Harley Young enjoys an evening of al fresco dining in Platt Fields Market Garden ahead of Treehouse Hotel opening
Treehouse Hotel Manchester has announced its first destination restaurant, Pip, which will be opening inside the venue in late summer 2024. It is the first of three food and beverage concepts to be revealed by the hotel.
Located in the city centre on Blackfriars Street, Treehouse Hotel Manchester aims to bring adventure, escapism and contemporary design to guests and the local community alike. Every detail is ‘imagined through the carefree, optimistic lens of childhood, balanced with a distinctly modern sensibility’.
This restaurant is a celebration of everything I am passionate about – seasonal, low-waste cooking, and the incredible produce we have here in the North West.
The concept restaurant comes from Mary-Ellen McTague - a Manchester chef with over 20 years of experience in hospitality, having worked alongside Heston Blumenthal at his esteemed Michelin-starred restaurants, The Fat Duck and The Hinds Head.
Pip will be located on the ground floor of the hotel and focus on championing low-waste cooking by making the most of locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients.
Mary-Ellen will be working directly with suppliers - including Littlewoods Butchers, Cinderwood Market Garden, Organic North, Courtyard Dairy and Platt Fields Market Garden - to source the best produce for her menu.
As well as this, meat dishes will be sourced by working with regenerative farmers to reduce the overall carbon footprint from field to fork. Alongside breakfast, lunch and evening dining options, there will also be convenient grab-and-go options for busy city dwellers looking for a bite to eat on their travels.
The sustainability efforts extend to the drinks selection offered at Pip, with a wine programme that focuses on small boutique-produced, environmentally conscious and sustainable wines. Likewise, the cocktail programme will feature a rotation of seasonal signature drinks and classics, developed alongside the produce used in the kitchen to minimise waste.
Last night, Mary-Ellen showcased a range of the dishes that diners can expect on Pip’s menu including: smoked chalk stream trout with mustard cream and rye; Lancashire hot pot with oyster ketchup and pickled red cabbage; buttered greens from Platt Fields garden; crushed Jersey Royal new potatoes with smoked dulse butter; and rhubarb trifle with lemon thyme and buttermilk syllabub.
Each of which were hearty and homely dishes made exceptionally well with quality local ingredients.
Commenting on her new restaurant opening, Mary-Ellen McTague said: “I’m thrilled to bring Pip to life at Treehouse Hotel Manchester. This restaurant is a celebration of everything I am passionate about – seasonal, low-waste cooking, and the incredible produce we have here in the North West. The menu is designed to showcase the best of our local culinary heritage, using modern techniques that make the most of every single ingredient. I cannot wait to share our vision for Pip with the Manchester community and beyond.”
Commenting on the first restaurant to open at the hotel, Tim Reynolds, General Manager of Treehouse Hotel Manchester, said: “We are incredibly excited to welcome Pip to Treehouse Hotel Manchester. Mary-Ellen’s innovative approach to low-waste cooking and her dedication to using locally sourced ingredients align perfectly with our values. We look forward to offering our guests an extraordinary dining experience that reflects the vibrant spirit of Manchester.”
Treehouse Hotel Manchester, by SH Hotels & Resorts, will be the second of its kind in the UK. The other is located in London’s chic and trendy Marylebone, which our writer Neil Sowerby has had the pleasure of visiting. Read his account below.
Neil Sowerby visits Treehouse Hotel London
Party time in the original Treehouse hotel in London’s Marylebone. The top floor Nest bar has been hired for the afternoon, the wine flows and the stupendous 360 degree views of the capital from the wrap-around terrace become blurrier by the hour. My invitation has been an excuse for a peek at the prototype for Mark II in Manchester and it doesn’t disappoint. Our overnight stay dispels fears that it is yet another corporate, quasi-sustainable take on ‘Boutique’. Expect the belated conversion of the dowdy Ramada Renaissance to be a wood-centric wow.
It’s a cliche that appearances can be deceptive, but creators SH Hotels have no qualms about retaining a brutalist carapace. This former sixties office block should be shamed by rubbing shoulders with BBC’s Broadcasting House, John Nash’s Regency All Souls church and The Langham Hotel, yet inside it is deliciously quirky and hospitable. Mega child-friendly, dog-friendly (gourmet treats and a pet concierge service) and, above all, fun.
Our room is perhaps a mite boxy, the trademark timber features pitched against concrete ceilings and shingle walls, but it comes with an enormous outlook, where you can stretch out on a full-length window seat sporting colourful cushions. The beds, too, are ergonomic treats. Wacky touches abound, from the vinyl turntable, a Paddington Bear in each room (for kids to take home), yellow cuckoo clocks and pink piggy banks… to the birch trunks running floor to ceiling in the bathroom.
The scale is smaller than the Deansgate version in the pipeline – just 95 rooms/suites compared with 224 – and its food offering of Cali-Mexican and Nancy Silverton’s upmarket Los Angeles sourdough pizza will not be replicated in Manchester, which will offer its own distinctive restaurants. What will transfer is a serious eco commitment, so expect similar living green walls, harvesting of rainwater and extensive use of reclaimed and recycled materials. None of it delivered with a po-faced evangelism. Welcome to the forest!
Sign up to Pip to be the first to hear about its opening and booking, or follow Treehouse Hotel Manchester and Pip on socials (@staytreehouse/@pip.mcr) to stay in the loop.
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