“Eeeeeeeeeerm….would you believe me if I said yes?”
What…a…fucking…div.
I have, with varying degrees of success and failure, been making pizzas at home for over three years now. The full gamut has been run; Neapolitans of various hydrations, chunky Sicilian bois, Roman Al Taglios and crispy, blistered New Yorkers. I’ve had more dough in my fridge than a high level cocaine trafficker and not once, in all those attempts at perfectly recreating the finest pizzas I’ve ever pushed into my mouth, from New York to Naples and back to Manchester, have I ever forgot to flour the fucking dough before pushing it out.
Then again, I have never undertaken this process in an actual fully functioning, professional kitchen while the head pizzaiolo oversees every stretch, prod and saucing. Frank Pinello, Marc Vetri or Anthony Falco are yet to personally judge one of the margheritas or pepperoni squares I’ve produced off the back of their recipes. Yet here I stand, at the prep bench of the new Nell’s Pizza, mishandling 800g of hyperactive flour, water, yeast, olive oil and salt while the main man, Jonny Heyes, grimaces at my most rookie of fucking errors.
The reason I find myself on the other side of the counter on this shockingly sky blue Thursday afternoon is to not only enjoy a tour of the new Nell’s location, within the burgeoning red brick and concrete garden neighbourhood of Kampus, but to be given a hands on education of what exactly goes into transforming a small selection of basic store cupboard ingredients into, in this writer’s humble opinion, the best pizza in Manchester.
Art
Fully bedecked in official Nell’s regalia – crisp white tee, navy apron and matching baseball cap which, thankfully, rests more than comfortably on my meatball of a dome – I look the part for an afternoon of discovery, mentorship and, unfortunately, one instance of almost concussing a co-worker with a pizza peel.
I won’t lie, as Jonny calls us over to his prep bench, ingredients all laid out in front of a table top dough mixer, there is the undeniable potential of a Mr. Miyagi – Daniel LaRusso/Mickey Goldmill – Rocky Balboa dynamic building. Only involving the mixing, pushing and topping of pizza dough and not catching flies with chopsticks or punching the ever loving shite out of a side of beef. That this potential is rapidly obliterated by a litany of cack handed errors on my part only further serves to intensify the drama of us reaching our final destination of removing an inch perfect, almost two foot wide disc of Manchester made New York majesty from the top deck of the colossal Nell’s oven. Probably. I dunno, I was too busy playing out the entire afternoon in montage form in my head the entire time.
A wild idiot appears at the dough mixer
Anyway, weird cinematic fantasies aside, what’s obvious when Jonny begins directing us through the embryonic steps of the dough making process is just how much care, craft and nuance goes into Nell’s product. The temperature of the secretive flour blend is taken, then measured against the temperature of the air in the kitchen to decide how warm the water should be. Jonny insists that absolutely nothing is eyeballed and must be measured out with utmost precision. A soul crushing blow to my usual ‘that’ll do’ attitude.
Everything but the salt is added to the mixer, which then begins to put its hooks to work, binding together the gluteny goodness and opening up all those precious air pockets. When Jonny adjudges the mass to be suitably solid, he leaves it to rest and informs us we have some focaccia to attend to. Fucking Yes.
What I must mention at this point is that the mixer used for our little afternoon stint in the Nell’s Kampus kitchen is by no means what will be put through it’s paces come opening day. That will be a job for the behemoth that lies in wait behind us, which is comfortably gargantuan enough to bathe a fucking silverback gorilla in. Jonny confesses that he is yet to use it and, in all fairness, it’s hard to blame him for being pensive, given this fucking thing looks like it could transform into one of Optimus Prime’s mates at a moment’s notice.
And it’s not only the mixer that has been seemingly gassed full of steroids, either. The triple decker oven, procured from ‘the Swedish Pizza Mafia’ according to Jonny, is about the same size as some of the one bedroom flats available in Kampus. This isn’t just an oven, it’s a fucking mothership. You could slide a dozen pizzas in there and still have enough room for a game of 5-a-side. This thing is monstrous and only emphasises just how big the scale of Nell’s new operations are.
The confidence in the product and the demand for it since Nell’s initially launched as a pop up inside Common at the beginning of 2020 is there for all to see in their new digs. The restaurant and bar area is a sprawling buzz of Brooklyn pizzeria, Copenhagen infused comfort and ’70s shopping centre concrete and colour. Never mind about swinging a cat, there’s enough space in here to helicopter a Bengal tiger around your head. Not that you’d want to, like. There’s a Photo Booth leading towards the pass and slice bar and, even on a pre-opening afternoon, it’s easy to visualise this spot being packed to the rafters night after night. Who wouldn’t want to spend a couple of hours around a tableful of mates as you all take down 22 inches of immaculately prepared dough, marinara sauce, fior di latte and Cobble Lane pepperoni? Or maybe some of the aforementioned, newly added focaccia that has made it’s way onto the menu here.
Well, back to the kitchen and, if any potential customers could witness the battering I’m giving a square of wet dough, they actually might have more than a few reservations. As Jonny effortlessly dimples his focaccia with uniform regulation, I prod and poke a scatterbrained atrocity of wounds into my mixture, which leaves the dough looking like someone gave a mouse a gram of speed and a miniature pogo stick and let them go fucking ballistic.
“Bloody hell, you REALLY got into that corner, there” reviews Jonny, observing my over enthusiastic handiwork. But this isn’t the only sheepish moment I will endure. I am then informed to ‘tease’ the olive oil across my blank canvas, which I take as an instruction to do that little chef flourish of half obscuring the oil’s exit from my bottle with my thumb, so as to generate a performative drizzle of extra virgin into the pan.
Big fucking mistake.
“What’s that?! We’re not having any Jamie Oliver nonsense in here” exclaims Jonny, horrified. “Tease it out means lash a load on there. Don’t be shy.”
Kill me now. Seriously. Kill me stone dead and throw me in that big fucking oven and then into that mixer.
A crumbling of oregano is scattered atop the dough with, thankfully, minimal fuss or error and into the top deck they go. The oregano, by the way, is an on-the-day alternative to the usual rosemary that will be used.
We peek inside to see the two pans bubbling and rising as they bake. The aroma of freshly, expertly baked bread wafting our way like a big, warm Italian tidal wave. It’s unerringly comforting and briefly makes me forget my horror show of an oil pour.
As our first doughs heat up, Jonny treats us to one he made earlier, a bit like Blue Peter, only with Mediterranean baked goods instead of a Tracey Island made out of old cornflakes boxes.
The focaccia is sliced into identikit fingers, all open crumb invites to dip into pots of freshly prepared marinara and chilli dipping sauces. As an appetiser, it’s an extraordinary triumph in simplicity. Fantastic bread combined with an abundance of flavour from the sauces. Within half a bite I’m picturing enjoying a portion of these with a pint and a big, daft smile on my face. Which is what every great dining experience should be, to be honest.
Attention then turns to our focaccias from earlier and, while Jonny’s may be the neater effort, my own avant garde creation makes for a more rustically charming result, it has to be said. I privately chalk that up as a personal victory for myself and revenge for being compared to Jamie Oliver and make my way to the business end of the afternoon – The 22 inch New Yorker.
So, yeah, alright, upon first attempt I MAY have forgotten to flour the dough upon plopping it onto the prep bench. Unforgivable and all that, alright, let’s move on. I was over eager and basking in the glow of a focaccia prep that was, quite frankly, the work of a bread based prodigy.
Second time lucky, my 800g newborn is floured appropriately and so the method of stretching it out to size begins. I was dreading this.
Jonny’s demonstration was the work of an accomplished sensei. Going back to my earlier Mr. Miyagi analogy, this is the bit where he catches the fly with the chopsticks. Or like that doctored YouTube video of Ronaldinho casually knocking a football repeatedly against the crossbar from the edge of the box. It looks SO easy, but when it comes down to it, this is a practice that requires steady and accurate hands. I feel doomed.
Laughing so I won’t cry I just about manage to push out the dough a fair amount into a decent looking circle. Then comes the slap. Not Jonny delivering one to my chops for disgracing his kitchen with my mere presence (I would 100% not have blamed him for that, either) but slapping my dough between my hands (grow up) until the elasticity of the base eases it’s way into the appropriate size. Upon seeing that no holes have appeared and the crust is reasonably even, the relief waves over me. That was, and I’m not being dramatic, my Everest. Many a home cooked effort has been hurled in the bin followed by a tirade of swear words upon the stretching out going horrendously south. But no emotional breakdowns are necessary, here. Instead of taking a bottle of red wine up to the shower, I’m sliding my almost two foot masterpiece down the bench to be sauced up.
I spiral a ladle and a half of house Marinara sauce over the disc of dough, which earns me a ‘not bad’ from Jonny and my first tear is almost shed at hearing those words. Much like how Alex Ferguson’s former players will tell you how him saying ‘well done’ to them would be enough to make them run through a brick wall, ‘not bad’ is the level I will always aspire to reach at any task. No one likes a show off, do they?
‘Not Bad’
Wind fully in my sails, I scatter across grated mozzarella and then a further flourish of fior di latte with all the confidence and pizzaz of a bloke who’s been in this game for 25 years. Jonny then demonstrates how to effectively work the peel in the oven, showing me his rotation skills. This is not another ‘not bad’ moment, but rather an ‘absolutely no fucking good’ endeavour, which finishes with me finally landing my pie towards the back of the middle deck and, instead of politely acknowledging Jonny’s assistance, I decide now will be the perfect time to showcase some ill advised kung fu manoeuvres, spinning all five feet of the peel around, blissfully unaware that Beck, who has been heroically filming and photographing the entire experience like a champ, is only four feet away from me. My audition for any future reimagining of ‘Enter The Dragon’ immediately goes horrendously wrong and a hard working colleague is left with the wrong end of a pizza peel bouncing off her temple.
A myriad of terrified apologies (and lots of mockery aimed in my direction) later and out comes the pie, the crust beautifully leoparded and bubbled, crimson red marinara punctuated with golden mozz. If I were not in the company of others, I would have probably christened her with a full name and everything, but instead I must now put my severely lacking geometry skills to the test and slice my pie into eight equal triangles.
LOL.
Narrator: He did not slice the pie into eight equal triangles.
Manchester’s Next Top Pizzaiolo, hard at work
“Now, if you were to receive this slice and the person you were with received THIS slice, would you be happy?” queries Jonny, perplexed at just how badly I’ve judged the carving up of my creation. There’s no two ways around it, one slice is your postcard New York slice – It will overflow a paper plate without any issue. The slice next to it, however, looks like it’s lost little brother. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in ‘Twins’ and you’re on the right lines.
Fortunately, no one is being served this pie other than the four of us currently standing around it and there’s enough correctly sized slices to go around.
Top: A Proud Parent. Below: Your friendly neighbourhood big lad eating on the job
It’s so easy to take the quality of Nell’s pizza for granted and our taste test only further reaffirms that point. The dough is crisp without being brittle, offering exactly the right amount of chew, with the precise amount of fresh baked flavour coursing through it that only accentuates the immaculately sourced toppings above. There are no gimmicks, only quality. One bite and the words of world’s handsomest pizzaiolo, Lucali legend and Brooklyn King Mark Iacono spring straight to mind, when appearing on David Chang’s much acclaimed ‘Ugly Delicious’.
“Italians invented pizza. Italian Americans perfected it.”
This New York style is undefeated. Neapolitans may have the history and the old world romance behind them, and there is no denying that much of the best pizza in the world can still be found while wandering the back streets of Naples (and in many Neapolitan based joints across the globe), but the evolution away from soupy slices towards a foldable, by-the-slice, ubiquitous street food is one of the rare instances where America has actually managed to improve something rather than, y’know, making it a hundred times fucking worse.
Jonny surmises that his slice is a little sauce heavy, but this is clearly just his way of coyly expressing how it is in fact the work of a seminal culinary artist who’s stylistic temperament knows no bounds. Or he’s politely telling me to leave his kitchen and never, ever return.
All that’s left to do now is remove the earlier prepared dough from the mixer, a task that is left to me and the two clumsy shovels that masquerade as a pair of hands. Fortunately the mix is removed without incident and is stored away for what will be a 48 hour prove before it blossoms into another masterpiece.
The entire article was nearly just this picture on it’s own, ngl
That Nell’s is already flying solo away from Common after a little over a year of pandemic ridden panic and mayhem is proof of how beloved an institution it has already become in Manchester. This week it’s been nigh on impossible to scroll through insta feeds and stories without stumbling across at least half a dozen posts at a time from early visitors, deliriously chomping through their way through arm length slices. This is a pizzeria that is going beyond just being somewhere to get a great slice and is now cultivating it’s own culture, much like the classic establishments it was influenced by in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
I depart with three cling filmed sliced of Margherita, cradling them like a proud parent while eagerly planning a multitude of visits over the coming months; Working lunches with a couple of slices, family dinners, boozy Christmas jaunts, you name it, it’s happening here for the foreseeable and, given the anticipation building around this week’s opening, I’m supremely confident that I am not alone in hatching such plans.
‘What is authenticity? For me, it was what my mum cooked, back in the 70s.’
Nila opened her Burmese kitchen 6 years ago after years of what-ifs and dormant plans. She grew up in London, relocating from then-Burma when she was 5; moved to Manchester to study Geography at university, and worked in the civil service before packing it in to commit to fulfilling a niggling dream: to bless us all with her bomb food.
‘I did it. I just thought, you know what – I’ve got to do it now, or never.’
I shudder to think where we’d be if she hadn’t. Nila trained in various cooking classes and did a Cordon Bleu course in London, but the food you’d be lucky enough to put into your face at Nila’s Burmese Kitchen is what she used to eat at home growing up.
We sit in the super-inviting, super-colourful cafe to try the menu, which is available from 12-3pm, Monday to Friday. A country bordered by India, Bangladesh, China and Thailand, you can expect Burmese food to be a glorious marriage of all of these cultures. And you’d be right, friends: the pork tamarind curry which you can also find in northern Thailand is so, so tender, tangy and flavoursome. This is a favourite of her regulars, and it’s easy to see why.
Curry number 2 is pure comfort and familiarity; a chicken and potato curry with lemongrass and cardamom, this is a variation of the Bangladeshi aloo murghi (which everyone including my own non-Bangladeshi mother claims they have the perfect recipe for).
