The Botanist might be famous for its hanging kebabs, but have you ever heard of a hanging stack of pancakes?
It’s not the first time the restaurant has made this special, but it’s been a while since anyone’s been able to enjoy it due to the trials and tribulations of the past few years.
Until now, that is. After a two-year hiatus, the team is bringing back its signature sell-out special for 2022 – and it looks absolutely divine.
Offering a sweet take on the group’s trademark hanging kebab, in a Pancake Day twist miniature pancakes are hung from skewers with a choice of three different toppings.
Each served with a pot of sauce made specially to drizzle down the ‘kebab’, topping choices include the likes of chocolate brownie chunks and hot chocolate sauce, or marshmallow and strawberries with a lemon drizzle. Naughty.
Image: The Botanist
Priced at £6.95, the special pancake ‘kebabs’ will be available from 28 February and 2 March.
In a post that has been liked over 6,000 times, The Botanist shared the news with its Instagram followers earlier this week, writing: “Pancake Hanging Kebabs RETURN!
“To celebrate Shrove Tuesday our Hanging Pancake Kebab specials will be making a return between Feb 28th – March 2nd and we’re flippin’ excited!
“Chocolate brownie chunks and a hot chocolate sauce
“Marshmallows and strawberries with a lemon drizzle
“Be quick, once they’re gone, they’re gone!”
The Botanist has three locations in and around Manchester. The cocktail bar and restaurant can be found on Deansgate, in Didsbury village and in Alderley Edge – with hanging pancake ‘kebabs’ available at all three sites over the Pancake Day period.
As well as offering these naughty pancakes, the floral-themed ‘secret garden’ of food and drink is known for its extensive top-tier cocktail list.
If you’re heading down, make an afternoon of it and opt for something long and fruity to wash all those carbs down with. You won’t regret it.
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.
Georgina Pellant -
25th February 2022 
