Joe Baiamonte

“Why wouldn’t you just have salt and vinegar? Is this a southern thing, putting pepper on your chips?”

It’s January, 2007, and I’m having a very confused conversation with a cockney university housemate about his upcoming takeaway order. We’re very swiftly making our way through the piercingly cold Mancunian air from Castle Irwell student village to Little China on Salford’s Lower Broughton Road, as he extols the virtues of their salt and pepper chips. In his brief four months up north, he’s seemingly become obsessed with them, while I have no idea what he’s on about.

Fast forward 13 years and some form of salt and pepper dish will regularly make it’s way onto any order I make at a Chinese restaurant. Chips, chicken wings, ribs, tofu, I want that ferocious concoction of green peppers, onions, chillies, salt and spices on absolutely fucking everything. That fateful January evening in 2007 brought me up to speed with a cuisine that has been thriving in the North West for almost 30 years.

It’s painfully ironic that a Londoner was the one to introduce me to this staple of Chinese chippy menus as, primarily, salt and pepper dishes are a North Western stronghold. Venture much further than Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire or Yorkshire and this sweet, savoury, salty sensation becomes a woefully rare sight on chippy menus.

This is perhaps to do with the fact that the dish originated in Liverpool, the city with the oldest Chinese community in Europe and home to ‘the golden triangle of Chinese chippies’.

Scouse native Gabrielle de la Puente passionately extolled in a recent Vittles newsletter that, “Around my Nan’s in L8 alone has Kevins, the Lucky Star, Chius, KKs, Lee’s, Leung Sang, Ringo’s, Hang Fung; and more and more for days”, signifying the sheer density of Chinese chip shops that have cornered the fish and chip market in Merseyside since an influx of Chinese immigration to the city in the 1960’s.

According to a 2017 Liverpool Echo article, the addition of salt and pepper to chips was, much like all seismic cultural happenings – Joe Pesci’s year of Goodfellas and Home Alone, the birth of G-Funk, debut of the Premier League, Kappa popper trackie bottoms and, of course, the early Hollywood works of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler – a ’90s phenomenon.

Speaking to the Echo three years ago, Chinese restauranteur Kin Liu, owner of pan-Asian establishment Chamber 36 lifted the lid on his own family’s history with the dish, revealing to the local paper, “There were always demands for salt and pepper chicken wings and ribs, and due to picky customers the salt and pepper chips were created.”

As with all inventions, the history of inception can be murky and contested, with Mossley Hill stalwart Chris’ Chippy, in operation since 1967, claiming they began selling salt and pepper dishes when ‘a master chef brought his recipe along in the 1960s’.

Whatever the exact date and location, there’s no denying that the salt and pepper mix making it’s way from chicken and ribs to chips is one of the most seminal culinary moments in British food history. Might actually be tied for first place with the first time crisps were put on a sandwich. Either way, it wasn’t long before salt and pepper made it’s way down the m62 and quickly began to take over Mancunian chippy culture.

Suddenly, ambling out of the rain on a freezing Friday night to await your usual assortment of battered goods lashed in salt and vinegar with a tin or two of Dandelion and Burdock became a spicier adventure. The glow of the flecks of chilli dotted across the sumptuous golden grease of freshly fried potato, patterned between translucent wedges of onion and deep green pepper, packing just the right amount of crunch in contrast to the pillowy innards of the chips. It became too much to resist even for the most ardent traditionalists.

It was an added element of adventure, transforming the chippy tea into a more dynamic, exotic experience. The 3am beer soaker had an upgrade on the gut busting sledgehammer doner while hangovers were simply burned away. An all purpose, multi faceted marvel had landed in our city and it was embraced wholeheartedly.

Manchester’s chippies weren’t exclusive to the phenomena, either. China Town sit down restaurants were awash with salt and pepper dishes on their menus, with the evolution snowballing through to the modern day with the arrival of the Arndale Market’s very own Salt & Pepper Manchester, opened by Chloe Tao and her brother Cash 18 months ago.

The ‘merging of the East and the West’ was, unsurprisingly, a smash hit upon opening, with instagram immediately awash with satisfied customers eager to show off their portions of sesame seed smattered sticky chicken, beef and prawns, sitting atop piles of fragrant Asian slaw and paired with extra crispy crinkle cut chips (the best type of chip, by the way. Disagree and we will throw hands. Name the time and place). Every brown box that dropped on the timeline was another verse in the siren song drawing city centre dwellers helplessly towards the south side of the Arndale for their fusion fix.

“We grew up totally encompassed in the Chinese takeaway food industry, with our parents owning a takeaway as well as my grandparents before them,” explains Chloe, reminiscing over three generations of history and tradition. “We noticed that a lot of British Chinese kids were branching out of the industry and although we tried our hands at other professions, we kept coming back to food.

“We wanted to keep the family legacy alive, but also use our western upbringing to elevate and modernise the Chinese fast food experience. Thus, Salt & Pepper was born.

It was during Chloe’s formative years in the takeaway industry that she came to know and love salt and pepper dishes, churning out a procession every weekend while working for her parents.

“The first time I really came to notice salt and pepper was in the later years of my parents’ takeaway. I used to work there on the weekends and all of a sudden, there seemed to be a huge influx in orders of salt and pepper dishes – my parents’ salt and pepper wings were a favourite and I just remember having to wrap up seemingly never-ending portions on busy weekends.”

