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Zero waste, great taste – why we need Open Kitchen more than ever

Just two months ago when the current cost of living crisis wasn’t the headline news it is now and families weren’t being lectured by Tory fat cats on how to budget for deprivation Food Waste Action Week was offering its own stark reminder of food supply disconnection and trumpeting ways to fix it.

Fighting talk then from the exec director of Manchester’s Open Kitchen, Corin Bell: ”I’ve been passionate about food, food waste and food sustainability for as long as I can remember. Open Kitchen came out of a lot of trial and error in trying to develop a model that balanced tackling both food waste and food sustainability in real ways, not conflating the issues, and not using one as a sticking plaster for the other. 

“I hope that Open Kitchen can continue to be part of the campaigning movement fighting for a future where good food isn’t wasted in the first place, and emergency food provision isn’t needed, because poverty has been ended.”

As food bank use burgeons this seems further away than ever. Yet it’s not just about no family going hungry; it’s also an environmental imperative. Campaigner at Love Food, Hate Waste claim that the average UK family wastes the equivalent of eight meals every week, while food waste in UK households produces nearly 25 million tonnes of CO2 every year.

In response to all this Open Kitchen has In the vanguard of a setting a sustainable catering example, working with a huge range of food businesses to source beautiful ingredients that would otherwise be jettisoned. Zero waste is indeed their culinary mantra. So near dated milk is turned into paneer for tikka kebabs, wonky veg and fruit transformed into pickle and ketchups.

To showcase what can be achieved taste-wise, Corin and her team established its flagship Open Kitchen Café & Bar inside the People’s History Museum on the banks of the Irwell. To celebrate its first birthday new head chef Sean Lee has created a fresh summer small plates menu mostly out of raw materials that would otherwise have gone to waste. 

Sean’s CV includes exec chef of The Bath Arms, Cheddar and The Congresbury Arms, Bristol and The Burlington Restaurant at The Devonshire Arms in the Yorkshire Dales. A quite different environment but he’s not fazed: “I love the concept, and the chance to be really creative with an ever-changing mix of food. I hope that I can build a name for myself in Manchester, and also further the cause of stamping out food waste and championing local sustainably produced food. It’s a great challenge.” 

Expect Sean’s menu to change constantly to include as much local, seasonal produce as possible. For the moment there’s mozzarella arancini with home-made herb oil and garlic aioli, tempura crunchy seasonal veg with sticky tamarind sauce, and spicy butterbean hummus and homemade flatbreads, smoked haddock fishcakes and roast veg and and smoked sausage frittata. Accompanying is a new range of spritz cocktails, including a Negroni (what’s not to like?) or local beers from Blackjack.

Open Kitchen Cafe & Bar, People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Manchester M3 3ER.

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A feuilleté of quail eggs and asparagus to celebrate Ms Molyneux’s 90th

Some cookbooks have a longer shelf life than others. Well-thumbed, splattered indelibly with ingredient stains, they’ve stayed the course. Many courses, if you forgive the culinary jeu de mot. One such tome is The Carved Angel Cookbook by Joyce Molyneux, a bastion of my recipe collection since it was published in 1990. It sold 50,000 copies despite the chef’s lack of TV exposure or reluctance to self-publicise. Unlike a certain Mr Floyd, who ran a gastropub upriver from Joyce’s Dartmouth, Devon base. Until bankruptcy.

Her  book celebrates the very special restaurant on the riverfront, where she made her name. I mention it now because this groundbreaking female chef turns 90 this month after being retired for well over two decades. 

Happy Birthday, Joyce (and fellow legend Shaun Hill, 75 this week and still at the stove in his Michelin-starred Walnut Tree, near Abergavenny). 

An appropriate dish to cook in Joyce’s honour might well be the famous Salmon in Puff Pastry with Stem Ginger and Currants, invented by her mentor George Perry-Smith when she worked for him at The Hole in The Wall, Bath in the Sixties. It accompanied her to Dartmouth when in the early Seventies he set up her and his stepson, Tom Jaine, to run the Carved Angel.

One hitch, though. It’s not in the The Carved Angel Cookbook. I’d got it in my head that  it was. An easy enough mistake to make. You’ll certainly find it in two Jane Grigson books, her Fish Book (1993) and The Observer Guide to British Food (1984),where this great food scholar/cook writes: “I’d gathered that the source of the idea was a medieval recipe, but then I found something almost identical in the Cook and Confectioner’s Dictionary by John Nott (1726, reprinted in 1980). In that more fanciful time, the pastry was scored to look like a fish; inside were mace, butter and ginger in slices, along with the salmon.”

For the salmon Perry-Smith insisted on best Wye, then Tamar when he moved his own restaurant to Cornwall; for Joyce definitely Dart?

There was an obvious affinity between Joyce and Jane (who died of cancer in 1990). Tom recalled Jane and her irascible poet/critic husband Geoffrey coming for dinner to the Angel once. Joyce was apprehensive because at least one recipe had come straight from one of Jane’s books. Fortunately all went swimmingly.

Years later, Joyce would hang a grand Jane Bown portrait of Jane at the threshold of her kitchen and, one further link, Jane’s daughter Sophie was co-author of The Carved Angel Cookbook.

All of which I find fascinating but it still leaves me adrift of a birthday dish. Easy really. Let’s keep the puff pastry. Joyce provides a recipe: you could buy it in but insist on butter. It provides the light casing for a very springlike dish – A Pastry of Quail’s Eggs and Asparagus with a Herb and Cream Sauce. Wild cepes would be a luxury addition but are not essential. Check out the recipe at the end of this article. As for that definitive salmon and ginger en croute dish Google and ye will find. Versions are all over the Public Domain.

So what makes Joyce Molyneux and the Carved Angel so special 30 years on?

I happened to be in Bath this year for International Women/s Day. By odd coincidence that city has been Jan’s home since she retired in 1999, having taken ownership of the Angel years before. I called her groundbreaking before. That she certainly was, as was evident during the infrequent dinners we booked there. Joyce was always there in the properly open kitchen – an innovation in those times – with a larger quotient of female sous chefs than you’d normally encounter. And a sense of calm.

