Ramsbottom Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: “Great food and also a sense that they are putting back into the community” inspires support for this pub-with-rooms on the village green. Run as a youth-focused social enterprise, supporting young people to access training and paid work experience, it has won a string of awards over its almost ten years in operation. In summer, its ‘Incredible Edible Beer Garden’ comes into its own: almost an acre in size and with lots of interest as well as outside seating.

2022 Review: Chef Danielle Heron, who has worked at L'Enclume and Maaemo in Oslo, opened her first solo venture in the midst of the pandemic in autumn 2020, serving Scandinavian-style open sandwiches and salads, with evening meals served four nights a week. The name comes from Osla and Manchester, the home cities of Danielle and co-owner Sofie Stoermann-Naess. No feedback as yet, but it sounds promising, and was shortlisted as a potential newcomer of the year in the Manchester Food & Drink Festival Awards.

2019 Review: “Back on form and deservedly popular” – this well-known, “comfortable” gastropub on the ‘Yellow Hills’ achieved more consistent ratings this year for it’s “mixture of pub classics, sharing boards and seasonal specials”. As our survey was concluding in May 2018, it was sold, along with its Ribble Valley Inn stablemates, to the Brunning & Price group.

This “unusual and unique find” – “hidden away in a railway arch near Manchester’s Victoria Station” – offers “a wide selection of pasta and dumplings from south Germany, Switzerland, Alsace, Austria and the German-speaking parts of northern Italy”, washed down with an interesting variety of beers, wines and Japanese alcoholic drinks. Even the occasional critic who finds it “not entirely to my liking” concedes that “the very interesting menu has good and unusual food”. The same team is scheduled to open a sake bar and shop called Suzume.

Closed for 15 year following fire damage, this handsome late-Victorian tavern in Salford was transformed for its 2021 reopening, and now “feels like a country pub when you walk in but then morphs into a very smart restaurant at the back”. Chef Ben Chaplin (ex-20 Stories in Spinningfields) has put together a menu that addresses both sides of the equation – winning plaudits for some ‘serious cookery’ from the Observer’s Jay Rayner, among others.

“A great street food experience, with wines and beers to match” – Smithfield's Grade II Listed 1858 market has been refurbished and reimagined as a food hall by the folk behind Altrincham Market; ten food and drink stalls serve up a range of interesting fare, and there are over 500 seats.

2022 Review: “Busy”, huge and gaudy Cantonese that sits over the Wing Yip Oriental supermarket, where you can choose from over 300 dishes on the menu. It’s one of the few places left in town (in the country?) where dim sum still comes on trolleys.

This legendary cheap ’n’ cheerful Northern Quarter curry canteen is “still the best-value food in Manchester city centre” – as it has been for almost 40 years. “If you’re a veggie you can choose rice and 3 curries for under a fiver: an absolute bargain”. It even inspires poetry amongst some fans: “steaming-full plates of flavour-packed nosh, all of them served for v little dosh”.

These “slick and professional” Italians (offshoots of the national San Carlo chain) are “buzzy and convenient sorts of places, where you can enjoy an upbeat bite without hanging around too long”. They serve “an extensive menu of small Venetian sharing plates”: “at best they’re excellent” and almost invariably a meal is “good fun”. The best known outlet is steps from Piccadilly Circus – “it might look like a tourist trap in its prime location but it’s a reliable and smartly decorated venue”.

2021 Review: “Good-quality, well-cooked and inventive burgers – and some genius specials” (remember the ‘Spam Allardyce’?) draw a steady stream of salivating carnivores to this Northern Quarter joint, “although the trademark barrage of social media seems to have calmed down last year, as has the constant invention/reinvention of new burgers”. “The steaks are also some of the best around, and they make a decent bearnaise”, as well as four different meat-free burgers. Outposts in Prestwich and Preston have closed down, but there’s still one in Didsbury.

2019 Review: “A bit weird and not easy to find from ground-level” – this bar and lounge on the first floor of an indoor golf driving-range in Spinningfields (complete with ‘a suspended light installation featuring over 1000 beautifully lit golf balls’) “doesn’t immediately scream fine-dining”. The focus is on a trendy, meat-focussed small-plates menu and early reports suggest that, unlikely as it sounds, there’s “some proper high-end cooking going on here”.

2019 Review: “A taste of France in Manchester’s Northern Quarter” and thus sticking out a touch amid the burger and pizza joints, the Moreau family’s classy brasserie relocated to this larger, more prominent site two years back; by all accounts it offers Gallic cooking “at its best” and ably accompanied by “fine wines”.

The all-conquering chain brings its “fabulous menu” of “inventive Indian dishes”, “full of really great surprises”, to a “stunning, evocative room” in a former Freemasons’ lodge. “I haven’t missed a meal here in my last 15 trips to Manchester and for a good reason!”. “The millennial metropolitans (my daughters) may have decided that it is over-rated, but for me it’s a wonderful experience”. Top Tip – “the lamb shank biryani, which is unique to Manchester, is always top-notch”.