But what of Chinese home cooking? Given that salt and pepper was thrust upon the North West as a chip shop hybrid, has the style of cuisine translated to family meals over the years?

“We eat salt and pepper dishes at home, and we order them in traditional Chinese restaurants too. The flavours and ingredients are simple and classic Chinese staples, so it’s a really easy and tasty dish to whip up for the family.”

Of course, as with any rampantly popular cuisine, the next step is for customers to turn cooks and try their own hands at recreating the classics within the confines of their own kitchens. But mastering salt and pepper is no easy feat, as Chloe explains, balance is crucial

“Well without giving too much away, you should focus on balance with the salt and pepper blend. You don’t want any spice to be too overpowering and you want to keep it true to the umami flavour.

“I would say one of the main mistakes people make is retaining too much moisture in the vegetables they use. Salt and pepper dishes are typically deep fried and crispy, so big chunks of vegetables can make the dish soggy – not really what you want.

It was said sogginess which was one of the culprits behind Chloe’s most miserable salt and pepper experience, and perhaps goes some way to explaining why the North West is so synonymous with the cuisine, as further North in Scotland, everything was awry.

“I had this really bad salt and pepper dish at a food market in Glasgow a few months ago. It was salt and pepper breaded prawns, but the prawns were really mushy and not fresh. And, like I was saying before about moisture, they had these huge chunks of onions and veg that were really soggy and just overall unpleasant. Plus, the seasoning was sweet for some reason.”

Luckily, closer to home, as Chloe continues, we’re better served for our salt and pepper options, with one spot in particular being reserved for special praise, “Our friends at Pho Cue are cranking out some good salt and pepper dishes along with their classic Vietnamese food.”

Marrying the familiarity of the traditional with the explosiveness of Chinese ingredients is what has cemented salt and pepper chips as the heavyweight champion in their field. In the advent of ‘dirty’ and ‘loaded’ fries, where once proud chips are reduced to limp, starchy vessels for dousings of various flavoured mayos, tepid chilli con carnes and coagulated cheese sauce, salt and pepper offers vibrancy and, perhaps most importantly, the need for a solid tin of fizzy pop as accompaniment. If it’s pissing it down on a Friday night or it’s cracking the flags on a Saturday afternoon, that’s a meal you’re not turning down. It’s a lunch hour treat that will perk you up, leaving you gasping for more rather than leave you gasping for air at your desk. It’s a morning after the night before pick-me-up that somehow still does the job while cold and dotted with condensation from it’s polystyrene packaging.

“The best salt and pepper experience I’ve had would be back when I was working at my parents’ takeaway. During the shift, when orders came in, my dad would throw some extra wings or ribs in for me and I’d end up having a little salt and pepper box that I would snack on whilst working.

So, while there are a few establishments dotted around the UK that list salt and pepper dishes on their menus, it’s comforting to know that our own backyard, and just down the road, is where it was done first and where it’s being done best. Better still, we’re blessed with countless Chinese chippies and restaurants from which to enjoy them from. Which actually gives me an idea for another article * sends request to curate ‘The Top 100 Salt and Pepper dishes in Greater Manchester’ article to editor *.

See you in the queue on the South Side of the Arndale in the first week of December.

“This is the authentic kind of peasant food and these places are where you find all the best shit. Without cheap rent and immigration you’re not going to get that melting pot where loads of new food comes through. This is where all the real shit happens.”

The real shit is, without question, the best shit. And it’s happening on an unassuming terraced side street just off Wilmslow Road. Huddled over a tightly packed table, brimming with glorious, sumac dusted, wood grilled lamb and eye wateringly fluffy, crisp naan fresh from the tandoor, Luke Cowdrey aka Luke Unabomber – one half of DJ duo The Unabombers, WorldWideFM DJ, Homoelectric & Homobloc promoter, instagram lunatic, restauranteur, raconteur and kebab connoisseur is passionately delivering a history lesson on the evolution of Rusholme’s unsurpassed grilled meat in naan scene, from the watershed opening of Rusholme Chippy in ’77 to the Kurdish alchemy of the present day, with nods to ‘70s New York, ‘80s Sheffield and The Ottoman Empire along the way.

As naan is effortlessly torn then enveloped around the delicate outer crunch of Kurdish lamb kebab and decorated with fresh parsley and chopped onions, Luke’s enthusiasm, despite now being on our third meal in little over two hours, is refusing to wane. And when the taste of Kurdistan Cafe’s offerings passes your lips, it’s not hard to see why. This is next level gear.

“With the Kurdish food, you have such an incredible combination of flavours,” begins Luke, constructing another hand sized pocket of perfection from the various plates in front of us. “The acidity of the sumac, the pickles, the parsley, hummus, tomatoes and the most amazing kebabs. I don’t think anyone touches these. Nico here is an absolute alchemist in all of this and when this place is on form, no one touches them.”

But how did we get here? How did the bright lights and baltis of the Curry Mile evolve into a haven for mind bending Middle Eastern peasant food?

