SleuthSleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week, it's the truth, but Sleuth's truth. He's several people all at once. We give £25 for every story/rumour and piece of absurdity you find for us to publish. Sleuth sometimes even gets serious. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows. Follow Sleuth on twitter @mcrsleuth
NUTTER'S NEW GASTROPUB
Sleuth caught up with camera-happy Rochdale-born chef Andrew Nutter recently. He's been a busy boy. Somewhere between terrorizing young bartenders, feeding almost all of Rochdale's retirees and having his photo taken, gape-mouthed, by the MEN for the 473rd time that year, Nutter's found time to do some property huntin'. Andrew and his charming Pop, Rodney, have got their hands on the old Bird I’Th Hand pub on Rochdale Road in Birtle and intend to turn it into a top notch gastropub serving high-end ‘hearty British pub fare’ with room for 80-100 people.
“I’m sick of young chefs coming to my kitchen and knowing how to tart around with liquid nitrogen but not have a fucking clue how to cook a decent stew or casserole,” Nutter told Sleuth. “That’s what I was taught at The Savoy in London. We were drilled in flavour. I’m taking it back to the roots.” “So how come you’ve opened minutes down the road from your other restaurant?” asked Sleuth. “When we’re rammed at the restaurant I don’t want to turn people away and send them somewhere else with crap food,” said Nutter, “plus it’s right near my house. Good for the environment ‘init…” Good lad.
New Nutter's should open around Easter 2015.
Nutter: loves the environment... hates pigs
MIDLAND HOTEL LOOKING FOR FIVE STARS?
The grand old lady of Manchester hotels is on the vamp or rather the revamp. Sleuth hears it's going to get a facelift. Or more properly a massage. Several million pounds are getting spent on doing up the bedrooms and transforming the gym and the spa. Sleuth wonders whether the refurb includes the suite that, rumour has it, was adapted for Luciano Pavarotti's girth with reinforced beds and wider doorways. Pavarotti used to sing Nessun Dorma - none shall sleep - relentlessly in the corridors until all the work was done - allegedly.
The Midland Hotel
TROUBLE ON THE LOCKS
Sleuth went for a pint this week with one of his pals who does his business around Deansgate Locks. Sleuth’s pal looked worried. Turns out there’s been all sorts of bother down on The Locks. Sleuth hears that an unlucky new young manager at Sakura had to shut down their popular Eivissa club night on Thursday because of all the unsavoury types it was attracting. Sleuth’s pal said it didn’t go down too well and ended up with half the staff, including all of the door staff, being given the boot. A serious incident followed which now means that, following a licence review, Sakura has to provide plastic glasses, install metal detectors on entry and any bottles purchased from behind the bar have to be chained to the tables to stop punters bonking each other over the head with them. Not only that, but a supposed feud down on The Locks meant that this week Sakura had 30 door staff working one night… on a Monday. “They had five door staff per customer on Monday,” Sleuth’s pal said. “Which either makes it the safest place in town to get a drink or the worst, I haven’t figured it out yet."
Sakura in trouble
WAREHOUSE PROJECT FOR ALBERT HALL
Sleuth hears that Manchester's notorious club night, the Warehouse Project, will be on the road again after their 2014 run at Piccadilly's Store Street comes to a close on New Year's Eve. WHP are teaming up with a number of other promoters, including Manchester's Drop The Mustard gang, to host a series of events for Manchester's beautiful Grade II-listed Albert Hall (1910) - the former Methodist meeting hall, then Brannigans bar on Peter Street. Transmission will launch on Friday 23 January and run for four months until 15 April. Sleuth wonders if any of the superstar DJs to play Albert Hall, which include Annie Mac and Steve Lawler, will make use of the venue's massive fitted organ. Probably not.
Albert Hall - organ in the distance
GRAPHENE BURGER BREAKTHROUGH
Sleuth is pleased about the millions dished out to the city as part of George Osborne's 'Northern Powerhouse' initiative. He loves the fact that the Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials Research and Innovation will be based largely in the city. Rolls met Royce in the Midland Hotel incidentially in 1905. There's the world's weakest terracotta relief in the main porch to commemorate this. Meanwhile, at the Graphene Institute in the Uni, Sleuth hears boffins have been working with Manchester's burger fraternity to produce the world's thinnest burger, shown front and side below. "It's a messy fucked up pornstar slut of a burger," said a spokesman for the Manchester Burger Society shortly before being arrested for possession of strained similes. "Slendour and fit, hotter than Johansson's cleavage, this is a burger to put lead in your pencil without adding flab to the thighs."
The graphene burger from the front
The graphene burger in profile
MILIBAND MASSACRE
"Lord," said a local Labour Party figure to Sleuth over a bacon sandwich on Thursday. "We're supposed to lead in the North but while George Osborne keeps chucking gifts and ideas at us, Ed seems incapable of an ounce of resistance or at least coherent opinions on how to make the North a better place. The Tories have Northern Powerhouse on their minds while we're stuck in the bloody National Outhouse and seem to be going backwards." He paused and then said, "How do you eat these bloody things anyway?"
Ed Miliband ponders Northern policy whilst trying not to look 'weird'
AND IN OCTOPUS NEWS...
After a few failed attempts the Trafford Centre Sea Life's Miranda the Octopus finds a fish in a box. People weep at its genius...