Lastly, a delicious and hearty curry containing yellow split-pea, cauliflower, and potato vegan option, one of the few items on the menu that doesn’t contain fish sauce.
For me though, the biggest shoutout goes to Nila’s zingy, light and stupidly-moreish laphet thohk salad made with fermented tea leaves, fresh tomatoes and chilli, and nuts. This is hard to come by in the UK so if you have a chance to try it, do!
Nila’s Laphet Thohk Salad
As we eat without pausing to inhale, Nila tells me about her childhood growing up in the 70s in London:
‘There were six of us and my parents. I remember eating cornflakes for the first time thinking ‘what is this? Cold milk?!’ this was gross because we don’t really drink milk in Burma and it had gone all soggy.’
She gestures at the ohno kaukswe [literally translated as coconut noodles] in front of us, which I’ve been trying and failing not to stare at as we talk. It’s a thing of beauty: chicken coconut noodle soup, thickened with toasted chickpea flour and garnished with boiled egg, fresh coriander, crispy onions and chilli. ‘There were a lot of ingredients you couldn’t get, you know, we kind of forget what it was like in the 70s. The food phenomenon here wasn’t as diverse…so my mum used to make noodle dishes with spaghetti’.
Some of Nila’s standout dishes and the Ohno Kaukswe (chiicken coconut noodle soup – pictured right)
While substituting noodles for spaghetti might sound like sacrilege in today’s age of super-convenience, it certainly tastes like nostalgia to Nila as she goes on to say it’s a variation she replicates at home on the regular. The subject of authenticity comes up again, and Nila ex plains that in a country with over 135 different confirmed ethnicities, ‘you’ve got the same ingredients, the same dish, but each dish can be so different from family to family.’
‘All Burmese people – it’s not just me – are hugely passionate about food. They love cooking their food, even if they’re not ‘in’ it, you know, they don’t work in that profession. So there are some amazing Burmese home cooks.’
Nila’s is situated on Third Avenue in Trafford Park, on a random-ass New York-style grid of streets which used to be a Ford factory car park. With covid and WFH rendering the surrounding business parks near-barren (and being next to a Gregg’s), the footfall just isn’t there.
A really exciting solution to the absence of her loyal return customers – at least while we navigate new working lives – may be in the form of intimate supperclubs and cooking classes (a thousand times yes). Her amazing curries are also condensed into pastes and her chilli-garlic dipping sauce is bottled and available for people to order, supporting this hidden gem during this bastard pandemic.
This is part of a series by Heidi Elkholy (@saltfatacidheidi) called At The Table that highlights Manchester’s rich and diverse neighbourhoods, celebrating food, culture and community. Previous feature: HQ Nigerian
Being around owners Ganga and Saju is like coming home during your uni Christmas break: there’s warmth, knowing comments that push all the required buttons for the inevitable bursts of laughter, and mock-outrage. It’s something special, and it’s exactly what you can expect when you visit them at Amma’s Canteen.
‘When it comes to our dishes, we choose what we enjoyed growing up’.
Amma means ‘mother’, and so it’s not a great leap that the super-popular Alleppey fish curry is based on Ganga’s mum’s recipe. Wild to think we’re not just eating a curry, we’re eating a dish passed down through generations, where the nuances of flavour and trial and-error seasoning means everything is exactly how it should be. Saju’s family’s side also features on the menu, with recipes from his mother and aunts. It’s like being invited to the table at a family reunion and stuffing your face with delicious, nurturing love. The recipes from Kerala, Chennai and Madras come straight via the family WhatsApp group.
The Porucha Vendaka – okra fingers stuffed with a mixture of nuts, raisins and then fried to perfection
As well as the menu being an homage to the women in Saju and Ganga’s lives, the restaurant floor is very much a family affair. Their daughter would work front-of-house before going to university, and the small team of floor staff have to go through every item on the menu for their staff lunches (the actual dream) so they are super-well-informed when dealing with customers.
Amma’s mission is to dig the UK out of the very out-dated expectation of the ‘Curry House’, where every region in the world’s seventh largest country is picked apart and then mashed together in a homogenised bastardisation of Chicken Tikka Masala.
‘Our restaurant is not in the format of an Indian restaurant – we don’t sell popadoms, and English people can walk in and find they don’t recognise any of the dishes’.
But they’re not in a hurry to add Jalfrezis or Baltis to the menu, and don’t get Saju started on naan bread: ‘My mother first tried naan bread when she was 45! In South India, we don’t have wheat farming so you won’t get naan here.’
Saju’s is a long and fancy relationship with food, having worked as a chef for 30 years in the swankiest hotels like the Taj group where the pressure was on to impress the celebrities and royalty that would visit. Unlike a typical Indian curry house with grandiose vibes, you won’t find any imagery of fancy India at Amma’s Canteen. The interior is warm and inviting but is decorated purposefully without rank, without pretence. Of the awards that this place has won, the only one Saju will display is the Vegan Offering of the Year award from Manchester Food and Drink Festival in 2019, ‘Vegan food should not be an afterthought’. Saju argues that the Indian caste system and the food associated with the highest caste has perpetuated the idea that India is the land of elephants and maharajas. ‘India’s got 600 million poor people and they eat delicious food everyday… That’s the food we want to give’
Cue the ‘From the Street Cart’ section of the menu, where dreams come true. You’ll also find a Curry, Biriyani and Dosa section of the menu, in lieu of the conventional (but not at all Indian) starter-main-dessert set up. I’ve only ever made it past the street cart section once, and that was only because I was sated by the fact that there were enough of us at the table to ensure we could order everything. Super-standouts are the delightfully hot Chicken 65; the Porucha Vendaka – okra fingers stuffed with a mixture of nuts, raisins and then fried to perfection with an amazing chilli hummus. And if we could all just take a moment to appreciate the beauty that is Saju’s Cauliflower Bezule: spiced cauliflower served with a tangy okra yoghurt dip that delivers a surprising amount of heat. Because they care about your experience so much, Ganga tells me this particular gem is not on the takeaway menu, but if you nag them enough they may oblige you. You’re welcome.
Saju’s Cauliflower Bezule
Stuffed Kozhukattai
If you like dim sum, their Stuffed Kozhukattai, is a must-try. Home-made folded parcels of glutinous joy filled with veggie-chilli goodness and served with a dollop of what’s called ‘poor man’s dip’.
The biriyani is like the most delicious savoury trifle (stay with me) in that it’s layers and layers of delightful tender lamb chunks, rice that is seasoned for the gods, and fried onions on top, hitting all those brown-mum nostalgia points.
We end on the topic of India’s vast diversity. Some people describe countries that large as a ‘melting pot’, but Saju says ‘a melting pot means assimilation but in India, every region has its own perfectly-formed culture and they’re all mixed together, more like a tossed salad.’ We then take a million photos of them and their waiter Harry, who is loved and ribbed mercilessly in equal measure. It’s clear to see the team at Amma’s Canteen is treated like an extended family, and we love to see it.
This is part of a series by Heidi Elkholy called ‘At The Table’ for EATMCR that highlights Manchester’s rich and diverse neighbourhoods, celebrating food, culture and community.
With roots in Benin, Henry has been manning family-owned HQ in Fallowfield for the last three years, and he has a lot to say about the under-representation about one of the most flavourful, most musical cuisines. I’m prone to hyperbole, sure, but that suya spice mix makes my tongue sing. If you haven’t tried Nigerian food, you’re probably in the majority, as there are only a handful of outlets in Manchester, but HQ – and Henry’s infectious enthusiasm – is the perfect place to begin your education.
‘We’re at a point where Nigerian food – African food in general, is just getting discovered.’
As we sit to eat the most intensely-fragrant, delicious spread, including suya (grilled beef or lamb – or both, please!) super-silky pounded yam and Egusi soup (not a soup that you might recognise, this has a hearty texture and gets its name from the dried and ground melon and gourd seeds that are used in many West African dishes). An enemy of bland food, every bite packs a punch – even the more unassuming dishes like boli (easy-peasy roasted plantain) come with a sauce that’s so fire you could drink it by the jugful. For those wary of spice, I should stress that while the food is definitely spicy, there are so many other elements that dance in this flavour profile than a flat, one-tone scorching heat. The chilli kicks you in the face, but you’re then rewarded with moreish savoury tastes and a building sweetness that rounds this unreal experience off.
So if the food is so ridiculously good – this is fact, I’m afraid – why haven’t we seen more of it?
‘I don’t know why it shouldn’t be in the mainstream – so who’s not looking there? Because other cuisines like asian food, they all have a market… maybe because you eat with your eyes, and that’s where we’re unlucky’
And there it is: the fear of the ‘unknown’. An unfamiliar-looking dish with interesting textures and a foreign name will put some people off before they try it. Sad but so true, though Henry has the solution for this:
‘I think [people have] not been educated about the ‘other’ side of food. It’s like, before you get anyone to try something, you would bring them to a point where they’re comfortable. It’s a lot of work.’
He’s not wrong, but Henry is confident that Nigerian food will win you over when you try it (Amen!) It’s at this point that he brings out an ‘easier’ () dish of chicken and beef spring rolls. So far, so beige, but that symphony of seasoning in the meat hits like no spring roll I’ve ever tried before. You ain’t ready for the pure joy in that uber-flaky crispy filo pastry.
The idea of ‘eating with your eyes’ plays so much into Eurocentric standards of what is considered ‘normal’, ‘palatable’ and familiar. Any child of immigrants in the UK will tell you that Primary school lunch times could be a minefield to navigate, with children expressing disgust at ‘foreign’ looking and smelling food. This is a very simplified comparison to describe the alienation of certain cuisines, and in time with education and increased representation, this can change. That said, the rise of the ‘ugly-delicious’ and David Chang’s Netflix show is also a great thing for world foods.
‘We need to get [Nigerian food] out there because if you lined up a Nigerian Jollof Rice (Ghanaians, stand by) with a burger, it would beat a burger every. single. time.’ The only thing that Henry says gives the burger an edge is the visual, ‘If you use the right picture, you’d be getting both the visual and the taste. Because any burger that you have out there by comparison is TASTELESS.’ Cue irreverent cackling.
We go down to the kitchen and sample some of the spice mixes. Most of the dishes on HQ’s menu, while usually containing meat, can be adapted to cater for vegetarians and vegans when informed in advance. This is because most dishes are a long-ass labour of love; slow-cooked tender meat adds both protein and a rich depth to the sauces, like the simmering tomato stew with the softest beef that might bring a tear to your eye. Nigerian food is first and foremost a source of sustenance, eaten to ensure you’re able to graft, but none of that sad ‘food is fuel’ BS, our tastebuds deserve better:
‘The sweetest thing about it is that Nigerians type of cooking has nothing to do with a specific food, it works with every single raw material, that has to do with food out there, just making it different – spicing it up giving it that Nigerian feel.’
With all this said, Henry’s already looking to what the future holds for Nigerian cuisine: ‘Let’s take the burger again … once we’re done with all our traditional dishes, we’ll start to do fusion. We’ll take a burger or a Chinese dish, and make it Nigerian. So there’s a serious market that’s trying to get started and it’s in its engine stages. Now I just got to put the mirrors on.’
He completely loses me at this point because I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole imagining just how insanely delicious that crossover would be.
Head down to HQ on weekdays for lunch or dinner and visit the website for a visual of what to expect when you order. It’ll blow your mind.
Tyrell:Also extraordinary things. Revel in your time
– Blade Runner, 1982
Much like Rutger Hauer’s Replicant Ray, I have done questionable things; Devouring leftover trays of stone cold Leo’s Fish Bar and Tasty Bites in my boxers at half nine in the morning, reeking of lager, coffee patron and cigs. I’ve downed styrofoam cups of curry sauce like the back end of a pint when I’ve run out of chips to dip into them. I even once voluntarily drunk the Guinness at Walkabout.
But also like Roy Batty, I have done extraordinary things. Namely, immersing myself in the Full Experience at District. And I did indeed revel in my time there.
For thirteen bewildering courses, the District chefs, headed up by Ben Humphreys (one of the wizards behind District’s similarly sublime sister restaurant Tokyo Ramen) , strap us into a time machine and propel our senses light years into the future, scattered among the neon clad streets of a post-apocalyptic Bangkok. All from within the confines of an unassuming unit on Oldham Street.
To any passing pedestrian, District, with it’s cobalt blue exterior and simple yet stylish typewritten red signage could just be another neighbourhood cocktail bar. It is unlikely that anyone is walking past and surmising “Hmmm, this gaff looks like it knocks out experimentally progressive Thai cuisine across a dozen multi-sensory courses”. Sandwiched between the graffiti clad shutters of a discount musical instrument suppliers and a now empty former hairdressing academy, District is a hiding-in-plain-sight culinary utopia.
Some utterly mad shit is going on behind those unassuming doors
Seated in the window, I’ll admit to originally being a little gutted that our backs were to the main event – the minimalist stainless steel and square white tiled restaurant, illuminated by beams of neon violet, plays host not only to the diners, but the squadron of anarchists in the kitchen, taking our pre-conceived assumptions and ideologies of what Thai cooking can be, throwing them onto their charcoal BBQ and evolving them into a series of plates seemingly cultivated during the throes of an LSD soaked listen to the Drive soundtrack.
However, we quickly come to our senses in realising that we are also located in one of the best people watching pair of seats in the whole of Manchester. The changing shades of the Mancunian sky above us a suitably kaleidoscopic backdrop for the three hours we spend immersing ourselves in the technicolor genius of Humphreys and co’s sublime, southeast Asian inspired sorcery.
The opening course is awaited with a small glass of Solara Ville Timisului, an orange wine from Romania, which may just be one of the most delicately cultured exports from the Carpathian region since Gheorghe Hagi’s left foot.
Our pallets livened, we are presented with our opener and thus, the first of many uttering of “FUCKING HELL”. The raw wild bass appears and, to be honest, it could have quite easily been beamed down to us and we wouldn’t have batted an eyelid, such was the extra-terrestrial appearance of it.