It’s seen as cool these days for kitchen staff, not just servers, to bring out  plate to table. That was the norm there. Local sourcing? Farm to fork? In the book there’s a shot of the chef patron harvesting from her own lofty allotment above the winding River Dart. She made exemplary use of the seafood on her doorstep and first introduced me to samphire plucked from the foreshore.

The menu, invariably just a few dishes, no plate overcrowded, avoided the Froglification of ‘fine dining’ at that time. Still I couldn’t resist substituting feuilleté for puff. The true French influences are obvious, yet they are filtered through the acutely Gallic sensibilities of Perry-Smith, Grigson and, inevitably, Elizabeth David. I can’t recall how many covers there were. Not many. Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves. We certainly did.

The story of how Joyce achieved such eminence, even for a while keeping a Michelin star,  is striking. Read Rachel Cooke’s tribute as The Observer Food Monthly gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

It traces her journey from domestic science classes designed to equip a gal for marriage (Joyce never wed) via a revelation what gastronomy could be during an eight stint in a Stratford restaurant to the Hole in The Wall epiphany.

How The Carved Angel soared and then, post Joyce, began its descent

When the Good Food Guide named The Carved Angel the Best Real Food Restaurant of 1984 it was a remarkable reward for Joyce Molyneux’s persistence in following her culinary vision. She took over completely when Tom left the following year. In his memoir of that time he quotes a poem about the Carved Angel written by adopted Devonian and regular customer Poet Laureate Ted Hughes: 

‘The Angel carved in wood

Resisted all temptation.

She fasted and withstood

Libidinous immolation

And anointings of breasts

Of birds and thighs of beasts.

She did not bat an eye

When those two loose-mouthed harlots

Claret and Burgundy

Turned glass and drinker scarlet.

She barely coloured – say

Chassagne Montrachet.

She only cracked when Tom

Plucked Sally from the shrine as

A cork out of the Dom.

This bomb among the diners

Shattered the Angel – left

Her not so carved as cleft.’

Joyce continued to run The Carved Angel until 1999. Since her retirement it’s had highs and lows under several ownerships. As The New Angel under turbulent celebrity chef John Burton Race it briefly regained its Michelin star. Nowadays, rebranded The Angel, the kitchen is in the hands of 2018 Masterchef: The Professionals finalist Elly Wentworth. Along the quay the big chef name in town now is Mitch Tonks at The Seahorse. His culinary hero? Joyce Molyneux.

A Feuilleté of Quail’s Eggs and Asparagus with a Herb and Cream Sauce (serves 4)

Ingredients

100g puff pastry; 8 quail’s eggs; 225g green asparagus tips; 1 egg, beaten; sesame or poppy seeds; Messine herb sauce; chervil or watercress, to garnish.

Method

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to form a 20cm square, 4mm thick. Trim edges and divide into four 10cm squares. Place on a baking sheet; rest in fridge for at last 30 minutes. Boil  pan of water. Add egg for one and half minutes drain, rinse with cold water and place in a bowl of cold water to rest. Tie the asparagus in a bundle, cook in boiling, salted water until tender (5 mins). Drain and keep warm.

Brush pastry with beaten egg and sprinkle with seeds. Bake in a pre-heated oven, gas mark 9 for 5-7 minutes until golden brown and risen. Out of he oven cut each so there’s a lid. Store the lids in a warm place for use later.

Re-heat the eggs in hot water for a minute and heat the sauce thoroughly. Drain eggs and place two in each pastry case with asparagus and coat with sauce. Cover with pastry lids and garnish.

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The Alan has landed! Why chef Iain Thomas’s exquisite hotel menu floors me

The unlikely spectres of Cliff Richard and Paul Kitching haunt my imagination as I dine (magnificently) in a new Manchester hotel that restores my faith in exposed brickwork and small plates. Both the 81-year-old former poster boy of British pop and the one-time enfant terrible of Michelin tasting menus are still going strong. So this is no elegy.

My whimsical connection is The Alan’s former incarnation as the Arora hotel, in which Sir Cliff was a stakeholder, and the cv of current chef Iain Thomas (below), who learnt his trade under Kitching, once of Juniper in Altrincham, a restaurant that married wackiness with true one star quality. A bit like Cliff?

All this was back in the early part of this century and Manchester has moved on. Well, not always. Many incoming hospitality operators feel the need for bee motifs, Hacienda colour schemes and gratuitous homages to Emmeline Pankhurst, Alan Turing or Tony Wilson. 

That could have happened to the old Arora, later the Princess Street Hotel, which had long shed its star appeal. I can’t ascertain when the five Cliff-themed rooms were consigned to history – there ought to be a plaque.

Briefly in the basement the Arora was home to a ‘destination restaurant’, Obsidian. How dated neon-raked images of that doomed project look now. What a contrast to the sustainable core of the refit from the new owners, which strikes you as soon as you enter off Princess Street. The outside sign is so discreet that the ambition of the opened-out lobby/bar takes you aback. Welcome to a relaxed, Shoreditch vibe that continues across the 137 bedrooms of this six storey Grade II listed edifice, all vibrant brickwork and distressed paint.

Congratulations (and jubilations) to the raft of designers name-checked on the website. I was particularly smitten with the lobby floor made from a collage of fragmented and discarded marble pieces, and a bar front “inspired by the M62 that runs round our city” (do they really mean the M60?) consisting of cigarette butts, weeds, flowers all set in a resin.

It is all a playfully welcoming surprise. Yet my object in visiting is to check our Chef Iain’s all-day seasonal menu, with more ambitious small and larger plates in the evening. I first met him when he hosted a game dinner at reinvented old boozer The Edinburgh Castle in Manchester’s Ancoats neighbourhood. As with his predecessor in the kitchen there, Julian Pfizer (now of Another Hand) he was given his head and then the owners seemed to get cold feet about culinary ambition.

The Alan strikes just the right balance. From the off it seems just the kind of relaxed setting and offering if you are a hotel guest but there’s plenty of well-sourced interest on the menu to make it a destination in its own right. Ah, the sourcing. Iain name-checks the city centre Butcher’s Quarter for his meat, while mushrooms are from Polyspore, and  microgreens from Aztec Farms, the vertical farming start-up based at Manchester Science Park. On the drinks list there’s beer from the city’s own Pomona Island and Cloudwater with caffeine input from Ancoats Coffee. The wine list, understandably from further afield, is uninspiring, alas.

