Chotto Matte, the Peruvian-Japanese fusion Nikkei concept from former Nobu and Hakkasan honcho Kurt Zdesar, is to open a second London branch in Marylebone on 28 April – and has signed up for footballer-turned-entrepreneur Gary Neville’s St Michael’s development in Manchester. Meaning “wait a moment” in Japanese, Chotto Matte is wasting little time in becoming a […]
Hip Liverpool Cantonese outfit Yum Cha is to open its first branch in Manchester this spring, at the £250million Kampus redevelopment on the former Metropolitan University site between Piccadilly station and the Gay Village. The Merseyside connection will be reinforced with Madre taqueria and Middle Eastern specialist Maray also moving into Kampus. Manchester’s own Cloudwater […]
Gino D’Acampo is planning to launch a string of Italian restaurants under his Luciano brand this year, with venues in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield all in the pipeline. The celebrity chef, pictured with Cheshire reality TV star Christine McGuiness at the opening this week of Luciano – named after his first-born son – in Alderley […]

20 Stories, the first Manchester foray for D&D London, will open on 1 March atop the new No.1 Spinningfields skyscraper. Sitting at 100 metres it is the city’s highest restaurant. Aiden Byrne (previously of Manchester House) will oversee the food offering. 20 Stories will feature a restaurant, relaxed grill, lively bar, and a rooftop garden terrace, […]

Jay Rayner in The Observer reviewed Manchester’s German-themed restaurant Albert’s Schloss where the “waiters aren’t wearing lederhosen and slapping each other’s thighs manfully, but they might as well be”… “If you didn’t pay proper attention, you might dismiss Albert’s Schloss as Dante’s third circle of hell, only with less glamour. The music is so loud it could dislodge a […]

The UK’s best towns for foodies, and Top 100 Restaurants are revealed in Harden’s Best UK Restaurants 2018 published today – the country’s most comprehensive restaurant guide available in bookshops, with approximately twice the number of entries as The Good Food Guide. Read the full Harden’s 100 list here. Harden’s 27th annual poll of diners, surveyed […]

When Grace Dent reviewed The Langham’s new ‘pub’ The Wigmore, she decided she never, ever wanted to go there again. We would hazard a guess that The Guardian’s Marina O’Loughlin would be quite happy to go back any time…“Silly? A bit. Delicious? Oh yes.” “Creative cocktails in their own weeny tankards… pies and roasts and toasties… reimagined […]

Richard Caring’s Ivy Collection is planning to open an all-day brasserie in Manchester later this year – the fast-expanding group’s first foray into northern England. The company confirmed it has applied for planning permission for a site in the Pavillion, in Byrom Street, Spinningfields. The original Ivy, long a celebrity haunt in London’s Theatreland, celebrates […]
The Real Junk Food Project has launched a fundraising campaign to open a full-time pay-as-you-feel restaurant in Manchester next year, using only food destined to be thrown out. The project needs to raise £20,000 by January 13 in order to go ahead, with pledges being sought through Crowdfunder. Chef Mary-Ellen McTague, formerly of the Fat Duck and Manchester’s Aumbry, […]
A Manchester record shop that morphed into a prizewinning vegan junk food café has had to transfer to bigger premises to cope with its popularity. Dom Moss’s V Revolution, now re-branded as V Rev, opened on Monday in Edge Street, a few minutes’ walk from its previous perch in the Northern Quarter. Moss launched the […]