FUCKING HELL
Crowned with delicately fashioned stems of Thai seven spice seasoned purple yam crisps and dots of Thai basil emulsion, the Cornish line caught bass almost slides apart at only a side glance of an oncoming knife and fork. Yet somehow, the fish is not the showstopper here, but rather the nam jim dipping sauce it is perched in the middle of. A furious blend of lime, fish sauce, palm sugar and fresh spices, it haymakers your tastebuds with sweet and heat, puckering your cheeks inwards and blowing them back out again with an explosion of flavour. FUCKING HELL.
Where do you even go from there? Tacos, obviously. Or, not tacos, as the menu clearly states. A duo of District’s take on the beloved Mexican street food is comprised of one purple corn tostada topped with expertly grilled Hereford ribeye, nam tok dressing, smoked aromatic mayonnaise and toasted rice, which is presented as a tag team alongside a wondrous fried roti bread sitting underneath an even more wondrous mound of short rib southern curry that has been braising like a bastard all day with fresh turmeric chilli and beef marrow stock. You could multiply this portion by 100 and no self respecting person on this planet could possibly get bored of gleefully inhaling it. FUCK…ING…HELL.
Now the law of averages and Hollywood tradition dictate that if the debut is a seminal piece of work and the sequel somehow equals or even surpasses it, then anything that comes afterwards will be about as appealing as watching Boris Johnson eating trifle with his bare hands. In the bath. Yet clearly, the team at District care not for traditions as with each passing course they manage to somehow bend our minds that little bit more.
The pork coppa and tamarind jaew is paired expertly with the kohlrabi salad, evoking memories of the earlier nam jim with it’s sharp, syrupy spice yet managing to veer into different dimensions with candied tomatoes and peanuts bringing more flavour than an early Craig David single.
Put this in the fucking Louvre
Now, when you read ‘corn fed chicken’ on a menu, in all honesty, you hardly spin out of your seat and fist pump the air with all the ferocity of a ‘roided up member of the Jersey Shore cast when a Tiesto song drops. But here’s me telling you that’s exactly how you’ll react when the first morsel of District’s Goosnargh chicken thigh, immaculately brined, confited and finished off over the wood, passes your lips. The lucky bird is nestled among a Tom Kha coconut broth and accompanied by coal fired shimeji mushrooms and baby corn. The noises I made were like that of a cartoon Frenchman – all robust, excitable and a bit saucy. Which isn’t far from how you would describe this course. A full bowl of this would be the only thing you’d ever want to eat during the oncoming Autumn months, warming your soul like the ending of a Tom Hanks movie.
But it’s not only the brined chicken thighs that are from Goosnargh on the menu, with the tiny Preston village also delivering the duck several courses later. Slow roasted in the oven then completed on the coals, just the meat alone would be worthy of 1,000 words, but then you get the charred Thai apple aubergines and phat phet – a dry Thai stir fried red curry – added into the equation and you seriously begin to contemplate how you’ve managed to survive this long without this dish in your life. As the light filters from solero orange to hot pink to priest’s socks blackness outside, our tastebuds similarly veer all over the place, unsure of how to react to what is being presented to them. It’s a cacophony of curiosity and experimentalism and it is ludicrously fucking enjoyable.
Out of all of this insanity, though, comes the course which most makes you feel as though you’re starring in your own dystopian sci-fi thriller. Octopus in red curry with smoconut and pickled onion. Just read that back. Fucking exhilarating, isn’t it? The presentation alone is brutally brilliant. A single tentacle, immersed in a red so dark it could have been emitted from a mythical, hybrid of a creature rather than the common octopus. It feels like the spoils of a war that will be fought in 200 years time. Snake Plissken or some other big, futuristic sod could easily have lopped off this tentacle in a Bangkok alley fight in 2221, brought it back to his gaff and had it for tea. Oh, and the ‘smoconut’ – smoked coconut – is fun to say and even more of a laugh to eat, lathered onto the terrifying tentacle in question.
Terrifying, innit?
Dessert it no less daring, either, as a palette cleansing ‘tamarind Tangfastic’ sets us up for a, currently off menu, meringue sorbet sat atop ruby grapefruit and tom yum syrup. In a stroke of utter ingenuity, the herbs and spices usually reserved for the tom yum broth have been whipped into the meringue itself, cheekily pricking at your inner cheeks with every mouthful, delicately interplaying with the softness of the sorbet and sharpness of the grapefruit. After a dozen courses, it’s an almost energising reprieve from the savoury and sets up the finale, ‘It Was Only A Dream’ very appropriately. A mango custard, not far from pastel de nata territory in texture, is adorned with caramelised coconut and rice praline, bringing the curtain down on a brain emulsifying three hours.
That this was all washed down with several glasses of top class Pet Nat should come as no surprise. The relatively abrupt wine list may not be lengthy but it is perfectly to the point, while the cocktails, such as Surin Wine (rice pudding vodka ferment and toasted rice milk. Think top shelf vodka with cereal milk and you’re on the right track. Next level tackle) and Dream Gun (grilled banana bourbon with a dash of milk of the poppy and turmeric. Absolutely bananas) are similarly as apeshit as the rest of the menu.
FIN
Understandably, this is not a meal that lends itself to regular repeat visits. But District are now bridging that gap by offering a new lunch service every Friday and Saturday, between 12 and 1.30pm.
From now until the end of the month, the ‘My First Crush’ menu, which is half of the Full Experience, will serve as the lunch offering and then from November onwards a new ‘Endless Summer’ menu will take over.
So if you’re in the market for a lunch that can transport you across the globe and about two centuries into the future within the space of 90 minutes, you know where to go.
The thunk of heaving oval plates, piled high with densely coated udon noodles and mountainous, char siu crowned pillows of jasmine rice, hitting elderly yet steadfast formica tables punctuates the cluttered air amid the hotpot of rapid fire Cantonese chatter and low Mancunian rumbles. Students and pensioners sit side-by-side, one generation utilising their reading glasses to remind themselves of the menu, the other studiously scrolling instagram to jostle their memories of what dish looks most appealing.
Between the social media scouring clientele, the neon exterior and the fish tank featuring interior, Happy Seasons could easily be situated in 1988 or 2021. A no nonsense throwback that suddenly finds itself flung headfirst into the most modern trappings of the 21st century.
The Faulkner Street stalwart has held its own in Manchester’s China Town for 25 years. A quarter century of roasting meats and filling seats. But now it has opened itself up to a new generational pull. And everyone wants a plateful.
The Holy Trinity – Roast Duck, Char Siu, Belly Pork
Between July 4th and September 22nd, 2020, Happy Seasons’ official instagram account posted 18 times, understandably wishing to capitalise on lockdown restrictions easing by tempting customers back through their doors with photographs of all their trademark dishes.
And while business remained steady, it cannot compare to the deluge of interest that has been generated since the account relaunched in June of this year.
Pre-pandemic, of course, you could often expect to be greeted with queues veering all the way down Faulkner Street, with regulars patiently waiting for their sumptuous roast duck, char siu and crispy belly pork. But with those queues no longer forming, more modern measures had to be taken, and Happy Seasons rapidly rose to prominence on the instagram feeds of, seemingly, every-fucking-one in Manchester.
Enlisting the help of Jay Tran, of subterranean Vietnamese den Pho Cue on the opposite side of the street, Happy Seasons’ signature sauce laden creations were given new life, receiving wall-to-wall coverage on feeds and stories alike. A masterstroke in marketing that even a menu revamp or restaurant refurb couldn’t replicate.
Owner Kevin, sitting down with us during a pretty well populated afternoon service, explains that even some of his older regulars have noticed their old haunt receiving more mainstream coverage.
“We have regular customers coming in now saying ‘I saw you on instagram!’, they’ve seen all the posts going out and now we’re getting a lot more people coming in saying things like that. It’s a lot more popular. They want the dishes they’ve seen on the posts, which is really good.
And the dishes themselves are more than just social media aesthetics. They are the reason the ever thriving Chinese community in Manchester cannot keep away from the place. They are the reason why, at mid-afternoon on a scorching Wednesday, almost every table in the place is occupied.
When your insta bio reads ‘THE KING OF ROAST MEATS!!’ you really need to be ensuring it’s a bit more than mere hyperbole. And Kevin’s roast chef, a mysterious figure who is only alluded to in our conversation, is churning out the finest cuts of BBQ’d Cantonese meats in the city.
“The roast chef had already been here for many years before I arrived,” explains Kevin, who himself has only been at the helm of Happy Seasons for five years, having left his job as a restaurant manager in the Trafford Centre to take the reigns on Faulkner Street. “I think he’d been here for 12 years, so I could concentrate on managing the restaurant and leave him to do the roasts.
“There’s no big secret about the roasts, it’s just down to putting a lot of attention into the preparation. The roasts are prepared the day before from 7am, every day, so the day after, when they’re gone, that’s it, you can’t do any more. Day-by-day, day-by-day, non stop. It’s not easy, it’s hard work. Some customers don’t understand that we can’t just make it quickly. We have 40 ducks prepared and once they’re gone, you’ll have to come back the next day for one.
“Some customers say ‘oh we’ll wait’. How long are you going to wait? Sit there until tomorrow?”
The ducks themselves greet you from the street, hanging in the window like a band of outlaws, strung up by the sheriff in an old western. One-by-one they find their way onto the chopping board and then onto a bed of jasmine rice, beautifully corrupting it’s pristine whiteness with their soy infused juices, making everything that much more murkier and delicious. Throw in some char siu, maybe some soya chicken or belly pork and once that is places under your nose, you’re not looking up for the next 20 minutes.
Yet the roasts, famous though the may be, both on and offline, are far from the only reason to walk through the doors at Happy Seasons, as Kevin’s wife Fiona proves, serving up a banquet that our table almost buckles under.
Deep fried salt and pepper pork chops, crispy Szechuan chicken, char siu udon noodles with spring onion and garlic, prawn wontons, Morning Glory stir fried veg, salt and pepper ribs, crispy pork belly and a whole heap of soya chicken, complete with ginger and garlic dipping sauce is presented to us and we wonder where to even start. The colours of each bowl and plate are almost pre-filtered, the vibrancy of the crimson Szechuan spiced chicken almost chaotically violent when paired against the springtime greenery of the Morning Glory. And the medley of odours swirling between the plates causes carnage in our nostrils as we ponder where to start between anxious sips of Tiger. It’s a full blooded assault on the senses, make no mistake.
“Our food is more Cantonese style, like you get in Hong Kong” Kevin tells us, as we chopstick our way through the insanely good salt and pepper pork chops, “Mainland food is spicier, more oil. Szechuan chicken is more mainland. We didn’t use to have this dish or the spicy broth with the brisket, but our Chinese customers started asking for spicier food.
“The last 5 -10 years, more people from mainland China have moved to Manchester, and England in general. Before that it was all people from Hong Kong, but now the people who originally moved over from Hong Kong are retiring and there’s no one to take over because their children don’t want to own restaurants. The children see their parents working in restaurants and takeaways, working long hours, they don’t want that. They want to spend time with their families. Plus, with working visas are easier to get from mainland now, places like Hunan, you get more people coming over and opening up restaurants.“
Born on the mainland himself, in South China, Kevin moved to Manchester with his parents at the age of 16. And while his parents later traded the North West of England for Brooklyn, New York (a snippet that made Paddy excitedly exclaim “New York!? THEY LIVE THERE!?…WOW!” with the childlike exuberance of Father Dougal Maguire), Kevin made a pilgrimage around the UK, taking in Bristol, Blackburn, Halifax and then Manchester again.
In this time, and the five years he has headed up Happy Seasons, he has seen tastes develop and evolve, with the space between his English and Chinese menus, both roughly the same length as War and Peace, getting closer and closer all the time, moreso especially in recent months, with insta inspired patrons demanding the most authentic experience possible.
“Most English people didn’t order from the Chinese menu. But when the restaurant is packed, you see a table of students sat next to a table of Chinese people and they have a look and say ‘oh, what’s that?’ on the Chinese table, and they want to try it. They unlock the Chinese menu that way and that way they know what to order next time they come in.
“We have some regulars now who come in, English people, who know what they’re ordering off the Chinese menu, so they’ll say ‘I want the salted egg beancurd’. So we are looking at adding more Chinese menu items to the English menu.
Once again, the social media hype is fully on display with people’s orders. A trio of students on the table to our left order up and slurp down some Dung Yam seafood soup in short order, while a middle aged Mancunian couple to our right enjoy the heady delights of the spicy brisket broth.
This + Three Tigers and you are in flavour country, my friends
Fiona spares our blushes as we struggle to overcome the insurmountable odds stacked in front of us. There is no way we can polish off the deluge of deliciousness that has been so generously delivered to our table. She bags everything up as a round of naps is contemplated.
A little while later, I share a handful of snaps of our meal to my instagram story. The notification pings are almost instantaneous. The love heart eye emoji reacts are there, the simple ‘YES’ replies and various other impassioned responses telling me all anyone needs to know about the renaissance that has been undergone atop Faulkner Street over the summer. Happy Seasons has become one of the city’s happiest places, for both the older generation and the new.
They said it couldn’t be done. They said there was no way the human body could endure such a horrific volume of carbohydrates in one day. They scoffed at our lofty, potato-centric ambitions, branding us ‘dreamers’ and ‘deranged, spud bothering fantasists’. They even said we should get real jobs.
They were, in fairness, pretty much entirely correct.
But even so, the Great EATMCR Chip Safari of 2021 (Trademark Mary-Ellen McTague) was a resounding, near heart attack inducing success and we would readily do it again. With more people to help out and ready access to a defibrillator.
When fried potato enthusiast and mate of EATMCR Lucy Noone-Blake tweeted the idea of chronicling the best chips in Manchester, the response was instantly resounding. An emphatically positive deluge of replies suggested that it was, in fact, quite a good idea.
And it was one we were very, very keen to be involved with.
If I were to go round and document all the chips in Manchester restaurants would anyone be interested? I think its work that needs doing
Quicker than you could say ‘sweet potato fries are not fucking chips, now get them out of my sight’, a plan was hatched. Establishments were listed, furious debates raged as to which venues would make the cut, with a flagrant disregard for our own health and wellbeing becoming more and more prominent with each spot that was confirmed.
Thirteen. Thirteen restaurants made the cut. Thir-fucking-teen. In one day. Not even a full day either. A fucking afternoon.
Full disclosure, we managed nine. And it almost killed us.