What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back…

We begin by meeting Luke outside the iconic red and yellow awning of Rusholme Chippy. A million memories of shot soaking 4am meals forever nestled within its walls, the place so many of us have promised to make good on that 9am lecture only to safely miss it by a solid five hours. Established in 1977, the self proclaimed ‘Kings of Kobeda’ were smouldering skewers of Persian lamb over charcoal and slapping homemade naan against the walls of their clay tandoor when The Curry Mile was still dominated by sit down Indian and Pakistani restaurants. 

The same recipes and techniques have been passed down from chef-to-chef over the intervening four decades, solidifying the misleadingly christened Chippy as an irreplaceable Manchester icon. It is not only a stalwart of the scene but, as Luke relays to us, a trendsetter more than 40 years ahead of it’s time.

“Rusholme Chippy was a really early beginning of the clay oven and the tandoor. Two Persian brothers, in 1977, set it up. It’s name is deceptive. You can get chips, but they were the early adopters of what is now ubiquitous in Rusholme and a lot of Northern towns, where you have this Persian, Kurdish alchemy of kobeda and tandoor bread.

“In 1977 they had the first clay oven outside of London in the whole of the UK. They were so ahead of their time, no one really realised what we had because there weren’t any others. It didn’t really develop into anything.

“Alongside (fellow Wilmslow Rd veterans) Camel One and Abdul’s, this was where I discovered the Persian version of what became what you see now. The breads were bigger, they were more of an oval shape. Then you’ve got kobeda, which are the long lamb skewers.

“Don’t ask me how I know this, but kobeda are actually derived from the Persian swords from medieval times which they put into fires on their many escapades with the Ottoman Empire and they created a kebab in the fire. That was then taken off the skewer and put onto the bread which had been cooked in tandoor ovens.”

Seriously, fuck learning lopsided revisionist retellings of dusty old monarchs in GCSE history, get the creation of different kebab cultures on the national syllabus and get it on there now.

Pit Stop #1: Street Corner Shawarma

Our first food stop comes just over the road at Al Zain, a Kurdish owned shawarma joint serving up what Luke assures us, alongside the fellow Kurd operated Manchester Fresh Shawarma, is the best vertical Lebanese lamb in town

He’s not wrong.

The two shawarma spits (one lamb, one chicken) twirl mesmerically like ballerinas in front of you upon entrance, the much fuller chicken version a clear second best to the ludicrously popular lamb variety, crowned with tomatoes and onion, which permeate through knee tremblingly tender meat. We leave Luke to do the honours when it comes to ordering up a plethora of kebabs, all wrapped in a traditional flatbread that delivers the perfect amount of chew as we proceed to tear through our street corner starters to a cacophony of ‘fucking hell’s. The meat just glides apart, mixing effortlessly well with the bread and accompanying pickles and salad, all luminous oranges, purples and greens. The mule kick of chilli providing a welcome wake-me-up on a typically drizzly Mancunian Thursday lunchtime.

Sauce ridden smiles confirm that Luke’s almost 40 years of experience in the kebab devouring game have generated peerless instincts when it comes to identifying world class shawarma. Shout out to Lebanon too, because between this magic and their settlers in Mexico helping introduce the world to Tacos Al Pastor in the 1930’s, they have given us all two wonderful culinary gifts.

From Eighties Elephant Legs To Post-Acid House Hangouts

“Between 1985 and 2000, Pakistani and Indian versions of a kebab, which was naan bread, generally and chicken tikka arguably overtook the doner as the Holy Grail,” explains Luke.

“For me most people’s understanding of a kebab goes back to a really bad doner, an elephant leg on a skewer with pita bread and in a way it was. It’s what people had when they were pissed. Most Northern towns had doner kebabs that weren’t very good.

“A mixture of immigration and different cultures coming here opened up the whole kebab scene to more influences, so for me the defining moment was definitely Abdul’s, the Tandoori Kitchen and Camel One, which was the first wave of the Pakistani/Indian naan bread and chicken tikka and that became the standard.

“Tandoori Kitchen were actually Iranian and doing their oddball alchemy with it where they had this amazing Persian bread with incredible chicken tikka, which was the holy grail for me. But Camel One and Abdul’s were the defining places in the mid ‘80s and ‘90s. Post acid house that’s where everyone went. Camel One was the coolest hangout. All the young Asian lads and Moss Side lads came up, students came down.”

Camel One, with it’s unmistakable red and white candystriped shopfront catching the eye of anyone within at least 100 yards has, like the aforementioned Rusholme Chippy, stood the test of time, even if The Curry Mile didn’t.

The ‘Curry Mile’ moniker for Wilmslow Road was established in the 1980’s, although textile mill workers from the Indian subcontinent had been frequenting cafes in this corridor a couple of miles south of the city centre since the ‘50s. Gradually, over the next 20 years or so, the largely Pakistani community began to expand the number of restaurants along the stretch until, in the late ‘70s it was synonymous with South Asian curries.

It is no longer a name Luke feels is suitable for the area, though, given the closures of many of the original establishments and the evolution of immigration into the neighbourhood. It also could have been the blessing in disguise that saw Rusholme level up into the most exciting culinary enclave in Greater Manchester.

“The Curry Mile died on it’s arse because it changed. With the exception of Mughli, which is wonderful, a lot of the curry houses shut down and the white middle classes stopped coming to Rusholme, but that’s when the magic happened, because the next wave of immigration was Kurdish, Turkish, Afghani, Syrian, all the various elements of the Middle East. 

