Sleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week, it's the truth, but Sleuth's truth.
He's several people all at once. Sleuth sometimes even gets serious. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows. Follow Sleuth on twitter @mcrsleuth
CIELO BLANCO FOR SPINNINGFIELDS... OR MCR HALL... OR CORN EXCHANGE... SOMEWHERE... ANYWHERE?
A month ago Sleuth revealed the news that Cielo Blanco, Leeds answer to Lucha Libre-cum-Luck Lust Liquor Burn, was set to bring their Mexicano brand to Manchester. Cielo comes from the Leelex Group, a bar, restaurant and music company with a number of operations in Leeds and one in London. Sleuth hears Cielo were originally eyeing up a spot at the redeveloped Manchester Hall on the 'Square With No Name' by Costa and Manchester House, and then for a unit in the all-new £30m Corn Exchange (until Wahaca elbowed them out), and finally for a lucrative spot on Spinningfields newly flourishing Avenue - which in the past year or so has seen Thaikhun, Fazenda, Grand Pacific, Wahu and now the gorgeous Iberica give the flagging retail street a boot up the jacksie.
Now Sleuth hears Cielo have been thwarted once more. Last month Confidential announced the arrival of Comptoir Libanais in the city with the trendy London-based Lebanese restaurant group taking on the former Brooks Brothers unit on The Avenue. Seems that was also the site Cielo Blanco had their sights set on. Poor Cielo. Sleuth says good luck to 'em, we could do with another Mexican gaff.
The AvenueNEW NQ BUTCHER
Sleuth hears a new city centre butcher is to open in Northern Quarter next week. The new meatery, The Butcher's Quarter, will open at 66 Tib Street on Monday 23 March (probably) and will be 'an artisan butcher's shop and delicatessen in Manchester's trendy Northern Quarter'. Details are scarce at present, but the exterior is looking sharp...Sleuth will put some meat on story soon, chew the fat.
THE NORTHERN RESTAURANT AND BAR 2015 WORDS OF WISDOM
Will Beckett of Hawksmoor: “We’re serious about the wages of waiting staff. We pay them the equivalent of the police and teachers so the industry offers a real long-term career choice.”
Will Beckett of Hawksmoor: “Manchester feels like it’s on the verge of something and that’s the best time to be in any city, that’s the most exciting time. Of course some of the staff who have come from London needed to get used to the local turn of phrase. When people ask if they can book in for ‘tea’, it can take a while before the penny drops and our Southern staff exclaim, “Oh you mean pre-theatre.”
Nick Landor, author of Art of the Restaurateur: “Restaurants are now the most important tenants for developers. Shops have been hit by the internet. Restaurants bring people in and give life to places, to eat a meal you have to take your body along.”
Craig Bancroft, managing director of Northcote Manor: “Only employ staff who you wouldn’t mind taking home and introducing to the family. And never bully them. It’s about husbandry now, not screaming at them. That old idea adopted from French kitchens of first you break a man and then rebuild him is finished.”
Andrew Nutter, Nutters Restaurant: “Come on everybody let’s do a big selfie?”
Whoooo MORE FROM THE NRB 2015...
Weird blue man hands out cards for catering supplies...but nobody new why.
Norman, Foggy and Compo of Last of the Summer Wine begin an exciting new posh crisp venture...
NRB's most popular stand...
And it's least popular (wonder why?)...
And finally, it all gets a bit much for Nutter...
BEST VIEW IN THE CITY?
Bugger, Sleuth thought, do I need those fancy eclipse glasses? Will the sun cook my retinas? To witness the ‘best solar eclipse over the UK since 1999’ Sleuth perched on the roof-top gardens of Blackfriars House (opposite Liquor Store) and watched the phenomenon develop above the Manchester skyline - through a squint, mind. Laterooms.com had a similar idea, but took it a bit further. The hotel booking brand inflated a ‘Bubble Hotel’ (a completely transparent room with 360 degrees view) and plonked two of its colleagues in to spend the night with the promise of waking up to a glorious vision of the sun and moon aligning. “It was freezing,” said one shivering guest in PJs, “we barely slept but it was magical, we’ll never experience anything like this again.” Good stunt but the Bubble Hotel looks a little bit like a giant condom, thought Sleuth, or maybe - as other people pronounce it - a condominium.
Bubble roomLEFT BANK AL FRESCO
Sleuth loves a bench, and Sleuth loves a river, and Sleuth bloody adores timber frames with fabric canopies, so imagine Sleuth's joy to see plans submitted to the council for the 'erection of timber frames with fabric canopies and planters to existing external seating areas' on Left Bank. Presumably this is for all the sparkly new restaurants going in over there.
RUSHOLME ROADHOUSE RUSSIANS
Sleuth is saddened by the demise of the Roadhouse. He recalls with affection taking three Russian journalists around a few years ago. It was a Monday morning at 2am, they wanted vodka for a drink in their hotel bedrooms, and they didn’t want to pay hotel prices. So Sleuth and the boys trundled in a taxi to Rusholme. One of the journos went into a restaurant and came back waving a vodka bottle with a huge grin. He opened the taxi door, there was brief conversation and then he spun round and went back into the restaurant. “What’s he doing?” Sleuth asked. “He’s getting another two bottles. One wouldn’t be enough,” came the reply. “Don’t you have a flight at 11am?” said Sleuth.
Roadhouse has closed MASSIVE CRAB
Sleuth has been obsessed with massive crabs since the Manchester Museum put on display a Japanese giant spider crab a few years ago. Sleuth stared aghast at the thing for hours; they have the largest leg span of any arthropod in the world reaching up to 4m or 12 ft from claw to claw and can weigh up to 19 kg. It can also live up to 100 years old. That's a crab; a crab! So Sleuth became giddy this week to hear news of another massive crab, Claude the giant Tasmanian crab, coming to Manchester. Trafford Centre's Sea Life centre will launch their new exhibition 'CLAWS' on Thursday 26 March. You should go, I mean... just look at the bloody thing...
RYAN GIGGS AND PAUL SCHOLES AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THEM
Sleuth was in the Circus pub in central Manchester. This is a delightful pub which claims to have the smallest bar in Britain – the actual bar bit in other words. The bar fits one person so the claim might be right. The rest of the pub is tiny as well, two rooms and a corridor. In the front room there are some Manchester United artworks for sale. Bobby Charlton looks fine, Ryan Giggs looks puzzled, Paul Scholes – well you best steer clear of him in that mood.
Steady now Scholes lad...