The starch stuffing dream team consisted of the aforementioned plot hatcher extraordinaire Lucy, EATMCR owner/bossman/sheriff Paddy Brown and myself. A triple cooked trio of chip loving renegades. Did some people compare our grandeur and influence to the original New World Order? No, literally only I did that, in my own head, because as far as I’m aware Lucy and Paddy have absolutely nothing but disdain and indifference for mid ‘90s professional wrestling. Still though, two iconic trios, it can’t be denied.
Don't want to stress anyone out but IT'S CHIP TOUR DAY 🍟@eat_mcr
On a totally unrelated note, there’s going to be a big lad in an old Fila trackie top sweating heavily in Stephenson Square at around half five. Please take pity on him. https://t.co/udjoH7xxxM
Armed with empty stomachs, massive appetites and a total and utter lack of comprehension of how detrimental to our digestive systems the next few hours was going to be, we descended on our first venue: Honest Burgers on Bridge Street.
Yes, OK, we’ve started with a chain, but a chain where the quality of spuds cannot be denied. Although my suggestion of adding Maccies on Oxford Road to our route at 3am was promptly shut down, Honest was allowed as the launch pad of our operation and it delivered in droves.
A round of rosemary salted chips was dropped to our table, complete with accompanying beef gravy and vegan mayo (separate pots, obviously) and the feeding frenzy began.
To the chest swelling tones of Andrea Bocelli’s dramatic classic ‘Por ti Volare’, a smattering of the rosemary flecked chips were shaken into the gravy, offering up an immersively rich Sunday Roast vibe to proceedings. The outer crunch, the inner fluff of the spuds was spot on, with the gravy a perfect texture so as to coat, not drench, the chips, even after a full submersion. The rosemary was equally not too overpowering, but perfectly complementary and positively moreish.
“Quando sono solo sogno all’orizzonte…”
Paired with a pint of Camden Hells, we were off to the races. Not even the scraps survived. Which was actually where, unbeknownst to us at the time, our downfall would begin some restaurants later.
“This lot are gonna be hard to beat…”
“Right, where ne….” “…Hawksmoor” Lucy’s interruption of Paddy’s query was blunt yet absolutely fair. The Manchester outpost of the classic London staple, located round the corner from Honest in an old Victorian courthouse on Deansgate, with it’s dark wood panelling, parquet flooring and sublime cocktail menu is enough to make you feel like a half cut Don Draper upon entry; all mood lighting and Martinis, the bar area oozes sophistication and debauchery in equal measure. If a load of Mad Men poured in for a half dozen Old Fashioned’s at lunch you wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.
On this visit, however, steak and top shelf spirits are left on the sidelines (well, sort of) as their triple cooked chips and dripping fries took centre stage.
It was upon ordering that Creameries Commando (official title) Mary-Ellen McTague’s name was brought up to the Hawksmoor staff. As we placed our order, we made sure to accessorise our chips with anchovy hollandaise and stichelton hollandaise. It then dawned on me that I was a Martini away from replicating Mary-Ellen’s go-to Hawksmoor bar order, which she enthused about to me a couple of months ago over far too many shots of bourbon and pickle juice.
“Well, you’ve got to go for it now you’ve mentioned it” a particularly devious member of bar staff exclaimed as I blurted my realisation out loud, without taking into account that it was half two in the fucking afternoon.
“How would you like your Martini?”
“I, erm…well…dr….yeah I’ve literally never had one before”
“If you’re doing Mary-Ellen’s order, I can just do it like she has it – Strong and dirty”
“I, haha, ye….does it come with olives in it?”
That’s how my first ever Martini order went down and, true to form, it was strong. Stronger than The Rock’s thighs on leg day. Fortunately, despite the whirlwind of gin and vermouth enveloping my brain, my tastebuds were left well in tact to experience some of the best, if not the best chips I have ever had the pleasure of dropping into my mouth.
FUCK…ING…HELL
Lots of noises were made. All involuntary. Whatever happens during the three rounds of cooking these chips go through, it can only be surmised is some sort of sorcery. It’s not even worth knowing how the end result is achieved. Just enjoy the magic while each golden, rectangular wonder passes your lips. The dips are no mere sideshow either, each providing supreme umami vibes, somehow lifting these Holy Grails even further into the stratosphere. I could bang on for another 2,000 words about them, to be honest. Every other couple of words would just be ‘fucking hell’.
“This lot are going to be hard to beat” is my final, ridiculous understatement of a review as we saddle up for a visit to venue number three.
“FUCKIN’ HELL, LET’S MAKE A CHIP BUTTY”
Those final words from Hawksmoor must have made their way up the road to the team at Kala Bistro, because this lot did not fuck around with their contribution to our urban carb safari.
The King Street standout, another jewel in the crown of Elite Bistro Kingpin Gary Usher, is a pretty fucking wondrous place. Being that we’re only downing a portion of chips, we belly up to the bar rather than taking a table in the main restaurant and, were it not for the fact we had another TEN portions to navigate, it is hard to picture the day deviating away from these seats. Sunlight bouncing through the towering front windows, a handful of truffle parmesan chips are illuminated as they are placed in front of us, as if descending from upon high. Between the presentation and the couple of bevs swilling around my stomach, it certainly felt like a borderline religious experience.
What came next was a moment of such divine inspiration that the end result deserved it’s very own deification.
A couple of rogue, Hors-d’œuvre sized focaccias appeared unexpectedly, their varnished crusts glistening in the mid-afternoon sun. Immediately, we knew what had to be done.
“Fuckin hell, let’s make a chip butty” came the cry and, despite Lucy being drained of about a litre of blood from an over enthusiastic bread slicing incident (a noble effort in the quest for ultimate chip butty creation) there was no messing with a masterpiece that could have easily stood up next to ANY of Neil Buchanan’s Art Attacks.
We literally gave blood for this…
Was it a ‘posh’ chip butty? Yes, OK, there’s no denying that. But eschewing the traditional majesty of a flour dusted bap or slices of toastie loaf, slathered generously in butter and gravy/curry sauce/mushy peas being the vessel for our chips was unavoidable in these circumstances. We had bread, we had chips, what else were we going to do?
The result? More noises. More shaking of heads as we wondered how such a simple staple can be done so,so well. It may just be the most perfect bar snack in all of Manchester.
Just one thing, though.
The shape of the ‘chips’ at Kala is ever so slightly on the ‘wedge’ side of the scale. Not a criticism, just an overview of the geometry of the Elite Bistro offering.
I plead my case about whether or not these truffle and parmesan adorned starchy bois should even be considered chips, but we’re already well on our way to the next leg of the tour.
The Pit Stops
Time is now working against us. That’ll happen when you’re allowing the necking of Martinis and severing of fingertips to get in the way of the fucking Catalina Wine Mi…. I mean EATMCR Chip Safari.
We realise our next few spots need to be navigated swiftly, but one look at the line up tells us we’re in trouble: Salt & Pepper, Northern Soul and Almost Famous. Three portions in and we’re flagging, now we’ve got to funnel another trio of heavy hitters down our gullets?
Salt & Pepper, as everyone is extremely well versed in by now, produce their unbeatable crinkle cut concoction with their signature ferocious blend of green peppers, onions, chillies, salt and spices. The aroma alone enough to generate a tsunami from even the most dried out of saliva glands. Chloe Tao and her brother Cash are rarely seen without a snaking queue at their Arndale Market stall, and just one mouthful of their chips will tell you why.
We then stagger in the direction of the Northern Quarter and park ourselves at Northern Soul’s new digs on Tib Street.
This is where the pain begins.
It’s humid, we’re full of potatoes and lager and we’re about to inhale even more of it. Oh, and this round of spuds comes complete with a topping of macaroni and cheese the size of a fucking Renault Clio.
I have longstanding reservations about the use of mac and cheese as a side order to meals, let alone a topping. I take a long, lazy sup of Neck Oil and wonder how on earth any of us are going to withstand the strain of MACARONI AND CHEESE FRIES.
“Yeah, did anyone order all the fucking carbs in the world?”
Let it just be said that both the mac and cheese and the fries are a thing of beauty. Both expertly prepared and, I’ll admit, the queso-esque sauce oozing onto the crisp, salty brilliance of the fries is decadent as shit, I’m just not sure the macaroni is necessary, delicious though it is. But let’s not allow personal preferences to get in the way of this being an elite beer snack.
Remember when I mentioned that the pain had started? Yeah, well, it gets a whole lot worse.
Almost Famous are a decade old Manchester institution and the city’s first proper viral culinary superstars. And their bacon bacon fries are, for very good reason, one of the city’s most beloved dirty dishes. But by fucking christ, a titanic sized portion of these bastards was the last thing I wanted to see sat down before me at this moment in time. And I hate myself for saying that, but when it feels as though chips are now piled from your lower intestine up to the back of your tonsils, more of the fuckers topped with bacon mayo and ‘bacon rain’ is enough to make you weep openly in public.
Oh m8
Fortunately tears were avoided and Paddy, tiring of the pair of us measly picking at a dish we would ordinarily devour (Lucy’s vegetarianism prevented her from partaking in this course) performed a herculean effort. One heroic gust of second wind catapulting him forwards, his fork stabbing through starch and bacon like an angry cobra going apeshit on a warren of rabbits it’s just stumbled upon. The chips disappear into his mouth, pain etched on his face, but also glory. A true ‘taking one for the team’ moment that will be seared into our collective memories forever. This may have been when the crying started.
“Guin…actually, wait, just a pint of something easy”. We collapse into the Bay Horse Tavern on Thomas Street not a well gang. We order the ‘thrice cooked chips’, complete with a miniature saucepan of beef gravy and we realise Guinness, although perfectly poured in this Northern Quarter stalwart, is not the way to go refreshment wise. In all honesty, neither is any lager after seven portions of chips, but there we were, committing to complete and utter heart failure.
Even seven portions deep, however, there was no denying the strength of Bay Horse’s chips. The time and patience put into each cooking of them a worthwhile effort. We’d much prefer them as our first round to our seventh, but even so, it’s painstakingly obvious that these beefy behemoths are well worth your attention.
At this point, Lucy departs. A group hug is shared, like a scene straight out of a late ‘90s/early ‘00s coming of age film, only missing an overly emotional pop punk ballad to really deliver the gravitas that it so richly deserved.
Left to our own devices now, Paddy and I head Babwards. Greek fries, crumbled with feta and olives and drizzled with tzatziki, garlic mayo and chilli sauce are, much like the previous four courses, chef’s kiss worthy fries. It’s also an arseload of salt for two lads who can barely even talk to each other at this point.
We give the basket of Greek goodness in front of us the valiant effort it deserves. It’s not exactly Angelos Charisteas heading in the winner in the Euro 2004 final, but given our own fitness levels in the moment, it’s also not that far off either. Applause is also apt as, in a market as saturated as the ‘loaded fries’ one, Bab have produced a dish that is actually pretty unique, with more bars focusing on the melted cheese/bacon/fried chicken/gravy toppings for their Frankenstein’s monsters. Feta and olives are a welcome break from the norm, even if the pair of us feel as if we’re about to go blind, slip into a coma, or both.
“Time to say goodbye”
The operatic beefcake Andrea Bocelli scored the opening scene of this tour and it’s with his soul stirring crescendo of Italian drama coursing through our veins that we amble, not quite beaten, but battered to Fry By.
We order up a cone of European inspired fritey fulfilment at the Hilton St hatch, holding it aloft like the Champions League trophy when it arrives. We fucking did it. For each and every one of you we did it. We are about a stone heavier respectively, but we mercilessly plough through the double cooked deliciousness, seeing off everything in our wake, pickled pink onions, a myriad of mayos, homemade salts, each tastier than the last. This is our last dance, like Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen, just ruining the ever loving shite out of any poor set of sods who steps before them in the NBA Play offs, we polish off the ninth and final serving. And what a spot to draw a close to proceedings.
There is so much pain behind those eyes
While Fry By’s residency on Hilton Street is sadly no longer, we expect to see the Amsterdam inspired frite shop open for business elsewhere at some point in the future. Their red desiree potatoes, fresh from McCalls on High Street, are steamed, blanched, fried and seasoned to a tee, delivering an almost Kettle Chip like quality. It’s no surprise that the post-5pm crowds were constantly amassed around the spot next to Corner Boy during its three month stretch. Wherever this gem reappears, it’s going to do gangbusters business.
And so, sweaty, exhausted, potentially on the verge of a major cardiac incident, we head off into the sweet embrace of Stevenson Square, victorious and in agony. As the sun lilts behind the Victorian splendour of the surrounding buildings, we regret not being able to give superior spud slingers such as Viet Shack, Evelyn’s, Bull and Bear, 10 Tib Lane and the assorted Chop Houses their flowers. Maybe next time…
As we swear off all potato based orders for at least a month, Paddy disappears to a nearby offy. He returns with a Toffee Crisp. My mind is blown.
The barman informs us the drinks are courtesy of the table across the room, as he produces two hefty double measures of Bourbon, followed, bleakly, by the same measures of pickle brine. Mary-Ellen McTague, the well renowned and well travelled chef and owner of Chorlton’s The Creameries and my drinking partner for the evening, exhales a doomed sigh of acceptance, like a mobster boxed in by a rival family’s firing squad. We shoot each other an ‘oh shit’ and quickly glug back our fates. Our second round of picklebacks tartly tormenting our stomachs, Mary-Ellen’s friends on the opposite table, the culprits of our incoming downfall, all now sporting the appropriate Cheshire Cat complexions. Fuckers. “In fairness,” Mary-Ellen surmises, “top shelf bourbon and pickle juice feels like a very Bourdain round of drinks.”
Just two days earlier, far away from Hawksmoor’s Don Draper demeanour, a bench outside the Northern Quarter’s Wheatsheaf is occupied by India Morris, the self proclaimed ‘Professional Bullshitter’ (a job title we should all aspire towards, tbh), ‘Croissant Connoisseur’ and, perhaps most brilliantly, ‘Mother of Whippets’. Chances are, if you’ve spent more than a minute in the Northern Quarter, you will have seen or encountered India, such is her affinity and devotion to the neighbourhood. There are rumours that, on the rare occasions she steps foot outside it’s boundaries, her entire body grinds to a halt, much like when you push a shopping trolley off the car park at ASDA. Her work as Director of Pear COMMS keeps her well occupied with many of the city’s most exciting dining establishments. Add to this mix her penchant for pints in old pubs and street corner butty shops and India was a natural fit to talk about Anthony Bourdain with.
