LET’S be honest, 2015 has been a right pain in the arse.
...this is probably the best night out in Manchester right now
Once was that Confidential had four or five new restaurants to report on each year… now we’ve got four to five opening each month. Almost daily we’re out with a camera, shooting ‘first looks’, discussing who picked the curtains and how many Michelin starred kitchens the new head chef has fibbed about on his CV.
Of course, all these new openings are brilliant for revenue and readership, but as you know, we’ve never been bothered with such things… pick Gordo off the floor, would you.
Anyway, here’s the latest crop bringing in the tail-end of 2015. Best make hay, come January you’ll be penniless and weeping into a tin of cold spaghetti hoops…
EVELYN’S
Back in August we revealed that the folks behind Mughli, brothers Haz and Sax Arshad (owners of the Zanna restaurant group ) had taken over Mital Morar’s hugely popular kitchen-cum-convenience store on Tib Street, Superstore. We haven’t heard much since, but have now learnt the Arshad’s plan to launch a new all day café & bar, Evelyn’s, in the site on Saturday 21 November. Details are scant, but someone attached to the project recently told us ‘we’re doing everything we can to avoid that dirty food nonsense’. Good.
Food: ‘elfy
Feels: Like Superstore with added verdure
Why go? Because Mughli is ace and we hope this is too.
Evelyn’s, G18 Smithfield Building, Tib Street M4 1 NB @evelynscafebar
BOURBON & BLACK
Didsbury's new'ish and reasonably popular neighbourhood barbecue and blues joint has taken a punt on the seemingly doomed former Inland Revenue offices on Mount Street, an unfruitful home in recent years to Beluga, Citrus and finally Velvet Central. Having had the builders in for three days, they've forced an opening, presumably to make the most of the nearby Christmas Markets melee. The outcome feels cold and unremarkable, matched by fairly vanilla BBQ grub. Still, as you'd expect, B&B's bourbon selection is second to none, backed by a Blues soundtrack that'll have you rollin' and tumblin' all the way home. .
Food: Charred Americana
Feels: Like they've opened four weeks too early
Why Go? If you're at the Christmas Markets and crave something other than a £5 banger or soddin' paella
Bourbon & Black, Mount Street, M2 5NS bourbonandblack.co.uk
VAPIANO
It’s easy to sniff at restaurant chains. Particularly Italian chains. Particularly Italian chains founded by Germans. Still, this lot must be doing something right, because this fast-casual Italian restaurant chain has exploded from one restaurant in Hamburg in 2002 to 157 restaurants in 33 different countries thirteen years later. By George. Vapiano specialises in pizzas, antipasto, pasta and sunshine, whipped up right in front of you as you stand a whistlin’. Opens 27 November.
Food: Fast Italian
Feels: Like a slick operation
Why go? To gawp at Vapiano’s showboating brigade of tossers… pasta tossers.
Vapiano, Corn Exchange M4 3TR vapiano.com/en
PIER EIGHT
Following a £3m touch-up, The Lowry theatre and gallery is set to open a whopping great new 300 cover modern British restaurant down on Salford Quays, incorporating two shipping containers no less. Gritty. According to the chef, Pier Eight will ‘focus on local flavours’… please no more sodding Vimto. Opens 27 November.
Food: Mod British
Feels: Like The Lowry has finally pulled its socks up
Why go? Well, where else is there in Salford Quays? Damson? Fair enough…
Pier Eight, The Lowry, Salford Quays M50 3AZ thelowry.com/pier-eight
COTTONOPOLIS
Quite why a new bar and restaurant called Cottonopolis (first coined as a nickname for nineteenth century Manchester when the city controlled 80% of the world's finished cotton) occupying a Grade II-listed former textile warehouse would choose to serve poncey Japanese food centred around the themes of ‘ice, steam, fire and oil’ is beyond us. Still, let’s give ‘em chance, it’s a handsome fit-out and Northern Quarter could use a few more cocktails.
Food: Fiddly Japanese bits
Feels: Like a Tariff Street bar
Why go? We hear their Bao is ‘on point’… a trendy word for ‘good’.
16 Newton Street M1 2AE cottonopolis-nq.com
COMPTOIR LIBANAIS
Once was to score a decent glob of hummus you’d have to catch the 142 out to Aladdin’s in Withington. No more. London’s favourite Lebanese café-cum-souk outfit, Comptoir Libanais, have pitched up on The Avenue in Spinningfields, bringing cheap, easy, breezy mezze dishes, cracking Mana’esh flatbreads and the best koftas we’ve had in yonks to the city centre punter.
Food: Middle Eastern
Feels: Like a market bazaar canteen
Why go? Because nobody should have to catch a bus to find good Baba ganoush.
