Three levels of food over three levels of building
FROM top to bottom, there’s something for everyone at Tast. The acclaimed restaurant that offers authentic Catalan cuisine in the city of Manchester is laid out over three floors: Pinya at street level, Folre on the second floor and Enxaneta at the top.
The names are taken from a traditional performance that began in the city of Tarragona and now draws crowds at festivals and feast days around the region of Catalonia. Called ‘Castells’, which directly translates as ‘castles’, the event sees groups of people climbing one on top of the other to form a ‘human tower’.
Pinya is the strong and stable base of the tower, made up of most of the Castellers who take part – this is represented at Tast by the bustling street-level bar and kitchen of the same name.
Pinya is the strong and stable base of the tower, made up of most of the Castellers who take part – this is represented at Tast by the bustling street-level bar and kitchen of the same name. Folre is the middle part of the structure, the second part to be ‘built’, and the second-floor restaurant with private dining rooms at Tast. At the top is Enxaneta, the pinnacle of the traditional Catalan ‘human tower’ performance Castells, and the culmination of Tast’s culinary experience, which is reserved for fine dining and, with its own, separate kitchen and tasting menus, a ‘restaurant within a restaurant’.
Like Castells, Tast is all about teamwork and loyalty, and the strength of the bonds between friends, family members and folk who work together day in, day out. It was a group of friends who originally came together with the idea for Tast and its independent and authentic approach to introducing Manchester to a corner of Catalonia; one of a kind for the city. With the unique Tastet plates dreamed up by Michelin-starred Executive Chef Paco Pérez offering a ‘small taste of food’, larger than a starter and smaller than a main, to give you an affordable ‘in’ to authentic Catalan cuisine, alongside 10- and 15-course tasting menus – Tres de Deu and Tres de Quinze, which take inspiration from the different shapes of the Castells towers – there’s something for everyone. A real levelling experience, you might say.
Read the Tast blog piece about Castells here.
Find out more about Tast here.