“I’d bring Anthony Bourdain to the Wheatsheaf. It’s funny as fuck. You just come and have a pint, everyone’s mental, he’d love it here.”
– India Morris
It’s hard to fuck with that statement. Knowing the frequency with which Bourdain would belly up to a bar, mid-afternoon for a Guinness or four, taking in the locals, unflinching in his dedication to the black stuff and cheap, cold beer, away from the craft ale crowd, the Parts Unknown Powerhouse would have been right at home at The Wheatsheaf, where the conversations transition seamlessly from previous lives selling stolen goods in corner shops to one of the regulars discovering a rogue dildo in their wheelie bin.
“Just gonna see this off then pints in The Wheatsheaf”. Image: India Morris/instagram
As one of the founders of the PPA award-winning Restaurant magazine and the 50 Best Restaurants in the World awards, on top of his tremendous work as a speaker, consultant and writer on food and drink and art and culture in the North of England, Thom Hetherington is as firmly entrenched in Mancunian hospitality as anyone. Oh, and he also has a previous with Bourdain himself. But more on that a little later.
The final contributor to this two part series on all things Bourdain is Carl Anka. A newcomer to the city as The Athletic’s Manchester United reporter, Carl recently collaborated with Marcus Rashford on the writing of the real leader of the country’s ‘You Are A Champion’ book, which has topped the bestseller charts for the last four weeks now. You will also likely know him from his numerous television and radio appearances, fighting the good fight for Mental Health and writing for the likes of The Guardian, Vice, GQ, BBC and NME. Oh, and he has a podcast with Ian Wright. Yes it’s brilliant and yes you should be listening to it.
Originally from London, Carl settled in Manchester last summer, meaning a pandemic ridden 10 months in which experiencing the city’s true culture and identity hasn’t always been straightforward. But as a Bourdain devotee who is experiencing Manchester as a new arrival, armed with the great man’s life lessons about travel and immersing yourself in new places, Carl made too much sense not to talk to on Bourdain Day.
“The bit of Bourdain wisdom that made it easier for me to settle in Manchester was ‘Go and find people’s junk food if you want to understand a people.’ That stuck with me.”
– Carl Anka
Here they are, the lads. Image: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
He would have been 65 today, Bourdain. Sixty five. An Old Age Pensioner here in the UK. Retirement age. Obviously, none of those words would have ever actually applied to him. There was never going to be a retirement for a man who’s appetite for life was so enormous while he was still here. While we may never know why Bourdain chose to end his own life in that Strasbourg hotel room on 8th June, 2018, we do know that when he was with us, he wanted to consume as much of everything as humanly possible.
But where would our chosen quartet most like to spend their ideal ‘Bourdain Day’ in honour of our favourite consumer of ‘meat in tube form’s’ birthday?
Thom’s aforementioned previous with Bourdain is actually the most tragically hilarious ‘Bourdain Day’ in itself, so we’ll save that for dessert. Actually, no, it’s more of a 3am kebab than a dessert. You’ll see why in a little bit.
With * gestures vaguely towards outside * all this that’s been going on, Carl may not be able to provide a blow-by-blow account of which eateries and drinking dens he would venture in and out of, but he knows exactly where he would have taken Bourdain had the opportunity ever presented itself.
“Lockdown means I haven’t experienced too many places in Manchester since moving, but I would probably take him to Rita’s Reign Street Food, which opens on Piccadilly Street Food Market Wednesday to Sunday.
“I’d get him a combi box, and make a joke about how serving jollof rice AND rice and peas in the same dish is a diaspora link up and get him an extra dumpling. Then I’d take him on a walk of the canals and ask him about plantain.“
While Carl and Uncle Tony meander slowly round the canals of Manchester with their jollof and extra dumplings, where are Mary-Ellen and India starting their day?
Breakfast Butties and Gloomy Glamour
“So my Bourdain Day would start with champagne and oysters, with my two best mates, Kate and Becky and it’s gonna be Hawksmoor,” begins Mary-Ellen, prior to our own visit to Hawksmoor, sequestered as we are to the rear of The Refuge’s terrace, The Creameries owner delightedly devouring a stunningly retro looking plate of charcuterie courtesy of Bada Bing, while I attempt to tackle their monstrously magical shrimp Po’boy.
“I just love it at Hawksmoor, I love the gloominess of the bar. I think we’d have lunch there too. We’d probably meet around half 11 for champagne and oysters, so that would take us to around three o’ clock.”
Now that is a fucking dining room. Image: Hawksmoor/instagram
India, meanwhile, keeps it a little more low key with her morning festivities.
“I spend most of my time on Tib Street. I never really leave, it’s like a running joke. I’d start my day at Rustica, it’s my favourite spot in town, so that would be my first port of call, especially if I’m hungover. It’s got the best butties and Lynne, who works there, everyone calls her Auntie Lynne, she’s so friendly and they’ve got everything. You can ask them for the most obscure sandwich in the world and they’ll make it. I bought someone a sandwich from there the other day and they were just like ‘this is the best butty I’ve ever had’, so that’s all you need to know.
“It’s a spot where everyone knows each other and everyone’s fucking sound. The women who work there are like everybody’s auntie. I’ve met so many people there as well. If you bump into somebody enough outside there you become friends with them. No one’s an arsehole there.”
– India Morris
“Then, I always get a coffee from Just Between Friends and a bunch of flowers from Northern Flower, then onto Butchers’ Quarter, I always get stuff from there. I always speak to Graham in there, and Will, I’ll just say ‘Right, I want to buy some charcuterie, here’s a tenner, just gimme whatever you can’ and they’re fucking sound, they know everything about deli stuff.
“From there I’d get myself a second breakfast. I go to Eastern Bloc, always with my Dad. They do the best breakfast in there. I don’t think anybody really knows about it. It’s really weird but I always order the veggie breakfast but then add a black pudding. Black pudding’s the one.“
Second breakfasts and final tipples of champagne promptly seen off, lunch is on the horizon which, for Mary-Ellen, doesn’t require much movement.
Lunch: Curries, Kebabs and Cocktails
“My Hawksmoor lunch order is to have a Perfect Lady or Hemingway Daquiri off their cocktail menu then we move through to the dining room and start with probably the scallops and a glass of white wine, followed by the rib eye with chips and anchovy hollandaise AND stichelton hollandaise. I feel like I’m cheating a bit by staying there for lunch as well but it’s just once you’re there it’s so hard to leave.
“Where do we go from there? I reckon to Schofields for a cocktail and then we’ll pop over to Erst for a really good glass of wine.“
Pretty well stocked at Schofield’s, aren’t they?
Continuing the pick ‘n’ mix trend of her visit to the Butcher’s Quarter, India shifts her attention towards the Arndale Market.
“I’d head to the fish market in the Arndale and get like a fiver’s worth of anchovies in a massive bag. They’ve got garlic ones, chilli ones, all sorts. I usually go in at the end of the day and give them a tenner and the blokes always look at me weird, like ‘you just want us to pick the fish?’ After they’ve just bagged up a fiver’s worth of anchovies for me, which is loads.
“I don’t think I ever really eat proper meals, it’s just a pick ’n’ mix of the best shit in Manchester.
“Yadgars is another great spot. I’m obsessed with their instagram. I have no idea what goes through his head, from the initial thought to what he posts. I have the best chats with the guy in there, about absolutely nothing. I went in there and chatted to him for about 20 minutes about card machines and Deliveroo, asking him if he was going to get Yadgars on there and he just said “I’m working on it”. How long you been working on it for? Five years?
Come for the rice and three, stay for instagram chaos
“I’m allergic to ginger, so if I eat from there I’ll suffer, but it is worth it. Sitting in there is an experience. The guy who owns it never smiled or spoke to me for like a year and I kept aggressively waving at him every time I walked past until one day he smiled at me and now we’re friends. I ground him down for over a year being overly friendly.
“So that would be a little tour of Tib Street and Hilton Street, they’re my favourite spots round here. I think Levy Bakery would be on there as well. I’ve only been once but it’s the best kebab I’ve ever had. Somebody convinced me to go there and the chicken shawarma was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. It was fucking banging.
“Eat and Sweet would need visiting as well, opposite Jerk Shack. I’d never had a patty before from anywhere and when I went there it changed my life. I took one bite and was like ‘I’m never going Greggs again’. I had the lamb one and my mind was blown. When I’m hungover and if I’ve not gone Rustica, that’s where I go. It’s a family business and the woman who works there is so fucking sound, so I’d definitely go there for a patty.“
Stomachs well and truly brimming with rib eyes and various Indian and Caribbean delights, thoughts then turn towards the evening, where decisions must be made about where weary, well fed and watered bodies will be best served. Fortunately, this duo know more than a few places.
Evening Meals: Private Banquets and ’90s Hip Hop
There is a lot to be said for exercise during a full day session. Yes, that does sound borderline sacrilegious when the fundamental basis of the day is to make merry over tables full of regularly emptying plates and glasses. But sometimes a good stagger across town can clear the cobwebs enough to sober you up just the right amount to generate a second or third wind that will see you past the finishing line with a final flourish. It’s a tactic Mary-Ellen demonstrates admirably.
“From Erst I’d want to go to Siam Smiles, so that’s a good 25 minute stagger, having a lovely time and massive chats but we’re also ready for noodles. Really fucking great noodles, so I’ll order absolutely everything. Then once we’re done there, the perfect end to the night is to get a load of booze and go back to one of our houses and dance on the tables. The playlist is usually a lot of ‘90s hip hop, Prince, Madonna, Candi Staton, Mantronix.”
– Mary-Ellen McTague
Art. Image: Siam Smiles/instagram
For India, something a touch more private is required.
“I’m obsessed with Mama Z (hey, remember her from Part One?). All the food she makes on her instagram makes me so happy. So if I wanted to enjoy the best food in Manchester I’d have her come to my house and be my personal chef for part of the day. Just for me, not my mates. It’d just be me having like six dinners. I used to live in Cambodia and the only thing I’ve ever really missed in my life is this Cambodian breakfast called bai sach chrouk, which is just like a pork and rice dish with pickled vegetables, rendered fat and a fried egg on top and Mama Z made a Fillipino breakfast the other day on her instagram that reminded me of that and I wanted it straight away.
“If I absolutely had to go out and eat with people, though, the first place I’ve ever been to where I’ve been completely overwhelmed by how good it was, was District. Mate, I’ve never been somewhere where I come out and immediately want to tell everyone I know about it. The whole concept behind it is so clever, it’s part of the community that offers a new way of dining in the Northern Quarter. It’s not just some brunch spot or another Thai restaurant. We were in there for three hours, we did the full tasting menu, although I could only eat half of it because of my ginger allergy, but my mate Jacob came with me and he’s obsessed with South East Asian food and he ate all of it. The wine choices matched all the dishes, the cocktails are properly thought out, they’re made using Asian flavours so it’s not just like ‘here, have a Pornstar Martini’. It was an experience rather than just dining. It was like a night out.“
Mary-Ellen now, presumably, atop her kitchen table belting out ‘When Doves Cry’, India decides to finish up in the warm embrace of her faithful Northern Quarter and a spot where she has grown up for the last 10 years.
“At the end of the night I’d be going Soup Kitchen. Soup Kitchen’s like my second home. I’ve been going in there since I was 18. I’m 28 now. I get looked after in there cos I’ve been going in so long. The reason I live in Manchester now is because of Soup Kitchen because I met all my friends in there. My mates all work there, I know all the bar staff, it’s my favourite spot. It’s like another living room. It was best when they had the big long benches and you all squashed on, you and your mates, chaos everywhere. If we used to say ‘shall I meet you in town?’ We’d always say ‘yeah I’ll meet you at the spot’ and it was there. The best stuff in my life has happened in there.
“Soup Kitchen’s one of those places where you see the next generation of people coming through. Me and my mates would sit there going ‘who are they?’ But that was once me starting out. We would go every Friday, every Saturday and every Sunday. And the Sunday club was a load of us hanging out of our arses going ‘just give us more pints, please’. I’ve spent more time there than anywhere else in Manchester. That’s where I’ve grown up.”
“The thing is, I actually don’t think the food is what’s most important, it’s the spots. There’s so much importance behind who works somewhere and how they speak to you. It’s just nice to know people in a place you keep going back to.“
– India Morris
So, what of Thom Hetherington and his meeting with the man himself? Well, allow the CEO of Holden Media to tell you himself…
“Back in the late 90’s, long before social media became the platform du jour for opinions and arguments, napkin-sniffing food nerds used to huddle around an online forum called eGullet. There, a community of chefs, food writers and food geeks used to post their own restaurant reviews, often with amateurish photos, usually taken on outsize SLR cameras, much to the annoyance of other diners.
“I was a member, and through the site I established friendships and connections with industry legends such as Jay Rayner, Marina O’Loughlin, Shaun Hill and, just slightly, one Anthony Bourdain. So when, in 2004, Manchester Food and Drink Festival organised a collab dinner by Anthony Bourdain and Fergus Henderson, of the legendary St John, I signed up in a heartbeat and slid into his DMs.
“I’d offered to take him out afterwards, for a proper Mancunian night out, so once the dinner was over (which sadly was cooked by the in-house team at the venue rather than the great men themselves) he and I, and a small group of equally obsessive food geeks and tag-along acolytes, set off into the night. My plan was to take him to my local, the most wonderful and Mancunian of pubs, The Marble Arch.
“There were a variety of reasons for this. Firstly writers and chefs crave authenticity and typicalism. If you go to Valencia you want to eat paella not pasta. If you come to England, to Manchester, you go to a pub. Secondly The Marble Arch is staggeringly beautiful and completely unexpected, and writers love a wonderful surprise. Thirdly it had an award-winning micro-brewery, and chefs like product and provenance.
– Thom Hetherington
“Lads, where did we land on that lock-in?”
“But I had a fourth ace up my sleeve, as it truly was my local. We lived about 200m away at the time, and I was always in there so the manager had become a mate, and we always tended to stay for lock-ins, complete with the pub dog, drinking and telling stories in front of the fire. This is what I knew would blow Anthony away – The idea that through local contacts he was getting a ‘real’ and spontaneous off-menu experience.