The Avenue, Spinningfields M3 3HF comptoirlibanais.com/manchester
QUILL
Let’s ignore for a moment the pomp, the slebs, the £47m fit-out, the bubbles, the monochromania, two courses for £45, the weird crows everywhere, Bobby Davro and the chef’s suspiciously battle-weary CV because Quill, when all’s said and done, is just another new restaurant. Yes it describes itself as ‘Manchester’s hottest’ (shoot me) new ‘fine dining’ (and again) restaurant with cocktails ‘inspired by the idea of the quill’ (once more), but if it’s good enough for Davro… and anyone that puts turnip on the menu deserves a chance.
Food: British with ‘European influences’ and turnips
Feels: Like an episode of Real Housewives of Cheshire in an Edgar Allan Poe novel
Why go? To test their mettle.
20-22 King Street M2 6AG quillmcr.co.uk
DIVE NQ
It’s difficult to think of two drinking establishments farther removed from one another than Manchester's velvet-roped, Bolly-popping Milton Club and a 'dive bar' - which is American for big-swigging stink hole with no toilet seats. Still, the folks that brought you the Milton Club plan to launch their new basement Dive bar at the arse-end of Sacha’s hotel (dive indeed) sometime before December. Dive promises to be a ‘one stop shop for liquor, shots and cocktails.
Food: We hope not
Feels: Like we've seen it all before
Why go? For a bottle of Hooch.
Tib Street M4 1SH @divenq
CAU MEDIACITYUK
CAU, the smaller more affordable cousin of the Gaucho steakhouse group, are to open a new outpost at MediaCityUK ‘in Orange’, which we assume is a building and not a paint job. Having collected a number of ‘posh towns’ across the UK (Cambridge, Wimbledown, Henley), the brand, staying true to form, recently opened branches in Wilmslow, Didsbury and now… Salford. As you’d expect with a restaurant named after a moo, the menu is predominantly carnivorous with a few well-considered fish dishes and a smattering of veggie stuff too. Opening in December.
Food: Meaty
Feels: Like Gaucho with corrugated iron
Why go? For the delicious Yerba smoked beef.
Orange Building, MediaCityUK M50 2EQ @caumediacity
CUTTING ROOM
After yonks of dreams, whimsy and unrealised potential, Ancoats is finally beginning to establish a bubbling food and drink clique with the openings of Rudy’s pizza parlour, Cutting Room and the upcoming Seven Brothers craft beer bar, alongside the mooted Second City bar and Goose Fat & Wild Garlic restaurant. The Cutting Room, with its stacked suitcases, bookcases and mezzanine kitchen, serves up belly-warmers such as chicken pot pie and beef bourguignon in homely surrounds. Reviewed here.
Food: Cheerful homespun dishes
Feels: Like a chirpy neighbourhood drop-in
Why go? To support the little guy.
9 Blossom Street, Ancoats M4 6AJ cuttingroommcr.co.uk
RUDY’S
Whilst on the square pop over to Rudy’s, a new pizza joint for Manchester's 'Little Italy'. Having gathered a formidable reputation for Neapolitan pizza around Greater Manchester's markets and street food events, young couple Jim Morgan and Kate Wilson have been feeding the piggy bank for five long years in order to launch their own bricks'n'mortar restaurant. Nearly two months in, the jostle for a table at peak-times suggest these two might just be making the finest pizzas in the city right now.
Food: Lovely, pillowy, slightly blistered Neopolitan pizza.
Feels: Like they’ve opened on a shoestring, and the better for it…
Why go? For the best pizza in town, cheap too.
Cotton St, Ancoats M4 5BF @RudysPizzaMcr
HOME SWEET HOME
Northern Quarter’s favourite bohemian bolthole has gone BIG, taking over the former Lucha Libre site at the Great Northern Warehouse – two doors down from its frisky sister restaurant Almost Famous. Many worried Home Sweet Home’s milky twee allure wouldn’t translate to the Deansgate giant, however, some clever, hotch-potch bric-a-braccery has maintained Home Sweet Home’s beguiling charms. Beefed-up too is the menu, with ‘big plates’, bigger potions and more So-Cal crowd-pleasers such as the Frickle Fish Burger, the Mumma’s Meatball Sub and the frankly obscene Cakeshakes –yep, cakes blended with milk. Call it winter weight…
Food: Southern California and sunshine
Feels: like a massive Home Sweet Home
Why go? Because life is too short…
Great Northern Warehouse, 235 Deansgate M3 4EN @homesweethomenq
BAKCHICH
Full of colour, life and pulses, savvy Bakchich has opened just off Oxford Road in the heart of Studentville and joins Spinningfields' recently opened Comptoir in bringing that bright, frenetic canteen-like Middle Eastern charm to the city centre. Well-run with a passion and a quality of touch and timing, Bakchich’s food is comfort food in the best sense; sociable, therapeutic and abundant. Reviewed here.
Food: Lebanese
Feels: Bouncy
Why go? for the Samek Meshimi – charcoal grilled salmon marinated in pomegranate molase.