“So the food in Rusholme, almost by osmosis slowly began to change and on the side streets you got places like Kurdistan Cafe, because of cheap rent and empty properties, which meant that new school immigrants, new arrivals, came in and could rent places for fuck all. The food was for them, it wasn’t for us, it wasn’t for tourists. It’s why this is still so cheap, it was like a return to the 60s, 70s and 80s when the Indians, Pakistanis and Bengalis on the Curry Mile would cook home curries for their people because they were working in mills, in textiles and the rag trade and those places were where they ate.

“When I arrived in Manchester it was still quite underground, places like Shazan and a few others didn’t serve alcohol, didn’t have cutlery, so it’s almost returned to that period where now instead of Indian, Pakistani and Bengali it’s Kurdish, Afghani and Syrian. So this is the next wave and this all happened under the nose of everyone. No one noticed it.”

This modern influence from the Middle East is undeniable. Wherever you look on Wilmslow Road and it’s numerous offshoots, there are menus displaying prices for kobeda, fatayer and qabuli pulao. Backstreet Kurdish bakers are slinging flatbreads four-for-a-pound while Iraqi shawarma houses sandwich their fillings on fresh Samoon bread. The aforementioned white middle classes no longer being prominent in the area has leant itself to an underground vibrancy being developed that is completely alien to anything you could ever wish to experience in the centre of town. It feels vital and enriching. Affordable, authentic street food at every turn without the merest hint of the words ‘artisan’ or ‘market’? Yes fucking please.

Pit Stop #2: Double Kobeda With a Side of Rubicon and Noughties Spanish Football

Our second stop sees us venture inside Al Jazeera, back across the road from Al Zain. Luke doubles down on the kobeda, while advising us to try the qabuli pulao, the national dish of Afghanistan. 

From about four seconds after the food hits the table, it’s not difficult to figure out why the Afghanis flocked to this dish of  delicate lamb (or beef) blanketed in a bed of steamed basmati rice, carrots and raisins cooked in a mouth watering broth. It disappears from sight in a matter of minutes, even with a Leviathan sized double kobeda sitting alongside it, crying out to be devoured.

As seems to be the norm for the area, the lamb is once again, in both dishes, expertly prepared, with the qabuli pulao’s shoulder cuts pulling away from the bone with the merest glance of contact from any cutlery, before melting magically in your mouth. The kobedas meanwhile pull apart just as easily along with the delightfully soft naan, which Luke declares is the best it’s ever been of all his visits to this establishment. The grins that were beaming stupidly from our respective faces across the road after our first few bites of Al Zain’s shawarma return almost instantly as we glug down the only acceptable drink in a venue such as this – An ice cold tin of Rubicon.

Magnificently, and rather inexplicably, the TV attached to the wall above our heads is screening a Madrid derby from what I guess is around 2004, given the kits and players on display. It’s a most welcome sense of nostalgia to distract from the chaos of the present day world outside.

The Best Art Happens With Cheap Rent

Back at Kurdistan Cafe, our appetites are slowing, as the effects of an afternoon full of shawarma, kobeda, naan and pulao begin to deliciously take their toll. The citrus notes of the sumac speckled lamb still encouraging us to gamely graze onwards as Luke regales us with the story of Rusholme’s recent Kurdish revolution.

“In the mid-2000’s Kurdish and Afghani places very slowly began to open and Kurdistan Cafe was really the beginning of that next moment in time in the journey of kebabs, post-Rusholme Chippy and Camel One. Kurdish people just revolutionised it all again. And it was cheap, all fresh and the big difference was they were using a wood grill where you had such a wonderful intensity of heat that was so hot, when the lamb kobeda go on there, you get this almost gnarly, crispy edge while in the middle it’s very, very soft.

“So Kurdistan Cafe really started this whole revolution, then opposite Jaffa there’s a place called Atlas, which is also run by Kurdish people and it’s a fusion of different cultures, so they have the Kurdish bread done in the tandoor, very light and they mix that with a shawarma, so it’s almost like a kebab wrap or whatever you want to call it. That ended up being a completely different hybrid of kebab, so on the one hand you had a classic kobeda, which are the Afghani style with the long breads, with the Kurdish kebabs which came with the traditional bread and the Kurdish-Lebanese fusion shawarma kebab.”

“The white middle classes completely missed this moment, because they didn’t want to come to areas like Rusholme, which they perceived to be a bit rougher. They didn’t realise that, although they weren’t aesthetically perhaps the most pleasing places to look at from the outside, there had been a quiet revolution and suddenly the most authentic and incredible kebabs had been created.”

This perceived rougher aesthetic is a large part of what makes Rusholme’s restaurant scene so invigorating. In a manner similar to the Bronx in New York, it’s an area that feels gentrification proof in a city almost universally adorned by it. No amount of modern renewal projects and regeneration are touching Wilmslow Road. The cheap rents allowing immigrant communities to thrive as business owners without constantly looking over their shoulders, worrying that an opportunistic landlord will hike them out the minute they notice queues outside the doors or a deluge of positive Tripadvisor reviews.