“And then it all started to go wrong.
– Thom Hetherington
“Firstly, there were no taxis. Secondly, it’s amazing how far away the arse end of Rochdale Road seems when you’re trying to walk a gaggle of uncertain tourists through what was, back then, a fairly post-apocalyptic stretch of wasteland. It may have rained, or I may have added that detail to heighten the trauma of the memory. Anyway eventually we made it through the door, not long before closing, but I had my plan.
“But I didn’t. My mate was nowhere to be seen. I think we might have at least got a round in – the sheer residual horror has blurred the memories – but when I tried to ask the replacement manager, who I didn’t know from Eve, about a lock-in I got an icy “No.” I’m ashamed to say that I wheedled and cajoled, out of desperation and rising panic, but that only led her to suggest, sharply, that we drunk up and left.
“But this is Anthony Bourdain” I whispered, loudly enough to cut through the pub chatter, “I’ve brought him here specially. Anthony! Bourdain!” No flicker of recognition, and certainly no lock-in.
– Thom Hetherington
“So with no ceremony whatsoever we turned around and trudged back down Rochdale Road, through the post-apocalyptic wasteland, in the – possibly imaginary – rain. All the way down I juggled the twin duties of keeping everyone’s sprits up – they were visibly drooping – and coming up with a Plan B. Where was likely to be open late, nearby, mid-week? In Manchester? In 2004? There had to be somewhere?!
“In the end a few of us went to the legendary Socio Rehab for cocktails, but Anthony did not. Instead he returned to his hotel, proclaiming himself tired. But I knew the real reason – It was because I, Thom Hetherington, had given Anthony Bourdain, one of the greatest chefs and food writers of all time, the shittest night out ever, in my home city, a city famed for its endless parties and gastronomic renaissance.
“It’s important to stress the manager in the Marble Arch owed us nothing and behaved entirely correctly. I should have planned better, and I should have contacted everyone involved in the plan up front (from a taxi company to the pub, and yes Socio Rehab for after afters) to confirm said plans. I should have had mobile numbers for every individual, and I should have checked and double-checked and checked again.
“So if anyone has ever wondered why I am so penickity and OCD about organising anything, and why I plot something as simple as taking a visiting journalist around Manchester as meticulously as a military manoeuvre, it’s because I was shaped, indeed scarred, by my disappointing night out with Anthony Bourdain.”
Spectacular, isn’t it?
So what of legacy and life lessons learned from Anthony Bourdain? That wondrous human being who so many of us feel like we knew as a wise, well travelled uncle, who would periodically drop by for a debauched night of strong liquor, smelly cheese and sage advice. How did he affect the characters of this piece?
“Kitchen Confidential was absolutely pivotal for me” remembers Mary-Ellen over a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc. “I was in my first year of cooking, not doing very well, I didn’t feel like I belonged. I was the only woman in the kitchen at Sharrow Bay, in Ullswater, where I was working at the time. I was the first woman ever to work in the kitchen there. They’d been open just post-war and this was the early 2000’s. So I was in this place where I really wanted to do well but the people around me really didn’t want me there, so half of it was hellish but then the other half, when you got through a full service and absolutely nailed it without a bollocking, was addictive.
One of Manchester’s greatest chefs and a prickleback connoisseur. Image: Bec Lupton
“But the two head chefs in the main kitchen never made eye contact with me. They never spoke to me directly for about a year. They just didn’t know what to do with me. One of them was a Spanish guy, in his mid ’50s and he would ask people to ask me to do something, and his name for me was ‘Young Cunt’, so he’d say ‘get young cunt to do this…’ and I’d be there, I could hear him. They just had no use for me.
“So I’m hating it, but also wanting to do well as a ‘fuck you’ to the way I was being treated, for them trying to make out that a woman wasn’t welcome somewhere.
“I read Kitchen Confidential and there were so many things about it, like the timing of it, for me that made it so pivotal. He was describing what I was living and describing the bits of it that were hellish and the bits of it that I enjoyed and I thought ‘oh fucking hell, it’s not just me.’”
– Mary-Ellen McTague
“Reading Kitchen Confidential made everything feel poetic, like when you’re looking at musicians and seeing the glamour of what is a pretty gritty lifestyle. He took the aspects of the work that were mundane or a bit grim and elevated them somehow and I thought ‘OK, maybe this is alright’. It was just the perfect, most formative time for me to come across that book.
“There’s every chance I wouldn’t have carried on with cooking if it wasn’t for Kitchen Confidential.“
– Mary-Ellen McTague
“I revisited it later and was just like ‘fucking hell’. He, intellectually and socially, was way ahead of anybody who had spent any time in a kitchen. I was probably a bit in love with him. Here I was reading a book by someone who believed women had a place in the kitchen, although by today’s standards it was probably a little clumsily done but he was still saying ‘this is right/this is wrong and there’s absolutely no reason why a woman in any kitchen should be treated any differently’ and that just struck such a chord with me. Then add the glamour and the rock and roll’ ness of it, which was very alluring and how brilliantly written it was, it was exciting to feel like part of his world, like ‘I’m one of them, I’m in that club’ which felt brilliant.“
The King of New York
The lessons that stuck with Carl stem from Bourdain’s pre-television days, with Kitchen Confidential providing almost a mantra for a future way of thinking.
“I remember first finishing Kitchen Confidential and my first comment was ‘Oh, they’re pirates’. Bourdain made every restaurant seem like a unique pirate ship, filled with a strange array of people all busting their ass to give customers a wonderful evening. The best parts of that book weren’t discussing menus, and demi glazes, but all of the strange people he worked with; what made certain crews stick together, what made others too freewheeling.
“The idea you could work as hard as shit, for little recognition on the idea that it could make someone you’ve never met have a nice day stuck with me. ‘Do something good recklessly because you can. Because you enjoy doing it.’
“Then I moved to Bourdain’s television programmes and went further into food as a way of understanding people. He was curious, but never used his intelligence as a weapon to beat others over the head with. He was a good chef, but if he met someone who had been practising the same dish for 25 years every day he would revere their craft and make sure they understood how special they were.
– Carl Anka
“Bourdain was a rare person who liked a thing, and then would go out of his way to show said thing to the world and teach the story behind it, hoping it would spark something in them too.”
Plastic stool, bowl of noodles. In his element.
“There was a story that emerged not long after Bourdain’s passing about a waiter who was behind him in the queue for some sort of pop up restaurant. You know the story. Young person sees famous person, gets too nervous to introduce themselves, but does the whole, ‘Oh my god it’s famous person’ whispering that is probably a bit too loud and accidentally gets the attention of famous person?
“Anyway, the bit that stuck with me, and still sticks with me is Bourdain’s response to the tittering behind him. He apparently had some food with him while he was waiting in the queue, and spun round and offered it to the person name dropping him.
“Hey kid, you hungry?”
“I think about that story a lot. Bourdain always struck me as a person who, if he had two, and noticed you had none, he would make sure you got one.
“He was curious. Properly curious. Always tinkering and toying with ideas, but also humble enough to go ‘This is beyond me!’ and getting help. And he talked about the help all the time.
“He wasn’t afraid of saying he was wrong. He wasn’t afraid of speaking truth to power. He was a genius who repeatedly told others not to call him a genius, but to instead recognise all of the people who helped get him to this point. He drank. He fucked. He fucked up. Sometimes you could see him be visibly hacked off with everything and decide something wasn’t worth it, and then take a few deep blinks, realise things are only worth what effort is put in, and then renew himself.
– Carl Anka
“He looked at other people, saw if they were hungry, for food, for knowledge, for caring, for a general good time, and then would try and give that to them.“
When I ask Thom what Anthony Bourdain means to him, outside of a failed lock-in 17 years ago, his answer is simply “Endless curiosity”, which, similar to India’s assertion that Bourdain would have buzzed off The Wheatsheaf, is an answer that is seriously unfuckwithable.
And finally, while we know where Carl and India would take the great man for a meal in Manchester, what of Mary-Ellen and Thom’s choices for a sit-down with the Les Halles hell raiser?
Were Thom given a do over of his 2004 disaster, he’d opt for a couple of Mancunian institutions.
“I’d take him to two places, because a man needs to both eat and drink.
“Firstly a kebab or rice ‘n’ three at Café Marhaba, a curry café so good I ate their every single week day for a year back in 1995, during which I gained at least a stone. It is tiny, a little grungy, it’s hidden away, it’s been there forever, it’s blisteringly authentic, absolutely delicious, and the family who run it (it has passed from father to son in recent years) are wonderful. If that isn’t playing Anthony’s tune I don’t know what is.
“Following that it would be a pint, or several, in The Circus. We’d go here because it is probably the most Mancunian pub ever, steeped in the very essence of the city, and is full of a cast of long-serving characters who could grace a Damon Runyon novel. You cannot go to The Circus without getting drawn into the most fascinating of conversations with complete strangers, which is kind of what a pub is all about. I have no doubt that Anthony would be swept away by the storytelling and the warmth.“
That’ll be the best few quid that lad’s ever spent
Mary-Ellen, on the other hand, would find it hard to budge from the debonair dark wood of Hawksmoor, but would make an exception for one establishment that is very close to her heart.
“If I was going to take Bourdain anywhere in Manchester, I’d take him to Hawksmoor. For me it’s not even that it’s empirically the best food and drink, although it’s brilliant at both of those things, it’s just how it feels and it feels amazing. It feels like home a little bit. It’s accessible, I can take my children, I can take my auntie, but I can also go in for a meeting or like a while ago, I had a magic stolen hour to myself in town one afternoon, which never happens, and I got in there, ordered a martini, chips and anchovy hollandaise and calmed down. It was perfect. And we don’t really have anything else like it in Manchester. In London and New York and Paris there’s things like it, but not here.
“So we’d have drinks there definitely, and chips with anchovy hollandaise, but then I’d also want to cook for him at The Creameries. That would be the dream. I think we’ve got the right balance of chaos and calm that he’d enjoy.”
So, over two parts and roughly 10,000 words, you have learned where some of our glorious city’s most wonderful, talented chefs, writers and characters would spend their ideal Bourdain Day. You have learned what they have learned and now, on Bourdain’s 65th Birthday there’s really only one more thing to do. Get out there, explore, eat, drink, talk and listen.
Order that dish you’ve always wondered about but opted against at the last minute. Or don’t. Stick with your usual and be content in the simple pleasure of your favourite meal with your favourite people. Veer off the beaten track, have faith in the back alley cafe and treat yourself at the restaurant that is stockpiling awards like dirty dishes after another sold out service. Cook your favourite person something heartfelt at night and then first thing the following morning. Take all the frustrations of the last 16 months and pile them into a day of wreckless abandon and enjoyment in honour of one of the world’s most relentlessly exciting adventurers. Do it for Tony.
“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself”
– Anthony Bourdain
Separation, both temporary and tragically permanent, has brought communities closer together than ever over the last 16 months. Enduring a year without a family Sunday lunch or a pissed up BBQ with your mates in favour of staring at the same four walls, while you and your unwashed and uncut hair await your fifth Deliveroo of the week, has been a grotesque existence to suffer through. The vigour with which the general public soared back into restaurants and pubs over the last two months was proof, if ever it were needed, that we are a society that, at it’s absolute core, yearn for the simplistic; A pint, a plate of food and people to share it all with.
It is this exact spirit which the late, great Anthony Bourdain championed for the last two decades before his untimely death, in 2018.
The chef turned world travelling documentarian and iconic adventurer covered all manner of subjects across various ends of various spectrums during his multiple circumnavigations of the globe (much of which is meticulously documented in Drew Magary’s breathtakingly good biography in GQ a few month’s after his passing), whether they be culinary, political, socio economic or just stupid, half cut bar debates. The one constant that remained, however, was food and drink as the ultimate unifier. It didn’t need to be the best quality produce, it just needed to be enjoyed in an atmosphere of tolerance and trust – The happy places where we can most comfortably feel like ourselves, whether it’s nursing a solo pint on a slow afternoon or Lady and The Tramping a ramen noodle with a best mate or partner after one too many between-course cocktails.
This Friday (25th June) will mark the third annual ‘Bourdain Day’, on what would have been the great man’s 65th birthday (almost unthinkable to fathom he was only three years shy of pensioner age when he passed, isn’t it?). The day was christened by two of his closest friends, chefs Eric Ripert (who had accompanied Bourdain on his final trip, to Strasbourg, in June 2018) and José Andrés, who told Esquire in 2019 that, “I hope that this is a place that many people will go, will enjoy life, will have a drink. They will cook, they will go to a food truck. They will go to [a] picnic. They will go to [a] street vendor. A hot dog, a fancy restaurant, whatever. And they will toast Tony and wish, ‘Happy Bourdain Day.’”
“I suffered so much grief after what happened that I only hope people will turn all that grief into happiness of life, and remembering how Tony made the world a smaller place by bringing us all together.”
– José Andrés
Turning grief into happiness is precisely what we, as a society, have been attempting to accomplish for the last few months, once the doors to hospitality were flung back open, albeit still with varying degrees of restrictions and dangers in place.
Many of us will have suffered the heartbreak of grieving for a loved one, while countless have mourned job losses, the disappearance of their favourite establishments, relationships, you name it, we’ve all grieved in one way or another since last March and this Friday, in memory of a man who so often made us forget our anxieties by allowing us to learn of vibrant, far flung cultures and cuisines, we can continue that process in the most positive, beautiful way possible. By not only toasting Uncle Tony and the invaluable life lessons he taught us, but by indulging in the pastime he became so renowned for – breaking bread across countless tables around a city, from back alley noodle shops to Michelin Star manors and, of course, to Waffle Houses.
So, this philosophy surrounding Bourdain Day had us wondering how we would spend the most idyllic 24 hours working our way round Manchester, from breakfast to ‘bab. As we mulled over our choices, we decided that we could do with a little inspiration from a smorgasbord of the city’s residents, each extremely well known and respected within their fields and, perhaps most importantly, all armed with impressive appetites.
Over the next couple of days, we will bring you the ideal Bourdain Day of half a dozen pretty fearless eaters and drinkers, all of whom are indebted to Bourdain’s own fearlessness, honesty and adventure in one way or another. Not only will this gastronomic sextet reveal where they would send their custom on their day, but they will also share what the former Les Halles hellraiser meant to them personally and where they would have taken him would they have had the opportunity.
