Stock Market Grill, the restaurant opened inside Gary Neville’s Stock Exchange Hotel by the award-winning Schofield brothers, has revealed it has closed for good.
Having opened with a lot of fanfare at the start of March, the team has released a statement this morning announcing the site’s shock closure after just over three months.
The last day of service at the restaurant was on Sunday 2 July. As of today, the space will continue to serve breakfast and in-room dining to hotel guests but it will no longer be operating as Stock Market Grill.
Working alongside chef Joshua Reed-Cooper (previously at The French with Simon Rogan, with Sam Buckley at Where the Light Gets In and at Michelin-starred Mana) and wine expert James Brandwood, the brothers opened The Stock Market Grill opened with a lot of fanfare in March this year.
No strangers to the world of hospitality, the duo have vast amounts of experience working in some of the world’s best bars and have spent the past few years opening a string of award-winning drinking dens of their own.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
However, after dipping their toe into the restaurant world, it appears that the brothers have had a change of heart and will now be refocusing on their Sterling bar concept which is located underneath the hotel in a former bank vault.
A statement by the team shared with The Manc on Monday reads: “Stock Exchange Hotel have taken the decision to close the doors to STOCK MARKET GRILL, as of 3rd July 23.
“The restaurant will, however, continue to serve breakfast and in-room dining to all overnight guests.
“In the meantime, the focus will be on STERLING, the premium cocktail bar located in The Vault at the Stock Exchange Hotel. The team are continuing to develop the STERLING concept and its offering.”
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc EAts
The news is quite a turnaround from three months prior, when Joe Schofield spoke to The Manc ahead of the restaurant’s launch, saying: “We’re really excited to be opening our first restaurant, myself, Daniel and James are very passionate about food and visiting restaurants.
“We do have twenty years experience in world class restaurants, and we’ve got the opportunity to work with the hotel and put a restaurant in, we jumped at the chance.
“We’ve got a great relationship with the hotel, when we were having conversations about opening a restaurant it felt natural and it felt organic and we’ve put together a concept that we’re really excited about.
“Our hopes for the restaurant are to create an experience that guests love to come in and visit and enjoy the food. That’s what’s most important thing for us, people come and really love their experience in terms of the service, the hospitality and the food.”
Featured image – The Manc Eats
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 -
3rd July 2023 