Then, provenance one-upmanship. As spring gathers pace expect a very special vegetable input from the chef’s own allotment in Tameside’s Hattersley Projects. I trust him to make the most of it all on the evidence of his impressive track record – in kitchens since 16 with stints at Establishment in Manchester (where Rosso now is), at the “amazing” Paul Kitching’s Michelin-starred 21212 in Edinburgh and s sidekick to Davey Aspin, one of the iconic chef names in Scotland.

At The Alan we asked to try all eight small plates on the menu, all priced around £5 to  £6.50. Attractive looking snacks and meat could await another visit. The plan was to sit at the chef’s table with a perfect eye-line onto the open kitchen, but old bones dictated we retrenched to a booth. 

The dishes came in pairs and were a well-judged mixture of plant-based and flesh. No  duff note with either direction but we were most impressed with the vegan salt-baked celeriac with truffle and sherry vinegar and the cauliflower tikka with cumin, coriander and pomegranate, both managing to be earthy and yet delicate at the same time. Punchier was what threatens to become a Thomas signature dish – lamb fat hispi cabbage. Here lamb trimmings are rendered down and the fat is used to sous vide the cabbage, which is then warmed up in a lamb fat cream emulsion with braised shoulder.

There’s an equal richness to a potato and ox cheek terrine, an elaborate confection where 10 butter-brushed layers of finely sliced potato, a layer of ox cheek and a further 10 spud layers are sandwiched together, and served with blobs of French’s mustard and dill pickle gel.

Undoubtedly there’s an Ottolenghi influence going on. The likes of Confit thighs of Goosnargh chicken are glazed with pomegranate molasses, soy sauce aand mushroom ketchup and, also garnished with nasturtium leaves, that simple Turkish aubergine and tomato dishImam  Bayildi, that translates as “the Imam fainted”.

The Levantine spice palette of cumin, coriander, along with pomegranate arils also permeate Iain’s otherwise classical Cheshire beef tartare, but it’s all lightly handled. Ditto a ceviche of Scottish halibut, where chicory and but orange partner the fish rather than overwhelm. Is any hotel dining menu in Manchester (the obvious exception of Adam Reid at The French apart) better than this?

The Alan, 18 Princess Street, M1 4LG. 0161 236 8999. All rooms feature Emperor sized beds dressed in 200 thread count Egyptian cotton, 50” Samsung Smart TVs with Google Chromecast and pay-per-view movies, superfast Wi-Fi and Audio Pro Bluetooth speakers. The tech-forward hotel is also one of only four in the UK to offer Google Nest smart concierge in all its rooms. There are a variety of rooms on offer, the affordability of which gained The Alan a place in the ’40 UK Hotels For Under £100’ list in the latest Sunday Times.

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Northcote takes spring in its stride via the Chef’s Table or the Gourmet Menu

I’m going to treat myself to all the Spring Gourmet Menu dishes pictured above and below. To celebrate an eight year anniversary of mine, coming up in June. OK, my day in their new Cookery School doesn’t even count as a footnote in the garlanded history of Northcote. The stalwart country house hotel had already held a Michelin star for 18 years when I donned their monogrammed apron and did it less than proud. 

In a 2014 piece for Manchester Confidential I charted the shame of my soggy lamb wellington. I’ve still got the apron; Northcote, at Langho outside Blackburn, retains the star… and perhaps deserves a second.

Much else has changed. Nigel Haworth, whose cooking earned the star, moved on after over 30 years’ at the stove. Good to see his new venture, bringing back to life his own former gastropub, The Three Fishes, has swiftly gained him 2022 Michelin Guide recognition. Now part of the Stafford Collection and handsomely refurbished, Northcote continues Nigel’s Obsession Festival, hosting the cream of the world’s chefs every January.

 The greatest legacy of all, though, is Lisa Goodwin-Allen, still just 40, who was barely out of her teens when she started there and rose to be head chef by the age of 23. These days her profile has never been higher. Only recently she was on telly again as a Great British Menu judge. Alongside overseeing Northcote, she spends a couple of days a month as consultant down in London for the Stafford. Holding the fort for hid exec head chef is 27-year-old head chef Danny Young, 2017 National Young Chef of the Year.

The pair have that Spring Gourmet Menu on the way and March (before it snowed) seemed a good time to revisit to road test their Chef’s Table in the same 16-capacity room that’s still home to the Cookery School. Its large glass doors look out onto the kitchen with a kitchen cam for salivating close-ups.

No wellington flashbacks for me thankfully as we tasted four seasonal courses. Slightly early days for vernal abundance to determine the menu entirely but ample evidence of a kitchen as good as, maybe better, than ever. Remarkable technical skills on show but not for show, the whole focus on enhancing the intense flavours of the raw materials. 

It’s an important balancing act to strive beyond country house food expectations without alienating the well-heeled, middle aged and beyond demographic. Though I do believe veteran MD Craig Bancroft when he outlines the importance paid to making first-timers feel at home, especially if daunted by an encyclopaedic wine list. I have no such qualms, on the day of the lunch recognising Craig’s nous in selecting a canny quartet of matching wines.

Our lunch consisted of Orkney scallop, ‘green curry’, cultured yoghurt, lemon (with the bonus of an extra, tempura scallop); quail, frozen liver parfait, apple verjus, bacon, sweet turnip; aged Lake District beef, allium, hen of the woods mushroom, black garlic; warm Bramley ‘Apple Pie’, nuts, maple, caramelised milk.

I loved that deconstructed apple pie (Lisa’s a technical whizz with puds) but the stand-out dish was the quail, served delicately with the bird’s liver in tiny frozen dice, melting into the gamey breast.

Invention is in a constant flurry of renewal in Michelin-starred kitchen. When we were there that new gourmet menu was on the brink of being approved. It sounds irresistible, hence I’m searching for a booking slot. And saving up. Priced at £115 per person, the menu can be paired with course-selected wine by the glass (£71.15) as well as the addition of The Northcote Cheeseboard (£15 or £20), comprising a selection of either five or seven cheeses from The Courtyard Dairy, served with Peter’s Yard Crackers and Homemade Bread. Available Wednesday to Sunday from 12pm to 2pm. So what do you get for your money?

