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
SUBURBIA FOR DEANSGATE
Sleuth hears a deal has been signed on a new venue just off Deansgate. Hale's flash Suburbia basement bar/club (main image), a favourite of footballers, wagettes, Kelly Brook and Sleuth (Kelly dragged Sleuth along), are making moves into Manchester city centre and have reportedly signed for the former-Avici White site opposite Grill on the Alley on Ridgefield.
Living Ventures first opened Suburbia in 2009, but Sleuth hears LV have now cut ties with the club, with Suburbia manager Tom Thornton Brookes buying LV out for an undisclosed fee. More good news for the John Dalton Street ginnel then, relivened recently by the opening of admirable new Spanish gaff La Bandera. Sleuth will miss Avici though, the night's he's had in there...
Avici White
PUB WARS - THE TALE OF TWO TAPS
Sleuth is enjoying the tap tap of workmen’s tools as the new Piccadilly Tap craft beer bar takes shape in former suede and leather shop on Station Approach. Licence granted and regular updates via their Twitter account @tapmanchester – almost time to smell the hops. The brew’s got a bit clouded, though, by the the presence of @Manchestertap, which signals a rival establishment setting up somewhere in Ancoats - Sleuth hears in the old Edinburgh Castle pub on Blossom Street.
The suggestion – which has got hophead bloggers in a bit of a froth – is the latter comes from the folk who run all the other station-based Taps around the country, notably Sheffield and York. Whist the Piccadilly venture is from Bloomsbury Leisure, which runs Gordo’s favourite excuse for passing out on the Pendolino, the Euston Tap. So far neither operator has replied to Sleuth's queries. Whatever’s in the pipeline, Sleuth will stay on top of this one...
Piccadilly Tap will open on the Piccadilly Approach
Is this the Ancoats site for the other Tap?
'MODERN CHINESE' FOR SPINNINGFIELDS
Sleuth is disappointed. When Sleuth spotted new hoardings go up in Spinningfields, Sleuth was convinced early-00s Russian lesbian-pop duo - Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova of T.A.T.U and All The Things She Said-fame - were to open up a Pirog and craft-vodka bar in Manchester. Sleuth loved T.A.T.U, not because of their music videos, no, no, but because the outwardly homosexual pop act stuck two fingers up to Russia, a nation which is to LGBT rights what Tonga is to space exploration.
Anyway, turns out TATTU (inspired by, erm, tattoos @TattuMCR) is actually a new two-floor 130-cover 'modern chinese' restaurant and 200-capacity bar by the lads behind Cross Street's subterranean hotdog and pizza bar Dogs'n'Dough. The good news, owners Adam and Drew Jones have coaxed up journeyman Pan-Asian chef Andrew Lassatter. Lassatter has overseen multiple big-money operations down in London and should possess the minerals to make for an interesting menu and a solid new addition. Still, Sleuth has no idea what this rumoured 'food catwalk' is? Doesn't Yo Sushi have one of those?
Tattu - Spinningfields
SLEUTH’S WRONG DISH OF THE WEEK
Sleuth went to Croma in Chorlton with the family and because he’s so over pizzas (as the Americans say) he decided to go for a crab and prawn linguine. When he received it the thing was singed black at the top and much of the pasta was as crunchy as freshly baked twigs. Then Sleuth re-read the menu which declaimed how the pasta dishes were baked. Eh? The excuse was Croma only has ovens not stoves and thus can only bake the pasta. Sleuth reckons in that case they shouldn’t bother but bless the staff for swapping the dishes immediately.
Croma's Baked Pasta Dishes - Almost
MAPS OF MANCHESTER EVERYWHERE
Sleuth is weird for maps. He sleeps under a 1:50,000 scale Ordnance Survey map of Manchester with his head resting on a 1:25,000 map of the Lake District wrapped round a pillow. Scafell Pike is strangely comfortable. Now Fazenda, the fine meat purveyor in Spinningfields, has produced a very pleasant Meatrolink map of the city with stations as cuts of meat. It’s a map so Sleuth likes it. Meanwhile or maybe meatwhile, TGI Friday’s at Piccadilly Station have a very charming map on the wall of eighties band the Smiths - the best Manchester band ever. Sleuth loves the destinations on this London underground style map. One stop, roughly where Monton is in reality, is called Murder. You have to pass through Vulgar to get there. The Fazenda and the Smiths maps complement each other nicely especially as Morrissey thinks Meat is Murder.
Fazenda's 'Meatrolink'
BYE BYE COAT OF MINE
Sleuth has a friend whose daughter works in the Trafford Centre in one of the clothes shops. She went into work the other day in the lovely coat the shop had provided for her as part of the clothes allowance. She placed it on the counter while she went to the loo. Another member of staff took the coat put it on a hanger and put it on display. A customer came in and bought the coat. “Where’s my coat,” said the young lady on returning. Oh dear. The customer had not only purchased a nice coat but also gained a free set of car keys and a purse. Bargain.
NEW BOOKSHOP FOR MANCHESTER
Sleuth hears a new bookshop is to open in Manchester this year although the exact location remains a mystery. It will be called Aspidistra Books and promises ‘politics, history, LGBT books, quality literature, no celeb biographies’. Excellent news although the last part is enough to make Dianne Bourne of the MEN diary pages tear her hair out. Sleuth remembers with fondness the old Frontline books on Newton Street which had a similar ethos. He also remembers the mad Police chief James Anderton who raided the shop to seize the gay material as he thought it was perverting Mancunians, his police officers running right past The Anarchist Cookbook which contained instructions on how to make a bomb.
God's Cop - James Anderton