So, pre-amble out of the way, here’s onto the opening tag team…
Up first we have the Philippines’ finest, Zosima Fulwell, better known to anyone with even the scantest knowledge of street food in Manchester as Mama Z. You may very well have a bottle of her banana ketchup or Hot Zos in your cupboard right now (if not, we heartily recommend you rectify this immediately and allow your life to be completely and utterly changed) and will have very likely sampled her ludicrously delicious Filipino offerings at any number of pop up events over the last four years, including Hatch on Oxford Road, Grub, Station Hop in Levenshulme and even our very own EATMCR Takeover at The Refuge recently, where she paired up with Pippy Eats to sling some dangerously good noodle dishes.
Image: cookingwithmamaz.com
Being half Filipino, half English and growing up in the Middle East, Zosima is a ‘third culture kid’ who shared her heritage and culture with friends from various different countries during her formative years. It is this pan-cultural identity and knowledge that makes Mama Z such an intriguing and exciting personality for an event such as Bourdain Day.
On the other side of today’s opening round is Luke Cowdrey aka Luke Unabomber – one half of DJ duo The Unabombers, Homoelectric & Homobloc promoter, restauranteur, raconteur and kebab connoisseur. Yes, he’s also off the funny videos on instagram, early Sheffield, Brammall Lane, Sean Bean, what’s wrong with that? Move it on…
So where are our opening act starting their respective days?
Breakfast, Brunch and, erm, Elevenses? (Twelveses as well?)
“My ideal Bourdain Day would definitely have to start with a walk into town,” begins Zosima, “you know, to work up the appetite, but I’d grab some things to eat on the way.”
“ I would walk down Upperbrook street and hit Venus for a cheeky Lamb Pide and a Turkish coffee outside.“
– Zosima ‘Mama Z’ Fulwell
Luke meanwhile, is opting for a meal often hilariously chastised by Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential. Brunch.
“I would definitely go to Trove, I love their brunch, it feels really gentle, really beautifully presented, great ingredients, amazing coffee. Their coffee, for me, is in the top three in the city. I love both the Levenshulme one and the one in Ancoats. The bread’s great, obviously. They’re not trying to be too clever but it’s very modernist. I would always take someone there for a new school kind of brunch and a great neighbourhood atmosphere. The merguez sausage is phenomenal there. I’d also head to Another Heart To Feed. They’ve produced something quite momentous there and the lad from Northern Ireland who does their coffee, I forget his name now, but he’s one of the best baristas in the city.
“Anthony Bourdain would love what they’ve done, he’d recognise that it’s not just style over substance. Both have developed their menus so well, they’ve done it very slowly.”
The vegan breakfast from Trove – A work of art. Image: Trove/instagram
As with all day long sessions, sometimes more than one breakfast is an absolute necessity, as Luke attests with a quite bold strategy of not only an elevenses (not heard of that course since the ’90s tbh) AND a pre-lunch twelveses. Then again, if it is the most important meal of the day, you might as well have it three times just to be sure.
“For elevenses, it would definitely have to be North Tea Power. I think they’re the greatest when it comes to coffee in the city. Everything they do is so subtle and wholesome without any shouting or showing off. Their cheese toastie is a thing of utter genius, so I’d have that, one of their freshly squeezed orange juices and a macchiato. That for me is the stuff of the Gods.
– Luke Unabomber
“Then it’s onto Federal’s Just Natas in the Arndale. They’re better than anything I’ve had in Lisbon or Porto. Taking a box of them for a sit in the Northern Quarter is a wonderful thing.
Long Lunches and The Beginning of Bevs
Tastebuds and stomachs sufficiently awoken, lunch is next on the agenda as well as, quite importantly, those first thirst quenching bevs.
“Further up the road from Venus isSeoul Kimchi” continues Zosima on her journey into town, “another spot I really love and such a hidden gem. If I was with a pal I’d share a main, probably a Bibimbap or Tofu Kimchi stew with a side of Beef and Kimchi dumplings.
A hidden gem. Image: @dillpickle85/instagram
“You are pretty much halfway to town so I would walk that food off and get a drink in town, probably in Ancoats square in Jane Eyre on a sunny day. If I got a bit peckish I would definitely get a portion of the ham croquettes because they are one of my favourite things and a great little bite.“
For Luke, meanwhile, he’s getting his early afternoon serviced just off Cheetham Hill Road.
“For lunch, there’s a few places but one that really stands out for me, and I’ve been there so many times the last couple of weeks, is That’s Thai, on Cheetham Hill Road. It’s owned by a couple and it’s attached to an MOT garage, so the wife runs the cafe and the husband runs the garage. I told an MEN reporter about it a few years ago and have regretted it ever since.
“It’s such an off piste, back alley, hidden gem sort of place but it’s serving the best bowls of Thai food in Manchester.“
– Luke Unabomber
“Their Pad Thai is the best I’ve ever had, bar none. But all the other dishes they’re serving there are authentic bowls that you just aren’t getting anywhere else in the city. Their broth is magical. The flavour and the depth is on another level.
“When you get there, quite often, there’s a fair few rum lads knocking about, but they all behave because the woman who owns the place is very matriarchal, so they don’t muck about. If he was still alive today, I’d have loved to have been able to take Anthony Bourdain there, it’s definitely his sort of place. You go there and get away from everything, it’s no nonsense, authentic Thai street food or peasant food or whatever you want to call it. I just love it.“
“Similarly, if I’m having a bowl of noodles, I might also go to Mi & Pho, which is one of my absolute favourite places. You know they’re doing something right when people are flocking to Northenden for Vietnamese food. Their pho is utter magic and all the flavours and ingredients they use are really on point.”
A man in his element. Very nice, move it on. Image: Luke Unabomber/instagram
However, as we have explored before, Luke’s appetites also lie in the Middle East when it comes to his lunchtime habits.
“At Kurdistan Cafe, they do everything really well, but what you want are the proper Kurdish lamb kebabs, done over the wood grill, which gives them this gnarly crispness on the outside, but somehow keeps them tender in the middle. Mix them with the flatbreads from their tandoor and you’ve got something very special. What I also love there is the soup they bring you before the kebab, which is a traditional dish made with turmeric I think and a few other herbs and spices. But yeah, the go to are the long lamb kebabs done over the wood grill. Then they serve that with pickles, parsley, onions, tomatoes and top it off with sumac, which gives it that acidity to cut through. It’s all so fresh and the combination of flavours is amazing.
“It’s a place you walk into and, much like That’s Thai, you feel like you’re walking into someone’s home and again, that makes it somewhere that I’m sure Anthony Bourdain would have loved.
“Just down the road from there, at Al Jazeera, I go for the Qabili Palau, which is a traditional Afghani lamb dish cooked over rice with this amazing broth. They do it better than anyone there and it’s just a great meal to share with someone which, again, I know Bourdain would have loved.”
“If I’m getting a shawarma, I’m going to Al Zain. I would say to get there between 1-3pm, because they will sell out. That’s probably the perfect time to go and get the lamb, don’t get the chicken, go for the lamb shawarma with all the salads, pickles, chilli sauce and yoghurt, which they make in house.
– Luke Unabomber
The Rusholme Revolution on full display
With Zosima settled at Jane Eyre with a plate of stomach lining croquettes, Luke continues with his pint based plans.
“Drink heavily with locals, whenever possible.”
– Anthony Bourdain
“I’d start at The Levenshulme, which is in Levenshulme, as you might have guessed. It used to be a proper old school Irish pub back in the day and it was taken over by two gay lads, I think about two years ago now. They’ve decorated the front of the pub in a giant LGBTQ rainbow and I just loved the balls it took to do that in an area which has never had a gay pub or club. I go in because it has this amazing mix of people and characters, which is how a pub should be and for that reason it would go down as one of my favourite places, even though I’ve only just started going there. Again, the type of place Anthony Bourdain would love, the realness of it, it’s no bullshit. The two lads that run it, they don’t fuck about, they’re really friendly, really decent. But if you fuck about with them they’re gonna sling you out.
“Across the street you’ve got some of the more new school places in Levenshulme, which is changing so much and I think Bourdain would have loved it there. It’s become arguably the most exciting area in Manchester. If I was only to go to one area for this day it would be Levenshulme. It’s almost got that early Northern Quarter feel to it. It’s very mixed racially, there’s not a lot of money there but with that comes a complete authenticity and warmth and community. Nordie there is probably my favourite craft ale bar in the city. It’s more than that though, they do natural wines and amazing food and I just love their attitude there.
Uncle Tony going local in Glasgow. Image: CNN
“I’ve then got to go to Northenden Untapped, which has the best selection of Pomona I’ve ever seen anywhere, which is crafted to such a high level of finesse it’s almost like drinking wine. The owners of Northern Tap are so rooted in the area, they’re Mancunian born and bred, Lee and Debs. It’s a perfect example of a bar done right. They also serve Wrexham Lager, which is really weird, but Wrexham Lager is amazing and I love the fact that it sits next to some of the most forward thinking beers around and natural wines.”
But while a selection of the more modernist, craft bars are high on Luke’s agenda, one particular pint reigns supreme, which is, of course, the black stuff.
“The best pint of Guinness in Manchester, which I love, despite the recent fucking need to be ‘Oo look at Guinness, bit obvious, bit commercial’ fuck all that, I love Guinness and the best pint of it is in Fiddler’s Green in Levenshulme. It’s a rough old gaff occasionally but everyone behaves themselves and the woman who runs it does so with an iron bar. You won’t get a better pint of Guinness in the city.
“Likewise with the Jolly Angler, which is tragically shutting down, if you had to take Bourdain to one place for a lock-in, it’d be there. I’m not knocking them but they had less product than Kwik Save in early Russia. There was about three fucking drinks on the back bar but they did the best Guinness and the guy and his mum who ran it were the nicest fucking people. It was a community pub in the most perfect way.“
Long Live The King. Image: Jolly Angler/instagram
Approaching the evening, cheeks warmed and eyes beginning to lilt ever so slightly under the influence of a few afternoon liveners, it’s onto the next course…
Dinner/Tea, Whatever You Want to Call It, We’re All Mates Here…
“Dinner thoughts will definitely be discussed during drinks in the afternoon and could be in many places. A big bowl of Scoglio at Sugo or even sharing some bits at Bundobust is up there”
Zosima ‘Mama Z’ Fulwell
“We could actually end up hitting Oneplus on Oxford Road depending on my mood. We are so lucky to have such fantastic eateries in the city and the list is endless. If anyone fancies doing this day with me, let me know.”
We may just have to take Zosima up on her offer and hit up every single on of Sugo, Bundobust and OnePlus, just to be on the safe side.
Mama Z would also likely have a fellow diner in Luke at OnePlus, who heralds the three storied Chinese dining powerhouse as one of the best spots in the city.
“Noodles wise, my favourite place has to be the basement of OnePlus. Honestly the lunchtime food they’re doing in there is the best in the city. They have a limited menu with about eight dishes, it’s a big Chinese community, particularly students, who eat there. I love it. They all think I’m fucking mad. It’s always delivered perfectly.
“My partner’s half Chinese, her mum’s from Kowloon, so I’ve grown an absolute love for Cantonese food. The roast meats; duck, roast pork, char sui, chicken, rice and cabbage have become an absolute staple for me. I crave it and when I do I go to Happy Seasons. It’s iconic with the ducks hanging in the window and I always go there for the roast meats.“
As with Luke’s other courses today, he’s not stopping at just one haunt, however.
“I can’t do this day without a curry, so when it comes to Rice and Three, the holy grail is Yadgars. They have specialist curries throughout the week like a fish curry on Tuesday and it’s been owned by the same family forever. I’ve been going there for over 30 years and they still do it and it’s fabulous.However, they do have competition from Real Taste, over in Cheetham Hill. Honestly, they do the best curries in Manchester, it’s rice and three and the customers in there are nearly all from the Asian community. It’s proper food, almost like rice and three used to be in Manchester back in the ’70s around the rag trade. The vegetarian dishes there are a thing of absolute fucking beauty.“
Creators of the best curries and instagram feed in Manchester
“If I’m not doing rice and three, though, I’m going to Chappati Corner on Derby Street for the lamb nihari, which is the Pakistani equivalent of a Sunday roast. They slow cook a lamb shank in this amazing sauce, I’m not sure what’s in it exactly, but the flavour is incredible. Then you eat it with a couple of chapatis or, if you’re me, about five.”
“Moving away from street food though, I think it’s important in life to have that aspirational magical meal and I think Mana is it. It’s arguably the best place in the entire city and is probably on a level pegging with the best in the country. The Creameries as a neighbourhood spot is fantastic too. The food is produced with a mind blowing level of finesse.Baraxturi is a thing of beauty. There is no other place in the north that matches the raw passion, love and energy they goes into their food . Likewise Erst, who are outrageous. They’re such a dynamic young team there and the flatbreads they make in particular are insanely good.”
But where to take the man himself were he still here today to indulge and immerse himself in our city?
Continuing the trend of Levenshulme love, Zosima keeps it very local for her meal with Bourdain.
“In true Zoss fashion and also being incredibly proud to live in Levenshulme, I would have to take him to Levenshulme Bakery. I would suggest he ate a shawarma on a Samoun as the bread is just so fluffy and delicious, and maybe getting a Fatayer on the side.
“It’s so cheap but just 11/10 banging and somewhere I know Anthony Bourdain would fuck with.”
– Zosima ‘Mama Z’ Fulwell
Luke, meanwhile, has already touched on a few establishments where he would happily sink a few suds and slurp broth with the great man, but one place in particular stands out.
“When the modern flow of the city all gets too much, and ‘Manctopia’ engulfs you, if you wanna see where the reaI life is, just walk off Oxford Road towards Hulme, where I used to live for many years and go to Kim By The Sea. It’s one of these outliers of life that have unified all the old clans in Hulme and a lot of people still drink there. It’s the maddest crowd, full of characters who have done things you couldn’t even begin to imagine, sat there having a pint. It’s one of my favourite places to realign, recenter and I’ll guarantee you, it’s somewhere Bourdain would have loved the realness of.“
The aforementioned lessons we learned from Bourdain’s work, whether it be on paper or screen, often centred around making the world seem both bigger and smaller at the same time, expanding people’s horizons and worldview while bringing them closer to us, the viewers. But it wasn’t just the uninitiated among us who were so touched by his efforts. The communities and cultures he reached out to also appreciated the genuine honesty and openness of a world weary traveller, who yearned to better himself through new experiences. Zosima, in particular, explains how Bourdain’s work in the Philippines spoke to her on an emotional and personal level.