The Quadrangle, Chester Street M1 5QS bakchich.co.uk/manchester
ALBERT’S SCHLOSS
If you're yet to visit Scloss, then, well, what's wrong with you? Of Manchester's myriad new bar and restaurant openings, this is perhaps the most ambitious. With an overall capacity of 600 (320 of which are restaurant covers), four 900-pint Czech copper beer tanks and nightly stage acts compèred by the city's most notorious drag queens, Albert's Schloss 'Bier Palace and Cook Haus' ain't doing it by 'alf. Brimming with barmpots, this is probably the best night out in Manchester right now. Reviewed here.
Food: Pork lashings of Bavarian oompah
Feels: At times, like pandemonium... but that's the point
Why go? To chugg 'tank beer', play shufflepuck and watch the melee unfold.
Albert Hall, 27 Peter St M2 5QR albertsschloss.co.uk
LUNYA
Newly arrived in the Barton Arcade and despite it's Liverpudlian origins, Mancunia has adopted Lunya as one of its own in a matter of weeks. Owned by engaging husband and wife pair, Peter and Elaine Kinsella, this Spanish and Catalonian restaurant recently bagged the Good Food Guide's 'Readers Restaurant of the Year' award; well deserved too. An impassioned Hispanophile, grafter and perfectionist with nearly 50 suppliers in Catalonia, there's little about Spanish grub Kinsella doesn't know - or stock for that matter.
Food: 'Authentic' is a word too easily afforded, in this case it's a given.
Feels: The real deal
Why go? For beautiful slithers of pig and gin & tonic bowls.
Barton Arcade Deansgate M3 2BW lunya.co.uk/manchester
CABANA
A Rodizio, of sorts, without the all-you-can-eat sausage and chicken hearts schtick. Founded in London in 2011 when Roger Moore's former lawyer-turned-restaurateur, Jamie Barber (also founder of Sake No Hana) approached his pal, Rio-born David Ponte, and asked "what's this Brasilian restaurant thing with the skewers?" Big Brazilian barbecue meats, bouncy kaleidoscopic interiors (including a hammock bar) and Samba thumps make this new Corn Exchange opening one of it's most perky.
Food: Barbecued and fleshy
Feels: Like an up-cyclers dream
Why go? For Cabana's take on a Brazilian one-pot, the Feijoada; a thick, smoky, dark, porky, slow-cooked stew with a little beef and black bean. Phwoar.
Corn Exchange M4 3TR cabana-brasil.com/manchester
MOWGLI
Another Indian street food outfit, this time from former barrister, self-proclaimed 'curry evangelist' and Pimp My Rice cookbook author, Nisha Katona. Launched within Manchester's new multi-million pound street food supermarket at the Corn Exchange, Mowgli's food comes via tiffins, with snuggly-wuggly, home-spun Indian classics such as 'Aunty Geeta's Prawn Curry' alongside Katona's more offbeat 'street' dishes, such as Himalayan Cheese Toast and 'Angry Bird' marinated chicken thighs. Reviewed here.
Food: Indian street fare with canny nods home
Feels: Like someone got a bargain deal on rope
Why go? To pop chat bombs and feel that deluge of lush, spicy milkiness wash over the tongue.
Corn Exchange M4 3TR mowglistreetfood.com
TAMPOPO
While we're knocking about the Corn Exchange, veteran Manchester Pan-Asian outfit Tampopo have announced their Exchange Square restaurant will relaunch on Friday 4 December, offering a new (you guessed it) small plates menu designed in league with Masterchef 2011 finalist and local supper club darling Jackie Kearney (aka The Hungry Gecko).
Food: Trusty South Asian fare
Feels: Like the Corn Exchange is getting there...
Why go? Tampopo has been the city's bastion of Far Easterly grub for nearly two decades
Corn Exchange M4 3TR tampopo.co.uk
SALVI'S
Oh yes, Salvi's have also pencilled in their Corn Exchange rebirth for early December. This humble mozzarella bar and deli - laden with the edible riches of Mother Italy - was opened by an actual Italian bloke, Maurizio Cecco, in what was The Triangle back in 2011. It was a charming little thing, designed in wood with a handsome counter and room for 3 people and one small dog - the wine too was excellent. Alas, when Aviva moved in to revamp Salvi's moved out, opening a second then a third Salvi's on John Dalton Street in the mean time. Now Salvi's mark 1 returns, lacking it's original charm, undoubtedly, but still only one of three new Corn Exchange restaurants worth getting out of bed for.
Food: Italian by an Italian
Feels: Like seeing an old pal with a new haircut
Why go: because it's got to be better than this CGI drawing...
Corn Exchange M4 3TR salvismanchester.co.uk
NO.1 WATSON STREET
Occupying the departed Taps spot on Great Northern Square, No.1 Watson Street is a new beer-heavy bar boasting twelve tap beers fom the likes of Marble, Red Willow and Outstanding breweries, plus around 50 by the bottle. Unafraid to swallow the zeitgeist, No.1 Watson has set out its stall with craft beer, pizza, small plates and coffee. Play it safe chaps...
Food: Token
Feels: Like a hot-desking space with beer
Why go? For a pint.
Great Northern Square M3 4EE onewatsonstreet.co.uk