Chargrilled Wye Valley asparagus, sheep’s curd, sorrel; roasted veal sweetbread, white mushroom, wild garlic, caper; wild turbot, clam, bacon, smoked potato, roe; Yorkshire duck, heirloom beetroot, aged balsamic, bee pollen; and that ‘apple pie’ (main image).

Northcote, Northcote Road, Langho, Blackburn BB6 8BE. 01254 240555. For information on a variety of gourmet breaks visit the website.

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Buzzing Kampus will benefit from The Beeswing – help it take flight with sweet cash

It’s far from up there with P&O’s unceremonious mass cull of their crews but one of the more unsavoury moments in a troubled 2021 for the hospitality trade was Bruntwood’s decision to dispense with vin-yard, a bijou independent wine bar/shop at its Hatch ‘retail and leisure destination’ on Manchester’s Oxford Road. The landlord’s apparent reason was a need to recoup revenue lost during the pandemic by taking over booze sales from its tenants. The quality wine offering from vin-yard’s Anna Tutton has never been adequately replaced.

Anna Tutton at her vin-yard wine venue at Hatch. She has high hopes for her new venture

For several years it has been a ploy for developers, enlightened and otherwise, to add a dash of millennial cool to their sites by hosting street food wannabes on fixed term deals as a launchpad for eventually establishing their own permanent bases. Now with the economy in freefall that’s easier said than done. When I ran into Anna at a recent wine tasting she told me over lunch about her own life-after-Hatch plan for The Beeswing and it sounded a perfect next step, albeit again pitched as the icing on a property cake – at the Kampus ‘garden neighbourhood’ across the canal from the Village.

The Beeswing is a co-production with business partner Joe Maddock, who ran West Didsbury’s much-loved Pinchjo’s back in the day. For the new venture he’ll provide a small plate menu to match Anna’s eclectic wine offering (mainstream plus some natural). I was particularly taken with the black sesame crusted feta triangles, my main picture, from a menu that will reflect the melting pot of food styles around Manchester – including dals, plant-based and Ottolenghi-influenced Middle-Eastern. All food images by Rebecca Lupton.

Design – sneak preview courtesy of these 3D renders from Andy Gough – is in the hands of the talented and lovely Soo Wilkinson, co-founder of Chorlton’s The Creameries. Set upstairs above Nell’s Pizza place, it too looks a treat with its softened industrial look.

But now comes the rub. There is a budget deficit and Anna and Joe urgently need your crowdfunding help…

The pair’s initial costing was £80,000 and when the figure leapt up to over £100,000 they made up that deficit, but they £25,000 remain adrift of the new final total, so they have launched a crowdfunding campaign, deadline mid-April. It’s a great indie cause – contribute here.

Your potential rewards? You can pre-order a meal for two with wine for £50, or if you can’t wait for the restaurant to open, you can order a meal for six and two bottles of wine to be delivered to your home for £150. You can even help shape the menu by throwing £25 into the pot to be invited to a private dining event of menu cook-offs with chef Joe, and tell him what you think works – or doesn’t. I’ve invested in that one.

Kampus’ developers Capital & Centric and HBD have been pretty canny recruiting some established indie food and drink names to populate Instgrammably picturesque Little David Street. The presence of Pollen Bakery, Cloudwater, Madre, Great North Pie Co, Yum Cha and The Beeswing will attract a clientele way beyond the on-site apartment dwellers.

Cloudwater/Levanter collab at Kampus

This is still very much a work in progress, but to whet the appetite Manchester’s highest profile craft brewery, Cloudwater and Ramsbottom’s award-winning Spanish restaurant Levanter (sibling of Baratxuri) have unveiled a 10 week residency. This will consist of a series of globe-trotting weekend block parties around the ‘tropical garden’ with DJs saluting the likes of California beach sounds and raucous Mexican festivities for Cinco de Mayo, Irish folk parties and smooth NYC jazz.

My focus will obviously be on Levanter’s Joe Botham serving up his legendary giant paellas from 3pm at the canalside Bungalow. The residency kicks off on Easter weekend.

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Connor Black – remember the name. The Bull & Bear has a talented new cub on the block

Such an old chestnut that one about ‘policemen are getting younger’. Stats say different and anyway the phrase is a reflection of our own mortality creeping up on us. Chefs, now that’s another matter. Especially when they’ve been fast-tracked by a shrewd mentor. Step forward Tom Kerridge and Connor Black. The first is a ubiquitous figure across the English food and drink scene, his latest telegenic showcase judging on the revamped Great British Menu; the second, a 25-year-old who first entered the Kerridge orbit aged just 15, has just made the leap forward to Head Chef at The Bull & Bear, in Manchester’s Stock Exchange Hotel.

What immediately appeals on dipping into Connor’ debut menu is the sense that he is very much his own man. From the start, in the summer of 2019, the northern outpost of the Kerridge has borne the big man’s stamp. Less the standard of food (at a price) that brought him two Michelin stars at The Hand and Flowers in Marlow; more the accomplished pub food you’ll find at his second operation in that town, The Coach.

Connor worked his way up to be sous-chef at The Hand before becoming Head Chef of The Shed, that posh pub’s intimate 10-cover private dining room. His meteoric rise stated much earlier. At 13 he was working part-time in kitchens on the Isle of Wight; at 15 he arrived at the Hand and Flowers for work experience and stayed; two years later he was named Hospitality Guild Apprentice of the Year. All the while contributing to menu development. A spell away working on the continent contributed to his development.

So what does all this bring to the plate in Manchester? A smaller menu, like so many places post-pandemic, yes, but the dishes are noticeably less hearty, though following the Kerridge “refined pub grub” template.

Definitely a good thing in these eyes as I accept starter advice and sample  Roasted Hand Dived Orkney Scallop with Pickled Crown Prince Pumpkin and Smoked Butter Sauce (£24.50) It’s exquisite. Only 60 of these very superior scallops are delivered each week and the storms have stymied even that until, luckily the day of my lunch. A ‘table snack’ of Cheddar Cheese Scones with Marmite Butter is less successful. Dry scones and I’d forgotten how Marmite Marmite is.

