Manchester Food and Drink Festival (MFDF) has liquidated after twenty-five years of hosting popular foodie events and awards in the city.
Organisers have revealed they will be taking a year off from running the event after it was confirmed this week that the festival – which has been hosted in Manchester every year since 1998, bar the pandemic – would not take place in 2023.
Directors said that the business has been “impacted by the pandemic, sponsors retreating and cashflow issues” which left them “no other choice” but to liquidate the company.
However, the annual Manchester Food and Drink Awards, which highlight the city’s best bars, restaurants, street food pop-ups, bakers and breweries, are still expected to take place this year.
A statement from the company said: “After 25 years we are pausing the festival this year and we’re taking the opportunity to restructure the trading operations and regroup.
“It has been a tough couple of years for everyone but we are now focusing on plans for the future.”
Festival Director Alexa Stratton-Powell said the team wanted to ‘wanted to take a breather and regroup ahead of bringing the Festival back in 2024.’
“The Awards will continue to celebrate our wonderful hospitality industry, and will be taking place in September as usual. We look forward to seeing everyone next year”, she reassured fans of the festival.
Over the years, MFDF has brought some incredible cheffing talent to the city as well as highlighting brilliant local eateries and producers.
Last year’s winners included Stockport’s Where The Light Gets In (Restaurant of the Year), Speak In Code (Bar of the Year), Eddie Sheperd at The Walled Gardens (Chef of the Year), Salford’s The Kings Arms (Pub of the Year) and Chorlton Cheesemongers (Food and Drink Retailer of the Year).
Other venues celebrated at the 2022 awards ceremony included Dormouse Chocolates (Independent Food Producer of the Year), Pollen (Coffee Shop of the Year), Bar San Juan (Neighbourhood Venue of the Year) and Salt & Pepper (Affordable Eats Venue of the Year).
Manchester Food and Drink Festival Limited was formed in 1998 by Phil Jones and Christopher Tomlinson and stands out as one of Manchester’s first urban foodie events.
Over the years, it has become a celebrated part of Manchester’s events calendar drawing in thousands of people from across the north west and further afield.
Featured image – MFDF
Eats
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 -
27th May 2023 
