group. The Pilcrow Pub, planned for January 2016, is billed as a 'pub by the people and for the people' and will be wheeled around the NOMA site as the scheme develops. Professional craftspeople will take the lead whilst training an army of volunteers in a series of free-to-attend workshops, ranging from glass-blowing to dry-stone walling. Can't blame the Co-op for utilizing free labour, its bank just recorded a half-year loss of £200m...
Pilcrow plans (not to scale)MUSEUM FINDS NEW MUSE
Northern Quarter tea and cake peddlers Teacup are reportedly set to takeover Manchester Museum's joyless Cafe Muse when it reopens in mid-September. Teacup is co-owned by DJ, Producer and accomplished doodler Mr Scruff, who began shifting his own tea blend at the back of gig venues in the early 00s. The kids called it Ecsteasy or something...
MAD (FER IT) MEN
A new Northern Quarter bar and restaurant inspired by New York's famous 1960's Pen & Pencil steakhouse - one of Don Draper's favourite hangouts in hit US drama Mad Men - is ready to go on Tariff Street. A new venture by Kevin Connor, formerly of Northern Quarter's original bar, Dry, and the founder of West Didsbury's Violet Hour, Dan Pollard, Pen & Pencil naturally features Tariff Street's à la mode wood, brick and pipe fitout with an intriguing menu to boot: coconut-crusted fish fingers, Lebanese Scotch egg and Banh Mi tacos, alongside a bunch of cocktails, with bullish names like 'The Fixer' and 'The John Bruno', that'll likely put hairs on your elbows.
Pen & PencilLET THEM EAT CAKE
Northern Quarter's brekkie-time bohemian bolthole Home Sweet Home are currently beavering away at their new location in the frankly massive former Lucha Libre site on Great Northern Square. Beautiful Drinks - operators behind Almost Famous, Luck Lust Liquor Burn and Keko Moku - plan to launch BIG Home Sweet Home at the start of October with a 'totally fantastical' blowout. Expect booze and enough cake to floor Bruce Bogtrotter.
EVERY BIT(COIN) HELPS
A new non-profit community caf' amongst Salford's emerging bohemia will become the first in the region to accept Bitcoin payments. Honest Coffee on Chapel Street (reviewed here) will allow punters to settle their bills using the digital currency (1 Bitcoin currently equals around £150 - very useful I'm sure you'll agree). Users scan a barcode in the venue and poke around on a mobile app until funds whizzpop into the ether and dongleload onto the haxelsphere or something. Alternatively, if you're a stick in the mud, you could always pay for your 'Tony Wilson' sandwich (oh c'mon now) with sterling. Grandad.
Honest Coffee, Chapel StreetTHE RUMOUR MILLS...
New'ish Basque-inspired Leeds restaurant and bar Pintura are reportedly looking at sites in Manchester (who isn't?). It's run by the folk behind Leeds' Jake's Bar, Oporto and Cielo Blanco - which is soon set to open in the mammoth Masonic Hall redevelopment on Bridge Street.
Nudo Sushi Box, the grab'n'go sushi chain which first opened it's seventh and first branch outside the North East on Manchester's Oxford Street last month, has reportedly lined-up two more sites in Manchester. One of which will be in Spinningfields, with Hardman Street's barren Frurt unit the obvious location.
Paddington-based Scandinavian-inspired coffee and sandwich bar Kupp are reportedly close to securing a site in Manchester, as are Ed's Easy Diner, who were wrangled out of their original King Street site but now look set to open in Debenhams.
NudoDISH OF THE WEEK...
We're yet to have a duff meal in Ramsbottom's Hearth of the Ram - ran by The Grand Overseer Euan Watkins - and this wonderfully gloopy, golden, piping-hot cheese fondue with sourdough dippers is one of their finest moments. Simple. Hot. Cheese. Ace (wouldn't fancy being the Pot Wash, mind).
The Ram has been nominated for Restaurant of the Year at the Manchester Food and Drink Awards 2015 - vote here
Cheese Fondue at Hearth of the RamOH STOP IT...
These meatballs from Northern Quarter's new retro American Diner, Infamous, on the other hand, were thick-skinned, gristly and absolutely woeful. £4.95? P*ss off.
GrimJOB OF THE WEEK
Award-winning veggie bistro 1847 (recently reviewed by Jay Rayner) are searching for an Executive Head Chef to join the team in Manchester as the business expands into new sites in Bristol and Edinburgh. Salary £35k + bonus see here
DEAL OF THE WEEK
For two weeks only get 50% off food at Castlefield's Mediterranean restaurant Per Tutti. Offer available Tuesday 1 September to Monday 14 September (excluding Sat and Sun). Get your voucher here.
READ MORE MANCHESTER FOOD & DRINK NEWS HERE
