Salvi's Cucina Opens, Nags Head Opens, First Pics From Fumo

Confidentials 10 June 2014

Salvi’s Cucina Opens On John Dalton Street

Let’s call it the John Dalton Food Quarter (JDFQ). There’s always room for some more quarters in Manchester and there’s a lot happening around the short John Dalton Street. The latest edition to JDFQ is excellent. Confidential favourite Salvi’s have opened their new outlet Salvi’s Cucina opposite the Restaurant Bar and Grill. Review to follow but the standout dish on our visit was the pasta with pig's cheek pancetta in carbonara. Simply exquisite. Simply very authentic and southern Italian. There was a fine tuna dish as well and some wonderful salt cod.

Lovely pasta

The menu

Pizza Fridays

It was good to see Bonnie Yeung from the Yang Sing was buying a stack of pizzas from Salvi’s Cucina. Apparently the Yang Sing occasionally has Pizza Fridays in the office. In Confidential we once had the idea of a Dress-Up Friday in which people across the city wear evening wear to the office – we are getting very ‘casual’ as a society don't you think? But this idea of getting a type of cuisine in for the office each Friday is intriguing. I’m pushing for a Sweetbreads Friday, Gordo wants a Foie Gras Friday while someone in the office is keen on a Pot Noodle Friday. There’s virtue in all these suggestions.

Devil In The Detail Needed At Pokusevskis

Lampshade landPopped into Pokusevskis at the Quays on the weekend. Good looking place with crazy light fittings for sale on the ceiling. Coffee was decent, there’s a wine, draught lager and beer section too. The food is home-spun. Good cake selection. We had the chicken, leek and parsley pie and the piri-piri chicken. The deal was £6.95 for a main plus a salad. Problem was you can take simplicity too far. The pie needed more seasoning and the feta, rosemary and squash salad was almost devoid of feta and rosemary. The piri piri chicken worked but the cold broccoli, chilli and garlic ‘salad’ was break-teeth al dente. Pokusevskis needs to be more generous with its salads for the food to start to live up to the happy space it shares. Service was lovely it must be said.

That squash, feta and rosemary salad's a bit mean

Cakes and so on

Rosso Lunch, A Tuna Day Stained By A Hint Of Chocolate

Colourful foodOff to Rosso, top of King Street, for a generous hosted lunch. The big grand old hall of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank was groaning under the weight of football player and ‘celebrity’ pics à la San Carlo. The tuna dish was magnificent, excellently timed, a big tomato and mozzarella slab was very good too. The other dishes were dated in design, this was best represented by a goose dish with plums and ‘a hint of chocolate’. The ‘hint’ turned out to be a big grotesque, unnerving, brown smear across the plate - expensive at £25 too. But the presentation was H-block, Dirty Campaign and all that. Rosso needs to move on from that style because lots of the food was very good, for example the cheese board with a big lush Gorgonzola was a winner.

No horrible brown stains please - dishes that need updating

Nag Makes Cheshire Statement

Nag's Head insideThe Nags Head (Long Lane, Haughton Moss, Tarporley, Cheshire, CW6 9RN. 01829 260265) launched this weekend. This belongs to the Nigel Haworth stable of upmarket pubs. The first of these was the now acclaimed Three Fishes in Mitton, a shortish distance from Haworth’s one Michelin-starred Northcote Manor restaurant in Langho, Blackburn. Haworth is so Lancashire he doesn’t have a heart as such just a beating red rose so his foray across the border to lily-livered Cheshire is something of a surprise. Mind you there’s a lot of dosh over that way. Anyway the food sounds decent. Neil Sowerby, oft-times Confidential writer, delighting in the venison shoulder with braised chicory. Review to follow.

Venison in the pub

The Food And Drink Round-up's Silly Statement Of The Week

As reported in our Things To Do round-up last week, Chorlton, not short of a few bars, has a new one. Well, not a new one, a rehashed one. Strange Brew, formerly The Jackalope on Barlow Moor Road, is set to throw open its doors once again this weekend. Boss Dave Williams is quoted as saying: “I’m sick of cocktail bars and American themed bar and restaurants. People like me want to go somewhere with good beer, listen to good music and have a good time in a bar with a nice atmosphere.” As opposed to most people who are looking for bad beer, crap music and an awful time surrounded by utter gits. Dave, it’s all right to grow old in the suburbs and embrace it you know.

First Images: Fumo Manchester From San Carlo

Here are pics of what San Carlo Group's Fumo restaurant will look like in its 5,500 sq ft site in One St Peter's Square. The restaurant should open in Autumn. As reported previously on Confidential for its first Fumo restaurant in the city. Fumo brings lots of San Carlo trading areas together, it'll be a bar (a 2am licence is being requested), a restaurant like San Carlo and a light bites location as with Cicchetti.