 A pre-opening journo jolly to Marlow showed me how seriously the Kerridge team sources. Witness this again with my main Dry Aged Udale Duck Breast off the rotisserie with Caramelised Endive, Rhubarb and Garlic Sausage ‘Cassoulet’ (£34). Up to 40 days in Udale’s Himalayan Salt Ageing Chamber intensifies the flavour of an already benchmark Creedy Carver duck. But the dish is enhanced by the subtle bittersweet/sharp flavours Connor brings to the accompaniments.

Belly of Blythburgh Pork with Marmite Glazed Hasselback Artichoke, Smoked Hazelnuts and Pear Ketchup (£34) and Roast Cornish Cod with Sweet Garlic Puree, Lemon Braised Leeks, Shiitake and Mushroom Consommé (£33.50) also take the eye.

Rhubarb, bang in season, reappears in my retro trifle. All the puddings are £11.50, ranging from Warm Baked Eccles Cake with Lancashire Black Bomb Cheese to a Peanut Butter Crème Brûlée with Raspberry Jelly and Banana Yoghurt Sorbet.

The trading floor of the Grade II listed former Stock Exchange, is as imposing as ever, the large  open kitchen built to cater for a substantial number of covers. Meshed into the revamped B&B regime is a new Head of Food and Beverage, Matthew Griffin, who has previously worked under Jason Atherton. And Group Exec Chef the vastly experienced Warren Geraghty is regularly up from London. As a potential safety net? Will any of this phase young Connor? I doubt it.

The Bull & Bear, Stock Exchange Hotel, 4 Norfolk St, Manchester M2 1DW. 0161 470 902.

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Hello pretty! Designer Oriental hits the shelves. Try my fresh alternatives

It is still hard to credit how much city development has escaped my attention while locked down in my Pennine fastness. Returning gradually to Manchester, I can suddenly feel adrift – and not always in a pleasurable way. Take Circle Square, a brooding behemoth of an apartment complex on the old BBC site off Oxford Road. 

OK, I first crossed its portals on a sullen, drizzly day but didn’t get the vibe promised by Vita Living: “Contemporary apartments and unreal amenities, all neighboured by leafy-green space in the form of the brand-new Symphony Park. Artisan shops, independent bars and restaurants surround Circle Square and make it a true urban oasis for everyone to enjoy.”

On the same day’s trail the ‘tropical garden’ at rival development Kampus looked ominously, bedraggled but the site opposite Canal Street offers a quirky mixed bag of living spaces, while formidable food and drink offerings (Pollen, Cloudwater, Beeswing) are on their way. Similarly, the giant towers of Deansgate Square are being serviced by quality delis (to spare the upmarket residents the trek to the Hulme Asda).

Circle Square’s own newly opened food hall is its most striking feature. Hello Oriental, an architecturally swirling three-floor, subterranean complex. boasts an Asian inspired bakery and café, a Vietnamese restaurant, a whole gallimaufry of East Asian street food options and a supermarket stocking an Instagrammable selection of packaged foodstuffs and colourful snacks hitherto available online. I suspect the small plate dining opportunities will prove more of a draw than the basement shop.

Strangely sterile the physical shop. Hardly anything on the shelves that counts as fresh. For that I’ll still be making my way down to ramshackle old Chinatown. We all have our favourite stores there. Mine is the Hang Won Hong on the corner of George Street and Booth Street. Chinese ingredients apart, it offers enough Thai and Korean staples to fuel my store cupboard. 

For my Chinese recipe needs I usually turn to Fuchsia Dunlop, for Korean Jordan Bourke and Rejina Pyo, for Japanese home cooking and ramen Ivan Orkin. Online for pan-Asian I’ve recently discovered mycookinghut.com/, an acclaimed blog by Leemei Tan-Boisgillot.

Here are a couple of her recipes, which feature in her latest cookbook, due out in June.

Korean Spicy Seafood Noodle Soup

Ingredients

1 tbsp sesame seeds; 15g dried wakame; 500g mussels, scrubbed and debearded; 1 tbsp sunflower oil; 1 onion, sliced; 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 1cm piece of root ginger, peeled and finely chopped; 4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, drained and cut into thin strips; 1 tbsp Korean red pepper powder or cayenne pepper; chicken stock ¼ Chinese cabbage, core removed and cut into bite-sized pieces; 1 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tbsp chilli oil; 300g raw, peeled large king prawns, tails left on, deveined; 400g squid, scored with a crisscross pattern and cut into bite-sized pieces; 500g cooked fresh fine egg noodles or 350g dried fine egg noodles; 2 spring onions, finely chopped.

Method

Heat a frying pan over a medium-high heat, then add the sesame seeds and dry-fry for a few minutes until the seeds begin to pop.Tip onto a plate and leave to one side.

Soak the dried wakame in a small bowl in warm water for about 10 minutes until it rehydrates. Drain, rinse and leave to one side.

Tap any mussels that are only partly opened and discard any that don’t shut. Put the mussels in a saucepan over a high heat and steam for 3–4 minutes, or until the shells open. Discard any that don’t open fully. There is no need to add any additional liquid to the pan, as the mussels will release their own liquid to steam in. Remove the mussels from their shells and leave to one side.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for 2–3 minutes until soft and translucent, then add the garlic and ginger and cook for 2 minutes, or until fragrant. Add the shiitake mushrooms and Korean red pepper powder and cook, stirring continuously, for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and add the chicken stock.

Return the pan to the heat and bring the stock to the boil. Add the Chinese cabbage and cook for 3–4 minutes until tender. Add the soy sauce and chilli oil and then add the prawns and squid. Bring to the boil for a few seconds, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 5–6 minutes, or until the prawns turn pink and are cooked through and the squid is tender. Three minutes before the end of cooking, add the mussels to heat through.

Divide the hot, cooked noodles into deep soup bowls, then spoon the prawns, squid, cabbage and mussels into the bowls.

Bring the chicken stock to a vigorous boil. Add the spring onions and prepared wakame to the bowls, then ladle in the piping hot stock. Sprinkle over the toasted sesame seeds and serve immediately.

