Moston Lane's 'Little Lagos': The Next Curry Mile?

THE ‘LITTLE LAGOS’ concept came as a result of a late night passionate exchange of ideas with Farida Anderson (MBE) -  just before Turtle Bay Caribbean restaurant was launched on Oxford Street and immediately after I’d been infuriated by a below-par Jamaican offering in Rusholme.  

Anderson is director of twenty-year-old Caribbean independent, Buzzrocks (owned by her husband Basil ‘Buzz’ Anderson), and has seen continued support following its expansion from a van to three takeaways over the decades - it counts Stone Roses' Ian Brown as a fan.

"My plan is to create an Africanised version of KFC selling suya, chicken and chips. Mark my words you will hear about it.”

On this occasion we were doing the usual complaint dance when it comes to discussing both Caribbean and African’s foods slow up rise on the British culinary scene.

What’s preventing Caribbean and African takeaways becoming as statutory on a Saturday night as ‘going for a curry’?

Could jerk chicken also become an adopted Brit like the donner kebab?

Why doesn’t Caribbean food have its own section on Manchester Confidential? 

Anderson and I were also pondering solutions.

“Some restaurant owners don’t have the business acumen or the funds to make it work – which is a shame,” she explained.

“The overhead costs can reach well into the hundreds and thousands just for a small takeaway. Also, Caribbean food takes a hell of a long time to cook. Buzz wakes up every morning at dawn to buy vegetables – he’s in his sixties now but that’s something he insists on doing. Some aren’t prepared or committed to that.”

Basil 'Buzzrocks' Anderson(r) and Ian Brown

The Andersons have met some success. They saw route for expansion in North Manchester and opened up another Buzzrocks on Moston Lane in Harpurhey ward after noticing a surge of both African and Caribbean owned food establishments in the area.

 “There are so many African - mainly Nigerian - owned businesses and it’s great to see. I don’t see why Moston Lane couldn’t be the African-meets- Caribbean equivalent to the Curry Mile. It’s like a little Lagos down there,” she revealed.

That’s where the wheels of thought started turning.

I’ve never been to Jankara, Nigeria’s largest market, but I immediately conjured up images of stalls selling yams, plantain, fruits, fabrics, jewellery and locals bartering down prices.

While only a short bus trip via Shudehill, I’ve also never ventured to Moston Lane in North Manchester before.

For good reason.                                                 

Harpurhey was described as ‘the worst place in England’ in a government 2007 study.

Harpurhey - the worst place in England?

Moston Lane had been dubbed 'alcohol alley' by councillors for its large number of off-licences and problems with alcoholism. The BBC didn’t do Harpurhey much justice with its People Like Us documentary and was subsequently damned for exploiting images of working class poverty ('poverty porn'), benefit theft, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy and overall marring the community’s reputation.

Without the prospect of stumbling on an area swirling with colourful and flavoursome foods from vast the African continent and Caribbean islands, I would have never ventured there.

Somewhat naive of me, Moston Lane still sounded like an area that had bigger dreams of becoming a one-stop destination for all things African.

I would need a bigger picture to prove it.

An African supermarket

African owned boutique

 I travelled by taxi first - after all Little Lagos is only a concept at this stage, you can’t Google Map it. Stuck with a flummoxed driver, I was dropped off at a roundabout and decided to walk and ask around. I was told I couldn’t miss it.

This part of Moston Lane is so overtly African you could find yourself tripping over an elephant tusk on the way to the market.

There’s afro-hair barbershops and salons, outdoor and indoor markets, traditional fabric shops and seamstresses. On this Saturday afternoon men had gathered outside Spices African Cuisine to drink.

African 'Superstore'

Overtly African...and Polish

I first stopped by Kether African fish, meat and vegetable wholesalers. A woman on the hunt for a specific Nigerian vegetable followed me in but was not having much luck. Maglou, the owner, was flummoxed as he’s originally from Cameroon. 

“That’s the problem when people come in looking for Nigerian food. I don’t know what they’re talking about,” he laughed.