You cannot help but be charmed by Kurdistan Cafe, with it’s ‘60s wood panelled walls, chipped paint and fading framed photographs. The small assemblies of plastic flowers, tissue boxes and greasy spoon-esque bottles of HP sauce and sugar dispensers are impossible not to derive joy from. That’s before the food, which feeds the stomach and soul with equal levels of homely, heartwarming euphoria. It is here that Luke claims the ultimate Kurdish Kebab and Tandoor bread are to be found.

As Luke continues, while the ‘Curry Mile’ may be dead, what has replaced it is Manchester’s best kept secret.

“Out of the darkness of the defeat of the Curry Mile came the growth of something else, so the closing of one door led to the opening of another.

“The funny thing is it still feels like a bit of a secret, it’s so underground because everything’s been happening on the side streets of Rusholme, the main drag has become hookah bars and things of that nature while the white middle classes are going to places like Dishoom and Akbar’s. It’s become this sort of posh pastiche, but still very good food.

“It’s like music, you don’t get good music without cheap rent and that’s where the magic happens. The best art happens with cheap rent, it comes out of the darkness. Look at someone like Keith Haring, he came out of a period where New York was bust, there were fires everywhere, the city was riddled and bankrupt. Times Square was a no go after seven o’ clock, there was prostitution and destitution but out of that came the magic and I think, funnily enough, in Rusholme, while not as extreme as that, obviously, what came out of the lack of Curry Mile was cheap rent on the side roads so people could open up here and afford to sell food at a reasonable amount rather than going to Ancoats which, while I love all of that, these places are a different animal.

“Rusholme became a victim of it’s own success. It all became so top end, it lost it’s originality and authenticity and it became what I like to call a ‘baltiplex’. You’d go into places and they’d have four fucking sauces and that was it.

“This food is democratic, it’s soul food. The cost of a kebab here is five quid with breads and you get soup with it and it’s done right. In the city centre that’s costing you at least a tenner more. In Rusholme it’s never been as good and I think in Manchester things are always the best when there’s less hype. The moment it becomes a thing it kinda loses it’s way.”

Recalibrating After Armageddon

Of course, the all encompassing Covid-19 pandemic cannot be ignored while soaking in Rusholme’s Middle Eastern magic. Given the volume of restaurants and takeaways on Wilmslow Road that generate a resounding amount of their income in the small hours from the adjacent student population, the government’s stifling 10pm curfew, in addition to the impending second national lockdown, have surely done a significant number on trade, potentially leaving several businesses hanging in the balance over the next month or so.

And while none of us know for certain what terrors or triumphs are awaiting us, Luke has a positive outlook on how a post-Covid Rusholme will fare.

“Whatever happens and no matter how bad it gets, and it will get bad, it’ll be an almost Armageddon situation, I think what will come out of it will be food, art, literature and music surviving in ways people couldn’t even think of.

“I think after all this, people will turn off from influencers and EDM and focus more on the real deal and it’s the same with food. They’ll focus on quality, authenticity and value for money. They won’t want cheesy chips in a fuckin naan bread. It’ll go back to basics. This will recalibrate everything. I’m an optimist, I think there’ll be light out of the darkness.

“Naturally, a mixture of immigration and cheap rent will see things beyond the inner city walls going more this way. I don’t think you can stop it. Post covid there’ll be more of this, much more of this.”

A Far Cry From 3am Doner

This improvement in the authenticity and quality of kebabs is an evolution Luke has chronicled since falling head over heels with a kebab van doner in Sheffield in 1982 and it’s an evolution he believes holds a very promising future.

“The first kebab I ever had was 1982 in Sheffield, ‘Chubby’s & Popeye’s’. They were doners. Probably looking back it wasn’t very good but I absolutely loved it and fell in love with it. 

“I actually sold my dad’s record collection for about four quid and bought two kebabs with it…I’ve got over it. 

“But from having such a bad reputation in the ‘80s as being this awful drunken food at two in the morning, kebabs are now the healthiest, freshest peasant food you can eat in this country.

“My top five kebab places in Rusholme would be Kurdistan Cafe, Al Zain, Al Jazeera, Rusholme Chippy, Shireen Grill House on Rusholme Grove and Manchester Fresh Shawarma. So six, then, actually. If it was a desert island deal and it’s the last thing you’re ever gonna eat, though, I’d go Kurdistan Cafe.

“The whole Curry Mile is over and now you’ve got amazing Lebanese bakeries, Syrian places, great coffee, it’s a completely different place. Keep an eye out because there’s new places developing all the time. There’s one on the main street that looks amazing. It may be Syrian and it looks like they have a hog roast but it’s lamb going round. I’ve not had it yet but I will.”

We’ll be sure to join him when he does finally make his way there. In the meantime, with takeaway and deliveries our only option between 5th November and 2nd December, you couldn’t do much better than sending some of your custom Rusholme way and eating your way round the Middle East during lockdown two. Don’t forget the Rubicon, either.

Luke, and his rather brilliant daily updates, can be followed on Instagram HERE

Remember when times were still ‘precedented’? Remember when Brexit-borne depression and the annual bout of post-Christmas Seasonal Affective Disorder were our major sources of misery? Practically halcyon days when compared to the last six solid months of shitshows that have been forced upon us by a global pandemic coupled with mind numbing government incompetence.

