Christian Coates worked for Manchester hospitality group Living Ventures before setting up his own bar, leaving for a stint in the US and retraining as a nutritionist and personal trainer. At the beginning of this year he set up a new company in his home city, Orka Koncepts, with which he has revamped two former […]
Paris-based Big Mamma Group are opening two enormous new Instagram-friendly Italianate extravaganzas this month – Circolo Popolare (pictured) in Manchester, their first UK venue outside London, and Barbarella in Canary Wharf. Circolo Popolare Manchester, which launched last week, is themed around an al-fresco festa in Sicily and set across two floors of ex-footballer Gary Neville’s £400million […]
A new Thai restaurant taking inspiration from global barbecue techniques opens next week in Manchester. Bangkok Diners Club, from Ben and Bo Humphries, has taken over the upstairs dining room at the Edinburgh Castle, a historic pub in Ancoats that was revived to wide acclaim in 2019. The new kitchen replaces a well-received operation serving […]
Chester-based tapas bar Porta has opened its latest branch in the former premises of TV chef Simon Rimmer’s well-known West Didsbury venue Greens, the veteran vegetarian restaurant which closed down earlier this year with debts of about £600,000. Founded by brothers Joe & Ben Wright, Porta also has branches in Altrincham and Salford, and wins […]
Two chefs who were part of the opening team at Stockport’s high-flying foodie hotspot Where The Light Gets In eight years ago have teamed up to launch their own restaurant and wine bar, Cantaloupe, in the Cheshire town. Josh Reed-Cooper and Mike Thomas stayed in touch while working their way through some of greater Manchester’s […]
Philosophically inclined chef Sam Buckley is taking his acclaimed Stockport restaurant Where The Light Gets In to Manchester city centre this winter for a five-month series mixing residencies with workshops and talks. Titled ‘A play in the City’, the series is billed as ‘a unique four-act programme that combines food, art, and urban living into […]
Chef Steven Smith, who left the acclaimed Ribble Valley gastropub Freemasons in Wiswell in June, has announced his next move – to head up futuristic Japanese restaurant MUSU in Manchester. Steven transformed Freemasons over 15 years into one of the most commented-on venues in the annual Harden’s survey, which described it this year as ‘a fine-dining […]
Simon Wood (pictured) announced the shock closure of his acclaimed Manchester restaurant WOOD earlier this week, closely followed by Michael O’Hare confirming the closure of Psycho Sandbar in Leeds – which had only been open for seven months after replacing his famous The Man Behind The Curtain. Michael said he was proud of what he had […]
As one Manchester institution, Simon Rimmer’s Greens vegetarian restaurant, announced its closure this week, another would-be Manc institution took flight – Louis (see photograph), billed as a “love letter” to Italian-American dining, complete with live jazz and a ‘no-phones’ policy. Greens announced its closure with a post saying, “It is with deep regret that the board […]
Well-known Cheshire-based chef Aiden Byrne and his wife Sarah have launched a crowdfunding campaign to open an “intimate” fine-dining restaurant near their home in Knutsford. Due to launch in October, the restaurant will be called Li-Ly and will open for three lunches and four dinner services a week – “creating a work-life balance for us, our […]
