Mad, isn’t it, how we’re all obsessed with small plates nowadays? We used to be nation of staunch three coursers. Starter, main, pudding. Soup, meat and veg, trifle. Small plates were called tapas and came from Spain and we ate them, every now and again, as a treat, at La Tasca. Then, more actually good, independently owned Spanish restaurants began to appear. Some of them started daring to serve a lot of their dishes on bread with a toothpick through them, baffling a large section of the English population as to how to pronounce the x in pintxos, so soon after the same people had only just wr ..read more

I have, for quite a long time now, allowed a gnawing resentment to fester regarding the status of lunch in the daily mealtime hierarchy. Dinner is the main event, it goes without saying. The meal which the entire day builds towards. Breakfast, meanwhile, not only gets the ‘Most Important Meal Of The Day’ honours bestowed upon it, it also benefits from the mountain of marketing fucking brunch has received over the last few years in a way that lunch most certainly fucking does not. Brunch is, after all, just breakfast where you get a bit pissed, but with more potatoes involved. Sometimes you mig ..read more

It is not long before half past six in the evening. Outside Deansgate heaves with Friday’s post-work revellers, darting decisively from one bar to the next so as not to lose their early weekend momentum. On the other side of the brickwork, inside Hawksmoor, however, the scene is serene and satisfied. There’s bustle. Of course there’s bustle. It’s Friday evening and this is one of the finest restaurants in Manchester. Reservations are chocker and the staff are reacting appropriately. But their’s is a drift rather than a dart. Swiftly between dining room and bar, servers, bar staff and vari ..read more

Late in the morning of New Year’s Eve, 2021, my wife and I sat in the back of an Uber en route to St.Mary’s hospital at the top end of Oxford Road. My wife was set to undergo her 20 week pregnancy scan, where we would also discover the sex of our second child. Slightly tense, as most people so often are ahead of any hospital visit, I gazed through the back window across a cityscape that was merging between the past and the present to create what I hoped would be a furiously exciting future for my kids to make the most of. While the final day of 2021 wasn’t one in which we were beholden to lock ..read more

Simple pleasures are often the easiest things to fuck up. It is, after all, their simplicity that allows for all manner of artistic interpretation and experimentation. The humbler the item, the blanker the canvas for the more creative or audacious (or flat out foolish) individuals among us to go hog fucking wild with. Elevation can be a wondrous accomplishment. Or it can be an outright fiasco. So when presented with a plate as universally beloved as the chip butty, you better tread very fucking carefully. After all, there is seldom a dining experience as heartwarmingly wholesome, as uproarious ..read more

It must be said that Manchester can sometimes be guilty of over indulging in its own history. Black and yellow Haçienda chevrons and ‘We Do Things Differently Here’ on a loop. Tucked subtly into Princess Street, however, The Alan is providing nuance with nostalgia as the most uniquely turned out hotel in the city. Marrying over 170 years of industrial past with bespoke, present day design work, this China Town adjacent boutique has stripped back the interior to it’s roots, bringing a former cotton warehouse from 1850 into 2022 with resin and marble pairings, alabaster lighting and Scandinavian ..read more

I am 90% sure whatever moisture just descended from my face, whether it be one of the countless beads of perspiration polka dotting my forehead or a cascade of snot with the same consistency as a glass of Robinson’s fruit and barley cordial, has just touched down into the chilli soaked nether regions of my brimstone red beef noodle broth. I am also 100% sure that I couldn’t give a single, solitary shite. My reckless abandon for personal facial hygiene at this moment in time, being that I am sequestered within the bowels of OnePlus‘ furiously good rice and noodle bar on Charles Street, is due t ..read more

Friends, family, they come and go, quite frankly. But a great sandwich? A carby creation of unencumbered artistry? To revel in alongside a packet of crisps and a tin of pop, whatever the weather? At a cafe, in a restaurant or your front room on a pissing down weekday? This is a level of perfection that truly knows no bounds. And, suddenly, Manchester appears to be tightly in the grips of a potentially enormous era of butty making brilliance. Of course, this isn’t to say that the streets have been bereft of sublime sarnies in recent years. Rustica’s Milano alone has been reason enough to ventur ..read more

Can be hard work lunch, can’t it? So often gets overlooked between breakfast being ‘the most important meal of the day’, tea/dinner being the meal you spend all day looking forward to and then you’ve got the advent of brunch, bottomless or otherwise, usurping lunch from everyone’s dining priorities. If you’re in town it’s a quick three quid dropped in Tesco Express or Morrison’s. At home it’s a butty or last night’s leftovers with Steph’s Packed Lunch (which is a pretty sound combination, to be fair). Namii are now looking to change all of that. Throwing open their doors in November of last y ..read more

Barely 10 seconds have lapsed since the words ‘Heatwave set to hit UK shores this week’ have hit your timeline and the manic dash for supplies has begun in all of its blind, chaotic panic. Any of those disposables left over from last summer? How many bags of charcoal are in the garage? What sauces are in the cupboard? WHY DON’T WE HAVE A PADDLING POOL FULL OF LAGER ON HAND AT ALL TIMES? British BBQ season is officially upon us. Given that we in Manchester are blessed with roughly about 14 hours of blistering temperatures spread across six months between April and September, planning for a barb ..read more