The UK’s biggest (and now world’s largest) chicken wing festival is returning to Manchester for a huge 2021 chicken showdown.
Back in 2019, we helped Wing Fest make its official debut in Manchester with an enormous city centre festival that broke records.
Tens of thousands of wing lovers descended onto First Street South for three days of wing showdowns, live music, food challenges and lots of drinking – and it got the weather, too. That weekend in September turned out to be one of the hottest of the year, which only helped make Wing Fest’s Manchester debut a special one.
Wing Fest
Fast forward two years and Wing Fest’s return to the city should actually be its third event in the region.
The pandemic, of course, stopped Wing Fest 2020’s progress in its tracks, with the team behind the event – which also runs annually in London and Bristol – pausing all activity and gearing up for a year of missed opportunity.
That year of missed opportunity is 2021. The date is the 14th and 15th of August. The location is First Street South (still to be fully confirmed).
Wing Fest 2021 comes when we really need it. Since 2019, we’ve lost lots of things that we love, including eating wherever we want, whenever we want. Live music has become extinct and chicken wings are now very rarely eaten outside of your home – unless you’ve burnt a load of Aldi wings on the barbecue surrounded by five people from the same household.
Wing Fest
Basically, what I’m saying is, Wing Fest Manchester is here to deliver every single thing that you love about leaving your home. Chicken wings, live music, great beer, unparalleled atmosphere, exclusive wing sauces, food challenges and plenty of opportunity for good Instagram content.
The event will showcase the best chicken wings the UK has to offer, with thousands of lucky ticket holders and a judging panel deciding who really does do the best wings. Meanwhile, over 70,000 wings will be served by 20 different street food traders, restaurants and BBQ teams.
It will roll into Manchester on the 14th and 15th of August and you can buy tickets for the event on their official website now.
Food & Drink
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
The Manc -
11th May 2021 
