A glamorous Italian-style grill room and bar launches next week in Manchester’s Grade II listed former city library and registrar’s office off Deansgate. GiGi Gusto Griglia has taken over and transformed the former premises of Gusto, with an open kitchen and a central cocktail bar, Bar Elegenza, and aims to capture the ‘glamour, energy and […]
Gary Usher is closing his bistro Hispi in Didsbury next month, when it will be taken over by fellow northwest chef Andrew Sheridan’s Open Restaurant Group and relaunched as a live-fire restaurant called Arcadian. The new owners have pledged to retain all Hispi staff, so there will be no job losses. For Gary, whose Chester-based […]
Craig Bancroft has run Northcote country-house hotel in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley since 1983, guiding its development as a gastronomic beacon of the North. Harden’s caught up with him at Northcote in early January – a time of the year when many in hospitality take a welcome break after the rigours of Christmas and the New Year. […]
Highly rated northwest-based chef Andrew Sheridan is to open a new all-day restaurant in Chester – the city where he kicked off his career. Andrew has taken over the former Da Noi restaurant on Bridge Street and will relaunch it next month as Noted. Best known for his Liverpool flagship Restaurant 8 by Andrew Sheridan, the […]
Shaun Moffat is to open his debut restaurant as chef patron in Manchester city centre this spring, combining ‘thoughtful British cooking’ and ‘Northern hospitality’ at Winsome, in the glass atrium of the Whitworth Locke Hotel on Princess Street. Shaun (pictured centre) made his name locally at the Edinburgh Castle in Ascots – highly praised for its […]
Gary Usher has announced the closure of Burnt Truffle in Heswall on the Wirral, his original crowdfunded venture, just short of its tenth birthday. Almost 900 individual donors pledged £100,000 in what Gary believes was Britain’s first non-investment restaurant fundraising campaign, enabling him to open Burnt Truffle in July 2015 as a follow-up to his […]
A restaurant offering a ‘fine-dining’ take on classic northern dishes has launched in Rochdale’s newly restored Victorian Gothic town hall. The Martlet Kitchen, named after a mythical bird with no legs, has taken flight under chef Darren Parkinson, formerly of Shibden Mill in Halifax. It is open all day from breakfast, via a straightforward lunch […]
A young couple have opened an ambitious debut restaurant in the Cheshire village of Farndon, on the Welsh border six miles from Wrexham. Felix Shore and Anna Roseblade moved fast when the opportunity arose, transforming a former café in the heart of the village in just four weeks. Their bistro, 209, opens every day for breakfast […]
Chef-patron Steven Smith has left Freemasons at Wiswell, the fine-dining pub in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley that he has established as a regional star over the past 15 years. Born and raised in nearby Blackburn, Steven plans to open a new venture in the region, although he has no concrete plans as yet. Head chef Matt […]
Former L’Enclume executive chef Tom Barnes is launching his first restaurant next year, in Manchester – with the blessing of Simon Rogan, his former boss at the Lake District gastronomic powerhouse. Skof will open next spring in the Hanover building, a terracotta-tiled former drapery warehouse built in 1904 by the Co-operative Wholesale Society in what is […]