Half a year of learning and understanding more about the novel coronavirus Covid-19 has done little to add any degree of certainty to the UK’s hospitality industry, thrust from one set of restrictions to another, desperately offering takeaway pints one minute, throwing open the doors to millions eager to eat out to help out the next, with barely a second allowed to recover before being floored with a curfew induced gut punch.

It’s been a lot.

So as lockdown 2.0 looms large over Manchester and its spiralling infection rate, how are the city’s independents holding their own?

Just to reiterate…..It’s been a whole fucking lot.

“With every new announcement we have to change what we do again…”

It isn’t often that you have to shut up shop when only three months removed from a deluge of superlatives from Jay Rayner in The Guardian, but that is exactly the stark reality that hit Mary-Ellen McTague in March, when lockdown left her with very little option but to indefinitely close Chorlton favourite The Creameries.

And while huge swathes of the hospitality sector flung open their doors in July, it wasn’t until last month that Mary-Ellen was able to welcome a reduced amount of customers back through the doors of the Wilbraham Road establishment.

“We’ve only just reopened and have been doing 12 covers per service,” explains McTague, a veteran of Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck and very recent recipient of the Howard & Ruth Outstanding Achievement Award at this year’s Manchester Food and Drink Festival.

“From next week we’re going to up it to 18 covers but we’ll need an extra member of staff to make that happen. We’ve very slowly been feeling our way along. We knew we weren’t going to do enough business the first two weeks back to make ends meet but we needed to open and to get back up and running.

“With every new announcement we have to change what we do and just roll with the punches.”

So while one of the foremost food writers in the country may have been waxing lyrical about their treacle tart and sauerkraut liquor butter (NOT served together, I hasten to add. Although given McTague’s almost boundless talents in the kitchen, you wouldn’t bet against her making that combination work somehow) in December of last year, The Creameries were, to quote McTague in a Facebook post announcing their closure, ‘financially fucked’ in March, bluntly demonstrating the pandemic’s unflinching, remorseless steamrollering of even the most well respected, successfully operated businesses.

Oh and, y’know, the government, in their infinite fucking wisdom, have hardly made things any easier, implementing their 10pm curfew just as bars, restaurants and pubs across the city were beginning to find their feet again.

“Well that’s just bullshit, isn’t it?” laments McTague, when our conversation turns to the latest disasterclass from Westminster.

“I am 100% behind public safety. I want my customers to be safe, I want my staff to be safe, I want my children to be safe. We do now have additional Covid measures in place, like taking staff temperatures before shifts and extra sanitising, but you should be able to eat your meal off the toilet floor of any well run restaurant anyway. We were already obsessed with cleanliness and hygiene.

“This is why it’s so galling that the hospitality industry is getting it in the neck, because it really doesn’t follow the science regarding infections and where they’re happening. They’re not happening in restaurants and pubs. It’s absolutely crazy. There are no consequences for the government. They aren’t telling businesses to close fully so they don’t have to offer any financial compensation. As far as they’re concerned it’s only an hour, what difference does it make? Well it makes a massive difference to bills, to customer experience, to all sorts of things. It’s really sneaky.

“What’s also hilarious is, because we’ve got a Tory government, none of these ministers have ever worked in a bar to get through uni or anything. No one in the cabinet, unlike pretty much every other member of the population, has ever had a Saturday job or an experience of working in hospitality, because if just one of them had, they would have just gone ‘nah, this is a shit idea’.”

“They are killing the hospitality industry”

McTague’s frustrations have been echoed throughout the hospitality industry and particularly vehemently by Phil Bell, landlord of Northern Quarter bolthole The Ancoats Lad, which recently shuttered after Bell was informed he could host no more than seven customers at a given time.

In a post on the pub’s official Facebook page on 16th September, Bell wrote, “To all our loyal and loving customers, we have decided to close the bar until the mass deception is over. The council are not shutting us down, we have decided to take the lead as they seem to target us. To have a bar and make people stand at the door whilst telling them the rules of the establishment, where to go and sit, what to do when you order a drink, write your name here, and then turn people away because of decisions made in No 10. The new restrictions are the nail in the coffin of reality.

“We will be allowed seven/eight persons in our bar. Plus we have to social distance behind the bar. Can you imagine running a business on that basis? They are killing the hospitality industry, they are crashing the economy.

“We have thought about it, long and hard, what we are to do next, we have had our mind made up for us with the new restrictions. We believe it to be the largest pile of horse manure we have ever seen. Ninety percent of our customers are regulars above the age of 55 and through to 86 only two have had Covid, and that wasn’t serious. We have already received a threat of closure letter hence we cannot take any more stazi visits. 

“The Council are blatant liars, I asked them for some help and input because of the size of the bar….they refused.”

Given how perilously close we came to losing venues as sizeable and popular as Gorilla and Deaf Institute during the early days of lockdown, Bell’s words are a chilling indicator of the future for hidden gems and backstreet boozers across Manchester. If sprawling, multi floor venues and mega pubs can barely keep their heads above water, what chance do the dives and subterranean dens of the city have?

“We came out of lockdown as strong as we went into it…”

For every horror story and heartbreaking closure, there are, thankfully, a few saving graces. The success stories that revive the faith that, while everything is far from being alright, manage to keep the apocalypse at the door. At least for the time being.

