Reviews

When planning a trip to Harrogate last year, my first choice for main evening meal was fine-dining restaurant Van Zeller. However, after stumbling upon Norse, a Nordic inspired restaurant with stunning Noma-esque dishes and a glowing Jay Rayner review, I just had to go. Rearranging Van Zeller for lunch the following day, I booked Norse for the Friday evening. Located within Baltzersen’s, a café …

They say, whoever they are, that you should never go back to somewhere you have fond memories of, in case it’s not as good as you remember. Perhaps I should have listened to them. The highlight of our trip to Portugal’s Algarve coast in 2012 was the tiny seafood restaurant without a menu, A Tasquinha do Rossio. A year later, despite …

I love food and I love beer, but I hate the cold. So I was torn as to whether a freezing railway arch at the end of January was the ideal time and place for a beer festival in Manchester. But I trusted the people involved and rightly so, as what Grub Winter Beer Fest lacked in temperature, it more than made …

There were glimpses of the Drunken Butcher’s fancier, more refined side at his Spanish themed supper club last year. But even that didn’t quite prepare me for the transformation from hearty, comfort food to the fine dining tasting menu at his very special ‘One Night Stand’ event last November. Not only was it Iain’s most ambitious menu to date, it was by …

Despite being one of my favourite places to eat in Manchester and the restaurant I ate at the most in 2014, I haven’t written about Mughli for ages. Not because they weren’t great experiences, far from it, I just didn’t feel there was much more to say that I’d not already said here. However, I couldn’t resist sharing my last two visits, …

After running a successful food and beer pairing event at the newly opened Wigan Central, I brought my ‘Christmas Food, Beer & Festive Cheer’ to one of my favourite places two days later; Great Ale Year Round in Bolton Market’s Lifestyle Hall. Despite tickets being cheaper, the Bolton event proved to be even better than the original in Wigan. Mostly thanks …

I wasn’t feeling particularly festive when I woke up the morning after the Arepa!Areapa!Arepa! Christmas Supper Club, possibly because I was nursing a slight hangover. But there was no time for pity as I had another party to attend, this time the Drunken Butcher’s Xmas party. It didn’t look much like a party when we arrived to be honest, there was …

Arepa!Arepa!Arepa! (aka GoodGobbleBlog aka Grub aka Jules and Bailey) have gone from strength to strength since I attended their inaugural supper club last January. After outgrowing their dining room they’ve taken over the kitchen at BrewDog and moved their supper clubs to Trove in Levenshulme. I missed the first one but made sure I got tickets to their Christmas event …

It’s beginning to look a lot like.. okay, it already looks a LOT like Christmas because apparently it’s happening in two days time. Whether I’m ready or not. At the start of December I hatched grand plans to visit the restaurants of Manchester sampling the very best festive food on offer. As it happened, I had no time for such fun. Just …

There are countless Italian restaurants in Manchester but unless you like dining with footballers wives there aren’t that many good ones. In fact, I haven’t eaten at one since Italia early last year and that’s sadly no longer with us. I’d never visited a ‘Gusto’ before – a chain of Italian restaurants by Living Ventures with branches in cities including Liverpool and …

It never ceases to amaze me how many offers I get from PR companies to cover things on this little blog – which I write primarily for my own amusement. These days most get deleted immediately but occasionally something grabs my attention. Like recently when I was contacted on behalf of Premier Inn who’ve just opened a new hotel in …

It’s well known that Solita is one of my favourite restaurants; besides the great food it’s the fact that they never stop changing and improving that I love most. Blink and you might miss an amazing special, don’t return for a few months and you’re likely to find a completely refreshed menu next time. It wasn’t even six months ago …

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the Drunken Butcher and his supper clubs. I’ve eaten his food more times than I can remember over the last year (luckily I wrote about much of it here so I don’t have to). Recently he’s been getting quite refined and producing more accomplished and technical dishes, but the thing that first attracted me to his food was rustic …

These days I get just as excited about good beer as I do food. I bought my tickets for not one but three sessions of Indy Man Beer Con (Independent Manchester Beer Convention) as soon as they went on sale in Spring and spent the next six months counting down the days. I’d booked onto Jackie Kearney’s (aka The Hungry Gecko) beer …

I’ve been to many supper clubs this year but they’ve always been run by individuals, usually in their own homes. Somewhat different from an event I attended recently; a supper club in an actual restaurant, with food cooked by a celebrity chef and hosted by a national government! The ‘Malaysian Banquet’ was hosted by Malaysia Kitchen – a programme aimed …