Fluent in French Maglou has been running his fish market for three years but has lived in Harpurhey for fourteen years.

Kether Africa

It’s small consisting of a few freezers and like much of Moston Lane, is on the shabby cluttered side.

Mag’s optimistic for the future of Moston Lane and said, “I think in five to ten years we could see a big improvement in the area. I’ve already seen it. It was a far rougher area but there’s been new housing developments and house prices have risen.”

He added passionately, “We could certainly replicate something like the Indian men in Rusholme.

“I would like to see a large restaurant specialising in African food. I would love the Englishmen to come and experiment. They may not understand it but they would like it if they just tried it. We eat like the Frenchmen in Europe in Cameroon (trails off into fabulous succession of French words).”

African snack Chin Chin

Bobolo

Insisting I call him Mag, he leaves his shop to take me over to meet a ‘big boss on Moston Lane’. The big boss in question was in the middle of opening his new suya cafe that had yet to be named. There was suya (chicken and lamb on kebab skewers) cooking on the stove and calypso music booming from a large stereo.

I was met with suspicious eyes (they followed me throughout the whole afternoon) and the big boss didn’t want to be named. Regardless he had a lot to say about the Lane and his personal plans. Unlike Mag, he had little hope for an African Curry Mile.

“No I don’t see it happening,” he said abrubtly.  “Three African stores have failed to get licenses. Afro flavours. Closed. Akwaba. Closed. Dees Cuisine. Closed.

Suya cooking on the grill.

“In my opinion, it’s because Moston Lane is a high crime area and the council have been strict as a result. It’s calmed in recent years, but Harpurhey will struggle even in the next decade to get more African businesses because the council just simply refuse - the council are purposely slowing progress.”

It seems crime could be the causal link to restaurant closures. Earlier this August Ma Helene restaurant was shut down after a 48-year-old man was ‘savagely beaten’ and lost his eye. After a hearing the council believed Ma Helene had also breached its licence.*

Councillor Patrick Karney of Harpurhey has since been behind rejection of two more license applications from African restaurants.

“Moston Lane has a huge drinking problem and a lot of these establisments are illegal drinking dens fashioning themselves as restaurants. The incident is a micro-example of the alcohol problem on Moston Lane - this is the deplorable behaviour we’re dealing with,” he explained. 

So are the council purposely slowing progress?

“Bona-fide restaurants offering something distinct would be welcome to the area but what we’re dealing with is late night drinking dens - some don't even come with genuine menus. Harpurhey is a residential area with a young demographic and we've received complaints that men are urinating in the street and so on.

“Moston Lane has long way to improve if it is to replicate the Curry Mile – which took decades to develop. These shops only have sectional appeal. For it to work, there would need to be some sort of integration between the host community and the African community. The shops would need to have broader commercial appeal."

Tina, of fabric shop Divine Praise, was also refused a restaurant.

In some ways Moston Lane’s African businesses cater, understandably, for the African community, with outsiders like me peering in with wide-eyed curiosity like Muggles at Hogwarts.

Moston Lane would need to open itself up to the city centre's anthropological foodies for it to become a solid part of Manchester’s generally cosmopolitan character.

It would also need to clean up its act and start behaving.        

Even so, as I ate chicken and dumplings in Buzzocks, I spotted mixed members of the community enjoying full Caribbean meals happily. The area felt, with a lot of love and investment, as if it had promise.

After all as Cllr Karney pointed out it took a couple of decades to create the area nicknamed the Curry Mile. Certainly the African businesses offer a way forward in the time-honoured way of immigrant communities in large cities.

The model is that in a decaying area locked in a downward spiral new ideas and new entrepreneurship arrives with a new immigrant group. The area's future starts to look more promising, albeit with a very different character than that which it previously occupied had.

This seems to be happening on Moston Lane. Certainly some African business owners have big plans.

Commanding me to look him dead in the eyes, Big Boss said, “my plan is to create an Africanised version of KFC selling suya and chicken and chips.

"Mark my words you will hear about it.”

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