One such story emanates from Edge Street chicken connoisseurs Yard & Coop, who’s poultry offerings have received far from paltry returns over the last few months, with Eat Out To Help Out driving record business throughout August.

“Eat Out To Help Out was amazing,” revealed owner Carl Morris, when we spoke with him in September, “August broke records for us both against last year and even against Christmas as it drove such large numbers of bookings. It was hard work. But our team did an incredible Job. 

“It gave us a much needed injection. We needed it. It gave existing customers a reason to return but also gave new people a reason to try us out.”

As anyone who wandered past Y&C’s corner of NQ in August will attest, Morris is far from being a buttermilk bullshitter when it comes to his review of the scheme. The buzz generated was legit, with socially distanced queues often snaking out of the door. But with Eat Out in the rear view window, what about the future?

“We offer great value anyway so don’t normally discount, but trade is good. We just need to focus on doing what we are good at. Making great buttermilk chicken. 

“Our outlook for the future is a bit uncertain, we don’t know about more lockdowns or limits,  but right now trade is good. We came out of lockdown as strong as we went into it”.

“We expected the spike to drop but it’s just kept going…” 

North of the city centre, Prestwich has long been teeming with a burgeoning independent scene, with new eateries and bars appearing with the regularity of a Tory policy u-turn. In March, the panic, as was the case with all suburban scenes, was that the very heart of the community could be ripped out, with smaller businesses unable to weather the initial covid storm.

Thankfully, mainstays such as Cuckoo, All The Shapes (and their freshly opened The Goods In) and The Church have not only survived, but prospered with various takeaway/delivery systems being put into place while EatNewYork have relocated and rebranded in the area as Triple B (Bagels, Burgers and Beer), with refined Scandi offerings from newly opened Osma, small plates from Paloma and incoming Latin BBQ banquets from Gorge also bolstering the village even further.

But what of independent community co-op Village Greens? Sitting in the shadow of behemoths such as Tesco and ALDI, the village shop with a vibe has proven to be wildly popular since it opened its doors in June 2014. And even with supermarket giants on their doorstep, VG have not slowed down over the last six months, with manager Chris Williams explaining how the only issue they’ve faced since March is keeping up with demand.

“It’s been a rollercoaster ride, but we have traded a lot better. We’ve seen something like a 50% lift in what we would have expected to take. We saw a spike in sales and expected the spike to drop but it’s just kept going.

“As an independent the difficulties have been keeping up with demand. Some of the organic vegetable suppliers were bought out by some of the big supermarkets, so our suppliers had a hard time trying to get stock. It’s turned out to be really good for business but it’s been emotionally draining.

“We were the only place in Prestwich to have certain things at certain times, such as flour and yeast, which as you can imagine were in high demand. A lot of the things there were shortages of, we managed to maintain a supply of them, which was a lot of hard work. But we’ve managed to keep the community in sourdough starter, thankfully.”

Baking supplies and organic produce weren’t the only things being dished out behind the counter of VG, however, with Chris explaining how they’ve served the community in more personal ways.

“Initially we seemed like we were councillors as much as shopkeepers. When lockdown first happened and people started panicking, people would come in and offload, we’re a friendly local shop so people chat to us more than you might find at a big supermarket. Me and a few of my colleagues found that emotionally draining because people were in such mental distress, but we got through it together. I also got out on my little electric bike to deliver veg boxes to those people who were shielding and isolating and we’ve kept up with doing that every Monday and Thursday.

“It’s calmed down over the last couple of months but we’re still better off now than we were before all of this.”

Into the void…

Trying to guess what comes next is, frankly, anybody’s guess. Manchester’s nightlife tsar Sacha Lord continues to appeal to the government about changing their draconian stances regarding nightclubs and the 10pm curfew in general, while the ‘Cancel The Curfew’ campaign continues to gather momentum online, with not just Manchester, but the entire UK’s culture living on the brink of extinction if wiser heads fail to prevail.

Our pubs, bars and restaurants are battered and bruised, some are even tragically out for the count, while the rest brace themselves for further potential knockout blows. But if the last six months has taught us anything, it’s that Manchester’s hospitality scene is coming out swinging for the next few rounds.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off out until 9.59pm…

Five years ago, when it felt like the whole world was smearing pulled pork, Mac & Cheese and 80 variations of BBQ sauce over everything, quality pizza offerings in Manchester were few and far between.

Dough had been holding it down in the Northern Quarter for half a decade, a few people buzzed over Croma’s Hoisin duck and tandoori chicken efforts, with Slice’s gourmet Roman squares turning a few heads in Stephenson Square. And, of course, a newborn Crazy Pedro‘s was beginning to pump out fever dream experimentations for those of us who absolutely needed a Big Mac or chicken and waffles (or both) atop our slices in order to soak up the half dozen red cups of frozen margaritas we’d slung back at half two in the morning.

Naples descends on the North West…

Double Zero, with its BYOB policy and mind bendingly good Neapolitan dough developed ways in which to combine water, flour, salt and yeast the likes of which Manchester had never seen before. The only disappointed faces heading away from the Chorlton joint were those who had, once again, come up short when hoping to snag a table.

And while it’s doubtful that another pizzeria will ever come along to usurp Double Zero as the numero uno in South Manchester, the city centre has belonged to Rudy’s since 2016.