Sichuan Mapo Tofu

This is a famous Sichuan dish that comes with a story. It is said that during the Qing dynasty, a restaurant on the outskirts of Chengdu was well known for a delicious, very spicy tofu dish, which was made by the restaurateur’s wife. She had pockmarks on her face, and as a result was called Mapo – ma means ‘pockmark’ and po means ‘elderly woman’, and her signature dish was called Mapo Dou Fu.

Ingredients

300g soft silken tofu, cut into bite-sized cubes; 1 tbsp sunflower oil; 1 cm piece of root ginger, peeled and finely chopped; 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 200g beef or pork mince; 2 tbsp chilli bean paste; 1 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tsp granulated sugar; 1 tsp ground toasted Sichuan pepper; 1 tsp cornflour; 2 spring onions, roughly chopped. Serve with 400g cooked egg noodles

Method

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, then remove from the heat. Carefully tip the tofu into the water and leave to one side.

Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry for 1–2 minutes until fragrant but not coloured. Add the mince, break up the lumps and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until starting to brown. Add the chilli bean paste, soy sauce, sugar, ground Sichuan pepper and 200ml water, stir to combine and slowly bring to the boil.

Carefully drain the tofu and add it to the wok. Gently push the ingredients around the wok until the tofu pieces are coated with the sauce. Do not stir as it may break up the delicate tofu. Let it simmer for 3–5 minutes until heated through.

Meanwhile, combine the cornflour with 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl. Slowly pour the cornflour mixture into the wok or pan and gently fold through. Sprinkle over the spring onions and serve immediately with noodles.

• Both recipes are fromThe Asian Home Kitchen by Leemei Tan-Boisgillot, to be published by Nourish in hardback, price £20, on June 14, 2022. Leemai is a recipe writer, food stylist

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My Italian food trail – Sicily’s ricotta salata the key to Pasta alla Norma

Opera has alway been entwined with food, especially Italian. We’re not talking tour riders of the stars with Pavarotti apparently demanding a 24 hour kitchen be set up next to his room with fridges packed with pasta, tomatoes and roast chickens, enough to feed 20. It was a phobia from an impoverished childhood – the big man ate comparatively moderately.

No it’s the way great names have become attached to certain dishes – Tournedos Rossini, Spaghetti Caruso, Peach Melba, Salsa Verdi. OK, I employed artistic licence on that last one. And then there is a truly terrific dish called after an actual opera. It is also one of the simplest to prepare, provided you’ve sourced the exact ingredients.

Pasta alla Norma has become the unofficial signature dish of Sicily. Invented in Catania on the east coast about the time Vincenzo Bellini’s romantic opera Norma premiered, it is said that the pasta was created as a homage. Legend has it that Nino Martoglio, an Italian writer and poet, was so delighted when presented with this dish that he compared its splendour with that of the opera.

Alternatively, according to Ben Tish in his evocative cookbook, Sicilia (Bloomsbury, £26) – one of my Cookbooks of 2021 – “another story tells of a talented home cook who served her creation to a group of gourmands and was duly christened at the table via the classic Sicilian compliment of Chista e na vera Norma (‘this is a real Norma’). Whatever the truth, the dish became an instant classic and its fame spread around the world.”

At my last London review meal before the lockdowns I ate this iconic dish of rigatoni, aubergine, tomato, basil and ricotta salata, appropriately enough, at Norma, the restaurant Ben created in Fitzrovia for the Stafford Group, showcasing the dishes in his book, many with Moorish influences. He has recently moved on. I finally published my account of that memorable meal in June 2021.

Since when I’ve looked out for Pasta alla Norma on menus in my native north. Among the indies specifically offering the island’s cuisine you won’t find it at Sicilian NQ in Manchester or A Tavola Gastronomia Siciliana in New Mills, though Trinacria in York do serve it. Less surprisingly the more generic Rosso in Manchester or the PIccolino chain do not list it. Rivals San Carlo do, but substitute pecorino for the ricotta salata. A cardinal sin in Catania, even though these crumbly, grateable sharp cheeses have much in common.

Indeed, my home quest to replicate the perfect Norma has been hampered by the absence of ricotta salata in my life. Until recently.

So what makes the salata version separate from that mild soft whey cheese found in tubs across the land. For a start, it packs a pungent, salty punch. Hence the name. It is  is only made over winter and spring when pastures are lush and herb-filled and the cooler air is perfect for ageing. 

I located an authentic version from Bermondsey-based Italian Artisan food importers Ham and Cheese after being alerted by the folk behind new Hebden Bridge bar, Coin, who serve a range of their charcuterie.

The ricotta salata I bought online is made by the Agostino family, who sell it normally from their butchers shop in Mirto, on Sicily’s north coast, west of Messina. We must have driven past on a road trip from Etna to Cefalu (main picture) the other year.

Their version is made from full-fat, raw cow’s milk, sometimes with the addition of goat’s or sheep’s milk, and is curdled with lamb or kid rennet before being put in to moulds. After a couple of days it spends 48 hours in a brine bath and is then aged for three months. It was a wonderful component of the Tish recipe for Pasta alla Norma. My one deviation from the norm (sic)? I added salted capers. Because they go so well in that other Sicilian aubergine, classic, caponata. Below, it tasted as good as it looked…

Ingredients: 2 firm aubergines, trimmed and cut into 2cm dice; 150ml extra virgin olive oil; ½ onion, finely chopped; 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped; a good handful of basil leaves

800g quality canned chopped tomatoes or passata; 400g dried rigatoni; 200g ricotta salata cheese, grated; sea salt

Method: Put the diced aubergines in a colander in the sink and sprinkle with salt. Leave to drain for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to its highest temperature, around 250°C/230°C fan/Gas Mark 10.

Rinse the aubergine in cold water and pat dry with a kitchen towel, then toss in a bowl with half the oil. Spread out on a baking tray, place in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until caramelised, turning occasionally to make sure the pieces don’t dry out.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Sauté for a couple of minutes, then add half the basil and the tomatoes. Bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat and cook gently for 23–30 minutes or until thickened (the exact time will depend on your canned tomato brand).

When the sauce is almost ready, cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions to al dente. Add the aubergine to the sauce. Drain the pasta (reserving a little of the cooking water) and toss in the sauce. If the sauce seems too thick, add some cooking water to loosen.