“Anthony Bourdain broke narratives especially when he visited the Philippines. He accepted the eclectic mix and unknown dishes of Filipino cuisine, tucking into a Jollibee (the number 1 Filipino fast food chain) and said that in that moment he broke his hatred of fast food. He particularly enjoyed eating another Filipino dish called Sisig on a roadside Carinderia (canteen) and loving it. He saw the Philippines and Filipino people as I do which means a lot, particularly when he highlighted how hard working Filipino OFW workers are in Parts Unknown. ‘Filipinos are, for reasons I have yet to figure out, probably the most giving of all people on the planet’.
“I will always hold a special place in my heart for Anthony. Thank you for recognising and loving The Philippines through our food, our struggles, our people and our culture.”
– Zosima ‘Mama Z’ Fulwell
And what of the lessons Zosima and Luke learned from the New Jersey native? What was Bourdain’s lasting legacy on their lives?
“What I learned from Anthony Bourdain was that there was a complete honesty with his work,” begins Luke, “In a world of self proclamation and marketing and fucking campaigns and influencers, he came out as someone with no agenda. He was fragile, vulnerable, passionate, warm and an amazing character. It’s interesting that a lot of young men warm to him and I think it’s a sense of realness, because there was no bullshit or marketing or any of that with him. He was empathetic and he wanted people to win. He loved little places like shitty little backstreet cafes.
“He recalibrated the world to getting back to sitting down with a big fucking bowl of chicken stew like coq au vin or whatever and just getting shit spilled on your shirt and eating like an animal and enjoying it. People overcomplicate food and he took that back.
“I think if he could walk round Manchester now he’d absolutely love it. The wave of immigration has brought a real viagra to the food scene here and the balance is perfect.”
His final ever episode. Lower East Side, NYC. Image: Anthony Bourdain/instagram
For Zosima, the emotional attachment to Bourdain’s work comes from a personal level that perfectly encapsulates how much his work transcended everything that had come before it.
“I learned from Anthony the universal language of good food, accepting that most food comes from struggle and finding the beauty of that in the most interesting places. He was open and just interested to share the amazing things happening across the globe, giving everyone access to that food culture that perhaps some of us can’t get. He chose to recognise people as people, accepting their history and learning about their culture. He was never a tourist but a guest in many peoples homes and that’s what made Anthony amazing. He chose to be different and that is why he is so missed.”
A-fucking-men.
Part two will drop tomorrow. In the meantime, go follow Zosima and Luke and love their various works and talents. Our city is a much better place for the pair of them being here.
During the peak of his hell raising prowess, the late Peter O’Toole once found himself staggering into a hole in the wall in a small village just outside Dublin with fellow oft-inebriated actor Peter Finch. The pair, entering the final furlong of yet another lost weekend of debauchery, were ultimately refused service after seeing off a few 4am rounds. Rather than go quietly into that good night, however, they simply bought the pub.
While O’Toole and Finch would return the following day to receive their uncashed cheques back from the pub landlord (who would go onto become a friend for life to the point O’Toole and Finch attended his funeral, albeit after initially turning up at the wrong one) what their lash-fuelled frivolity exemplified is how fucking wondrous a great pub truly is.
Watching the rain pelt the concrete and cobbles from within the safety of a Guinness soaked embrace, collapsed into a well worn corner seat while a jukebox whirs in the background is an experience so cathartic, so uproariously joyful, that it should be available for prescription on the NHS. Day turns to night in the sup of a pint (or six) and you couldn’t care less about where the afternoon disappeared to, because within the four walls of any proper Mancunian watering hole, all potential bad vibes are barred, well away from the two flatly opened packets of salt and vinegar McCoys or Seabrooks that are serving as an impromptu late lunch. Traffic, tram delays, bills, your arsehole boss peppering you with five pm Friday emails, it can all wait. Order another bev and talk shit about who should start up front tomorrow afternoon or about what the most accurate ranking of all the Arctic Monkeys albums is.
“Alexa, play the theme tune to ‘Early Doors’
Fortunately, in Manchester, we’re blessed with more than a few establishments in which to immerse ourselves in this sort of fare.
Given how cutthroat pub ownership is at the best of times, let alone in the midst of what we’ve had to endure over the past 16 months, it’s imperative that these historical sites are not allowed to stumble, punch drunk into a post-lockdown abyss, timelessly resilient though they may have proved to be over the years. They are, after all, the fabric of the city, for more than a century providing shelter from the storm, powered by debates, piss takes and knees ups from generation to generation.
So while this weekend’s weather may call for beer gardens, terraces, patios and the like (several of which we can recommend here), there are those establishments which are best enjoyed indoors, among the wood panelling, knackered leather seats, magic eye patterned carpets and scampi fries. Here are just a few to send your business to…
Peveril of the Peak
You will, by now, be more than familiar with the two tone green tiled exterior of the Eric Cantona approved ‘Pev’, sitting as it does on it’s own island of opportunity at the cross section of Bridgewater Street and Chepstow Street. Said opportunity being the chance to enjoy a perfectly poured pint inside one of Manchester’s most historic, beloved boozers.
A work of art
Named after Sir Walter Scott’s 1823 novel of the same name, ‘The Pev’ is home to the UK’s oldest landlady, 91-year-old Nancy Swanick, who has been keeping patrons expertly watered for 50 years now. The County Donegal native has long been a part of the furniture and is replete with stories of the countless happenings that have occurred under her half a century watch. And it is this sort of history that makes The Pev such an irresistible place.
You feel at home the second you step through the intricately tiled doorway, soaking in over a century of memories (which include a former life as a Victorian brothel), from the decades old framed photographs loosely hanging off the similarly aged, textured wallpaper to the mahogany and stained glass artistry of the bar. A crimson, patterned carpet, paired with seats and curtains of the same colour gives the impression you could almost be sat having a pint in your gran’s front room. In a good way. In the best way, in fact. To regenerate or refurb such a monument of Mancunian pride would be a crime against humanity. God bless the Pev. Here’s to another 100 years. At least.
The Briton’s Protection
Just over the road from The Pev, it’s slate roof glowing under the lights of the much more modern Manchester skyline behind it, you’ll find the equally historic and eye catching Briton’s Protection. Sitting on the corner of Great Bridgewater Street and Lower Mosley Street, it is one of the oldest and finest pubs in Manchester, dating back to 1806 and offering a quite terrifying selection of whiskeys (over 330 varieties at last count). It’s the sort of pub that will always stand the test of time – divided into two rooms by the bar on the inside, with a narrow, mahogany and bottle green colour scheme, endlessly varnished furniture and plush, well worn leather – you’ll struggle to find any sort of urge to ever leave.
There are, we have counted on previous visits, six rooms to retire to with your beverage of choice, with moulded ceilings and copper fireplaces straight out of the 1930’s providing a snug sense of belonging, which we have seldom been able to enjoy in a socially distanced age. Like any self respecting, historical boozer, Briton’s Protection is liberally adorned with varying degrees of tile-work, plaques (including their CAMRA recognition for being one of Britain’s Best Real Heritage Pubs) copper top tables and, perhaps most eye catchingly, a mural of the Peterloo Massacre. The Grade II listed building that houses BP is going nowhere due to it’s protected status and, once your first pint hits your table, you won’t be going anywhere for a while either.
Tom & Sam’s Chophouses
Now, the original plan was to give Sam’s the limelight here, given that Tom’s was showered with attention in our Beer Gardens feature a few weeks ago. However, we received word that, unfortunately, Lowry’s favourite subterranean drinking den is remaining closed for the foreseeable future while structural work is carried out on their building. However, you can still shower Sam’s with your support by ordering from their Home Service, which includes their chef ready meal kits and sommelier hosted virtual wine tastings.
So, to Cross Street and Tom’s chophouse. This Industrial Revolution era Victorian icon, once celebrated by the New York Times as ‘probably Manchester’s most venerable pub’, has been adored by the masses since it flung open it’s doors in 1901, perhaps owing to the fact it’s wood panelled and green Minton tiled interior is so relentlessly welcoming and difficult to leave. Oh and also because, y’know, every pint that is placed under your beaming face is a work of art, as is the fish and mushy pea butty and pretty much everything else on their menu, let’s face it (we will happily throw hands with anyone who challenges us on the fact old Tom serves up the best steak and kidney pudding and corned beef hash in the city).
“Just a pint and five fish and mushy pea butties, please” Image: Tom’s Chop House
Much like Sam’s up the road, Tom’s place could be a scene straight out of a Lowry painting, with, in pre-covid times, silhouettes gleefully heaving and swaying through windows blurred by condensation. Bankers, lawyers and barristers would be shoulder-to-shoulder with retail workers, blokes fresh off any number of nearby construction sites, students and artists. All walks of life seamlessly collaborating on an atmosphere of contentment and camaraderie. And a shared enthusiasm for THOSE fish and mushy pea butties (just going to have to write a 3,000 word feature on them alone at some point, aren’t I?)
The Crown and Kettle
You may have noticed a post about this place became pretty popular the other evening over on our instagram. Yes, one of the team had had a bev or four, but the sentiment was true as fuck. We love the Crown and Kettle because, well, just look at it. Look at what they’ve managed to pull off over lockdown with their al fresco bevving facilities and Mira hook up for soaking up so many gloriously pulled pints.
Yet, as applause worthy as their shift outside may be, it’s the interior of the Crown and Kettle which forever transfixes us. The Ancoats institution feels practically cathedral-esque, with it’s ornate, original roof from the 1800s and windows drawing your eyes skywards, the exposed brick and heavy duty radiators offering the industrial, dirt under your fingernails history that has been so synonymous with the area in bygone eras. A pub has stood on this site since 1734 and, given how well run it’s current incarnation is, as a free house offering 20 independent keg lines, we’re confident there will still be one standing in the same spot in another 287 years time. Probably run by different people, like. But still, there’s clearly something in the water on this Ancoats street corner that keeps enthralling the masses. Long live the Crown and Kettle. Our favourite place to get giddily pissed and share inspirational insta posts.
The Marble Arch
You’ll notice that a recurring theme of this piece is tile-work and grandiose architectural triumphs. And Marble Arch has both in an absolute abundance. Plus about 4,000 ales to choose from. Not exaggerating. That much.
On the Northern Quarter outskirts, situated quietly on Rochdale Road, there is little inclination radiated from the outside that would suggest you are about to encounter an absolute behemoth of a pub upon entry, but somehow here you are, in the early 1920’s, illuminated by gaslight style chandeliers, trodding on a floral mosaic floor, azure blue intermingling with terracotta and bottle green. The windows to your left, practically gargantuan, ascending towards the roof and draped in lush ruby curtains that look like they’d be an absolute bastard to tie back.
The myriad of cask ales is enough to make your head spin, yet the staff friendly and experienced enough to talk you through them without the slightest hint of pretension or exhaustion. To soak up this selection? How about a do-it-yourself cheeseboard, which you curate yourself from the impressive litany of cheeses listed on the blackboard above the bar. You can opt from three for three for £9.95 all the way up to 12 for £22.95, should you be in the mood for a touch of gout to go with your hangover the next day.
While it’s wonderful to see the Northern Quarter’s revolutionised European boulevard teeming with punters, there is something absolutely magical about sloping away from it all and secluding yourself for a few solo pints at Marble Arch. Just you, your bev and some, quite frankly, ludicrous architecture. Oh, and a dozen cheeses.
Manchester’s Past Still Has A Bright Future
Obviously, the half dozen establishments listed above is far from an exhaustive, comprehensive list, but we could also be here for at least another dozen or so entries without even scratching the surface of Manchester’s proud tradition of producing world class ale houses. The Castle Hotel, on Oldham Road, for instance, is more than deserving of it’s own feature. In fact, it’s jukebox alone is worth 5,000 words. But, in the current climate, they are remaining closed until all restrictions are dropped, so live gigs are able to resume at full capacity.
Likewise, The Circus Tavern on Portland Street – Europe’s smallest bar, is an absolute delight. A pint sized treasure chest hidden on one of the city’s busiest roads. The Vine, meanwhile, a stone’s throw from the central library, is one of the unsung back street heroes, a genuine hidden gem tucked out of sight, but certainly not out of mind. A few minutes further south, as you approach Oxford Road, you could do a lot worse than veering right towards The Thirsty Scholar, in the shadow of the breathtaking Kimpton Clocktower, a longstanding favourite among students and pre/post gig crowds. Your pocket won’t take too much of a hit and the playlist will be reliably decent. While continuing down the road will also bring you to the Lass O’Gowrie, all Victorian Threlfall tiling and ‘Stout and Ale’ signage, this Charles Street stalwart is well worth the extra few steps outside of the city centre.
Adjacent to the Northern Quarter and Ancoats, The Angel is still cosily holding it down, offering dog friendly fireplace vibes which, touch wood, will be able to once more come into it’s own when the clocks roll back in October. Meanwhile in Salford, entire nights could be lost bar side at the Eagle Inn, or just a couple of minutes away at the legendary King’s Arms, an establishment now into it’s 215th year and still favoured by Housemartins and Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton, who served as landlord between 2011-2015. Heralded as “Britain’s most bohemian back-street boozer” by The Guardian, this proudly ‘alcopop free zone’ is a vital, vibrant hub for local artists and creatives alike, with an award winning jukebox and City Life’s ‘Pub of The Year’ gong among it’s lengthy list of accolades.
It seems that, wherever you turn in Manchester, you’ll fall into the loving arms of an old faithful if you look hard enough. These institutions have been keeping Manchester in high spirits, even in the direst of hours, for countless generations, and will continue to do so as long as we continue to show them the same affection in return. So swerve Tim Martin’s furlough dodging dives and immerse yourself in the most welcoming hospitality Manchester has to offer.
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) dish of chicken and beef spring rolls. So far, so beige, but that symphony of seasoning in the meat hits like no spring roll I’ve ever tried before. You ain’t ready for the pure joy in that uber-flaky crispy filo pastry. 