Four years, four more restaurants and three more cities later, and Rudy’s has not only cemented itself as the Capo di Tutti Capi of all things San Marzano and fior de latte in Greater Manchester (and, let’s face it, the UK as a whole), but it generated a surge of interest in Neapolitan pizza that has allowed the likes of fellow Ancoats favourites Ciaooo, Noi Quattro and Mackie Mayor’s Honest Crust to thrive, while also encouraging London mainstay Franco Manca to expand northwards at the back end of 2019.

But as the calendar crept over to the fiery hellscape that has been 2020, it has become apparent that room needs to be made for offerings with origins outside of the Amalfi coast.

“Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten/From the Battery to the top of Manhattan…”

As the sun’s descent casts a balmy shadow across the city streets, conversations are punctuated with the immensely satisfying crunch of pizza crusts folding and pepperoni grease pools puddling on paper plates.

Curious noises emanate from the crowd of post-work revellers as monstrous yet delicate slices of chewy, blistered pies are enjoyed by a crowd sat out in the streets. Flimsy white napkins dab at mouths as second and third orders are placed and IPA’s are swigged. Squint your eyes only a little and you’d be forgiven for believing that you were perched in a neighbourhood in Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan and not Edge Street in Manchester.

Yet this is where beloved Northern Quarter stalwart Common have carved out their own slice of the Big Apple, with NYC inspired pizza shop Nell’s sequestering themselves in the NQ bar’s kitchen since mid-February.

Nell’s is the brainchild of Common owner Jonny Heyes, who explained to us how he was always confident of his slice shop’s success.

“We started off just selling slices out the front door, it was really exciting. Now we’ve developed a following of regulars who keep coming back, keeping our Anthony Bourdain style band of outlaws in the kitchen busy.

“Not to slag off any other style of pizza, because I love Neapolitan pizza, but there’s so many more possibilities of what pizza can be. Neapolitans are very dogmatic, it’s all ‘you’ve got to use this type of flour and this type of cheese’ and I kind of hate that. I hate being told what I can and can’t do.

“We’re New York inspired but we’re Manchester made. We’re a local product that we want people to feel ownership of.”

Get Ready to be Dancing in the Street outside Corner Slice

In a sleepy suburb of Failsworth, Danny Broadbent grips the edge of a deep, rectangular aluminium pan, angling out his latest cheese rimmed creation inspired by the Motor City onto the work surface in front of him. The Coney Dog, with its smoked beef hotdog slices, dry beef chilli, white onions and American mustard, combines two of the most important Detroit exports since Motown and Iggy Pop. And, sitting alongside the nine regular pies in rotation at Corner Slice, it’s selling out in a matter of hours every night in Manchester’s newest and perhaps most adventurous dough based venture yet.

The response to the rectangular pies and their addictive cheese crown crusts has been, it’s safe to say, overwhelmingly passionate.

“We definitely didn’t expect it to blow up so much. Like, in the first week, the amount of chat that it’s got. We were sat here saying ‘we’ll be happy with 150 pizzas in the first week’ and we did that in the opening two days,” laughs Broadbent, alongside Corner Slice co-owner and best friend of 14 years Frank Brashaw.

Broadbent, with 14 years experience in Manchester kitchens under his belt (most recently at Fin Fish Bar and Tender Cow in Mackie Mayor), wasn’t content to go with the flow and instead veered away on his own path.

“I could have tried to make Neapolitan pizza, but would it have been as good as Rudy’s? No. Would it have been as good as Ciaooo? No. But can we be the best to make Detroit style pizza? Well, yeah. Although we’re the only place in Manchester doing it (laughs), but we’re setting a standard of our own.”

“It was risky, because people could have just gone ‘that’s not pizza, it’s not round’. I was convinced that was going to happen, ‘the sauce is on the top of my cheese and it’s not round? Take it back and start again.’ But not one person has said one bad word about it and I was convinced that we’d get something. Every customer has been amazing, really supportive.”

On The Map and Taking Over…

So whether it’s Corner Slice’s Mid Western influenced pies, Nell’s New Yorkers or the procession of picture perfect Neapolitans that preceded them over the last five years, one thing is absolutely undeniable – Manchester is now a bona fide pizza city. And it’s about to enter the most exciting stage of its evolution so far…

Here are some recommendations from the EATMCR community

LYDIA WAKELAM @lydwak
‘Double Zero – Sprinkle those extra jalapeños on my head while I sleep’
Double Zero’s fluffy, chewy pizza bases have been a big doughy comfort blanket for me since I moved to Manchester three years ago. BYOB, always, sit with all your friends but never ever share.

Gus & Rick (SNACC DIARIES) @snaccdiaries
‘Nells… MARINARA or MARGHERITA’
Gus is a margs man. They’re a true test of pizza, if you can get them right the others will probably follow. Where as I’m a marinara man. The most underrated and overlooked pizza in my opinion.

JOE BAIAMONTE (EATMCR Culture Editor) @joebaia88
‘Sitting by the kitchen at Rudy’s.’ 
Whether in Ancoats or Peter St, sit by the kitchen and watch your pizza get made. It’s a near religious experience. I usually rotate between the Calabrese, Ancozzese and Carni, with about five Menabreas and a massive smile on my face.