Divide among the plates and sprinkle with the ricotta and remaining basil leaves, roughly torn over the top. It’s best to allow this to cool slightly before eating.

Serves four

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Around the world in 30 dishes – Engine’s operating at full throttle

Blog post “The Engineers is as unpretentious as lard and as solid as a bag of bricks” tickled me, even if this particular unsung chronicler of derelict boozers was not quite accurate about a four-square stone edifice in the middle of Sowerby Bridge.

Yet another local, its name referencing the industry which provided its customer core, left abandoned. I’m not going to insert the devastating stats of culled hostelries in recent decades. Too late to get lachrymose; the world has moved on. Yet it’s always heartening to see a pub building rescued imaginatively.

Step forward Engine Social Dining, home to a 30-strong menu of globally inspired small plates. I was the first critic to review it back in October 2018 and lauded the kind of slick all-day operation in a stripped down setting rarely found outside cities’ hipper quarters. Hospitality has been under siege for much of the time since. Engine was thankfully still there. Would it still convince? Let’s do the locomotion…

I suspect virgin olive oil gets the nod over lard in Mark Kemp’s open plan kitchen, complete with wood burning oven, just as it did when he worked up the A58 at Ripponden for Simon Shaw’s original El Gato Negro. The quiet Ulsterman rose through the ranks to be Shaw’s right hand man. Now he’s very much his own man. With a tight-knit team.

As El Gato shifted into Manchester, Kemp became head chef at Ricci’s in Halifax, where Wil Akroyd was manager. The pair hatched the Engine project, using their own money. Famously they had just  £30 left in the bank when they opened. 

Ricci’s, as the name suggests, leans heavily towards Italy; their own place ranges much more widely. Global influences must be in the air in Sowerby Bridge. Near neighbours on Wharf Street Gimbals has generated eclectic and exotic menus for decades. Post pandemic, this Good Food Guide stalwart is now just doing weekend takeaway meals of its ‘greatest hits’. Highly recommended.

Engine has its own recognition now, in the Michelin Guide, belying the stuffy image that can accompany such a mention. Repeat regulars are what sustain a small town operation and we were glad we arrived early one Wednesday lunchtime as a walk-in. Within half an hour virtually every table was taken. Which had taken aback Wil, who was the lone server.

The space is at it coolest after dark, when moody lighting picks out the turquoise and petrol blue upholstery. For food image daylight is infinitely preferable, I hope my iphone does justice to the parade of small plates, in order and served at decent intervals: cauliflower and Manchego croquetas (£5), red curry cod fritters (£6.50), gyozas (£6), Korean spring rolls (£6), belly pork tacos of the day (£8.50), parmesan chips (£5.50), Far Barsey beef fillet (£13), Moroccan pulled lamb (£10).

The pick of a uniformly excellent bunch? The lamb, an old favourite, the spicing spot on and the accompanying man’eesh flatbread, sprinkled with za’tar an advertisement for that wood-fired oven. New to me, the Korean spring rolls were stunning – cylinders of crisp wrapper filled with lemongrass chicken and doused in a ginger sauce. Equally stunning the unusual gyozas. Filled with sobrassada, basil and chilli, they are served with a makhani (butter chicken) sauce. It’s a fusion that ought not to work but yet again it does.

Finally, a requiem for Halifax farm shop Far Barsey, which has shut its doors. Its name will live on in Engine’s Far Barsey beef. They may no longer be the suppliers but the fillet, roasted pink, is splendid. With its pink fir apple potatoes and wild mushrooms in a pink peppercorn jus it’s as close to a Brexit-fenced True Brit dish you’ll find on this menu. The rest is a celebration of cultural diversity and all the better for it.

Engine Social Dining, 72 Wharf Street, Sowerby Bridge HX6 2AF. 01422 740123.

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A love letter to re-born Sam’s Chop House (#hashtag corned beef#)

Mothballed for nearly two years by the pandemic, Manchester’s legendary Sam’s Chop House re-opens on Valentine’s Day 2022. If corned beef hash be the food of love? 150,000 thousand dishes sold in the last five trading years, that may be the signature dish at the Pool Fold comfort zone, but my favourite has always been the steak and kidney pudding, washed down with something Burgundian and red recommended by epic sommelier George Bergier.

My most memorable lunch there some 15 years ago involved two bottles of Gevrey Chambertin in the company of one Fergus Henderson, whose ‘nose-to-tail’ proclivities were sated by devilled kidneys after a soothingly rich starter of Omelette Arnold Bennett. The Manchester Food and Drink Festival had appointed me his minder ahead of a personal appearance. I was left wishing I could carry off an ‘Old Soho’ wide pin-striped suit the way he could. And remain as sober.

In a previous Sam’s era Laurence Stephen Lowry always lunched in a suit, now immortalised by the life-sized bronze statue at the bar, inspired Instagrammable homage commissioned by current owner Roger Ward. The re-opening is testimony to Roger’s infatuation with the Manchester institution he first brought back from the dead in 2000. His then partner Steve Pilling established the retro Victorian culinary ethos we hope will continue in its renaissance under new head chef Scott Munro. He did an internship at cutting edge noma in Copenhagen, which is a bit worrying.

Still a sampling of Scott contribution to the relaunch menu, intense Guinness braised beef short rib with a Roscoff onion stuffed with tarragon, Gruyere and mushrooms (£14) convinced me it might nudge aside a Sam’s Classic or two. Looks a safe pair of hands… and maybe much more.

A fellow newcomer in this dog-friendly establishment is Mooch the American bulldog, acquired by Roger during lockdown. I’m sure he’d enjoy the ribs, but the big lad is on a diet!

As a long-time associate of the Chop Houses, I’ve seen a lot of chefs come and go. Just as I’ve never seen the interior look better now after some meticulous tlc that has restored faded decor without sacrificing the quirks. There remain gargoyles guarding the main fireplace and scrawled messages of bonhomie from Samuel Pepys still adorn cornices.

A vital fixture has agreed to return, too. Just for Thursday and Friday lunchtimes the inimitable Bergier will be on hand if you need any wine matching recommendations. The word legend gets flung about too much; in the case 75-year-old Pole/adopted Mancunian it is fully justified. Watch out for his canny bin-end recommendations on the dining room blackboards, which have helped win the Chop Houses three top awards from America’s influential Wine Spectator magazine.

