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 […]

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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 […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 30th June 2024 Evening Standard Akira Back, Mayfair Jimi Famurewa gasped when he stepped inside the extravagant new Mandarin Oriental Mayfair in Hanover Square. Sadly its headline restaurant, from Seoul-born, Las Vegas-based celeb chef Akira Back, had the opposite […]

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