It feels like I’ve known George (above) for the lion’s share of his 54 years serving the Manchester public from his halcyon days at The Midland. For a while I was ensconced in an upstairs office at stablemate Mr Thomas’s Chop House, researching a book on the group with more than a little nod to the Manchester culture that spawned the chop houses in the 19th century. 

In 1868 there were 13 of them in the city when Samuel Studd launched Mr Thomas’s and Sam’s (which has occupied three separate sites). The book, for a variety of reasons, never saw the light of day, but no hard feelings. The research was revelatory, not least about Sam’s most famous customer.

This was my take on the remarkable venue…

“A Street is not a street without people – it is dead as mutton,” Laurence Stephen Lowry once said in justification of populating his canvasses with the so-called matchstick men.

Mutton was not his dish of choice, however, when lunching, as he habitually did, in Sam’s Chop House. A soup, a sandwich, half of Wilson’s bitter, with perhaps his beloved rice pudding to follow. Such a frugal repast, at odds with the trencherman habits of other habitues, served the great artist well before he resumed his day job as a rent collector. 

Only a short walk away were the Pall Mall Property Company offices he worked out of from 1910 until his retirement in 1952. Today the Market Street site is occupied by a Tesco Metro. It was a very different Manchester centre before the ravages of World War II bombs. Born observer Lowry used to firewatch during the blitzes. Until his death in 1975 he continued to frequent his favourite Chop House.

Lowry may have enjoyed painting human beings, but he was not always happy in their company. His protege, the young Cumbrian artist Sheila Fell, described him as “a great humanist. To be a humanist, one has first to love human beings, and to be a great humanist, one has to be slightly detached from them.”

So it was, you might often find him alone in Sam’s, folk reluctant to approach him; at best they might be on nodding terms. Ian Sandiford, a young artist, was one of those. Looking back in 2011, he recalled being invited into the inner circle, the Sherry Bar, where Lowry often sat drawing. “Money came to him very late in life, and you’d never have known it from his manner or his dress. I only ever saw him in his trilby hat and his gabardine raincoat – always with a very ordinary, slightly rumpled, collar and tie. They were the clothes of the Fifties. It was a decade he never really left – much like his work stayed rooted in an even older era.” 

Lowry wasn’t universally popular with the waitresses, for he didn’t tip. Instead he would sketch their image on a napkin and leave that. In return, they would heedlessly scrunch them up. On the walls you’ll find plaques in homage to these long-serving ladies. Less obvious than the talking point Lowry at the bar, they still bear witness to a bygone era, too.

Always immaculately dressed and knowing every client’s name and culinary preference, the likes of Flo, Edna, Margaret and Barbara defined service and were duly rewarded with generous tips. On the back of them, a waitress could afford two or three weeks continental cruise holidays. In the Sixties!

George Bergier first visited Sam’s in 1968 when he was working as a new boy at the Midland Hotel: “My customers took me there. It was like a private club. If you stood in the wrong place or sat on the wrong stool they’d move you. I couldn’t believe the number of bowler hats or the amount of port and brandy being drunk.”

Sam’s then was one of four clublike haunts for the business and law fraternity. The others were the Reform Club, St James’s Club and the Raquets Club. Unlike them, Sam’s was only open during the day, closing at 6pm when the clientele deserted the city for the suburbs and their wives. Unless, of course, they were lured to one of the other establishments for further refreshment.

Foodwise, Sam’s was a different sort of set-up. There was a bar selling fish and chips. Salt beef sandwiches were a speciality. Steaks were a big thing, too. Willoughbys Wine Merchants, part of Lees Brewery, supplied the reds to accompany. If they ran out, it was a short schlepp over to their Tib Lane cellars to replenish stocks. There’s still a portrait of Mr Willoughby in the corner of Sam’s dining room – the Chop Houses like to pay their dues.

This clannish regime was all down to one AH “Bert” Knowles. Like current Chop House owner Roger Ward, Bert came from an advertising background. The media elite of the day met at Sam’s for the First Friday Club, proof even in those days that brand and image counted. And what a brand he created when he revitalised the place after the Second World War

Sam’s already had a distinguished track record. It was established in 1872 in a basement on Market Street by Samuel Studd, brother of Thomas, who founded Mr Thomas’s at the same time. Thomas ran both in the late 19th century when Samuel returned to London. 

Bert switched it in early 1950s to the  the current premises at Back Pool Fold off Chapel Walks. The Lowry link goes back to before the Great War, when both men were at art school together. Bert Knowles died in 1988 and Sam’s changed hands until it finally closed in 1996. It lay dormant for five years until Roger Ward, energised by his stewardship of Tom’s, took on its equally striking sibling. 

It is in a basement that feels like a cosy lair, mix and match chairs and settles for the front room you come upon at the bottom of the stairs. Passing the bar, don’t forget to nod a greeting to “Mr Lowry” (that was how he was always greeted), then up a small flight to the casual tabled area at the back. You notice the classic Sefton Samuels photographs of the artist dotting the walls and the absence of music or a telly, setting it all aside from all the other pubs and bars around. Thanks to this you can’t help eavesdropping on animated conversation all around. It’s a democratic kind of place these days.

Turn left past the bookings “pulpit” and you enter the inner sanctum that is the dining room.  All booths and tiles and screens and cosy nooks and in the far corner, George Bergier’s legendary wine bin-ends blackboard. Pure cellar seduction. With your Chop House Steak And Kidney Pudding, Chunky Chips, Mushy Peas and Jug of Gravy might we suggest a Rioja Gran Reserva… and if you make it to Mr Lowry’s Rice Pudding and Mixed Berry Jam, maybe a glass of Sam’s most excellent Port.

In 1916, LS Lowry had missed his train from Pendlebury, the Salford suburb where he lived, into Manchester:

 “It would be about four o’clock and perhaps there was some peculiar condition of the atmosphere or something. But as I got to the top of the steps I saw the Acme Mill; a great square red block with the cottages running in rows right up to it – and suddenly I knew what I had to paint.”

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