When the top cocktail bars in the UK were named earlier this year, Manchester absolutely shone.
Not only did our city scoop up the very top spot thanks to Schofield’s, but we also had another top 10 entry with the brilliant Blinker.
Blinker is a very proper cocktail bar, with table service, branded paper placemats, and some of the most skilfully-made drinks in the entire country.
It features an entire menu of martinis, plus another of old fashioneds, while the rest of the cocktail offering changes seasonally to champion local ingredients.
But alongside all those excellent drinks you’ll find a genius, very retro snack – a menu of Breville toasties.
Because what could possibly pair better with a martini than a gooey cheese toastie?
This is not one of those trendy grilled cheeses you find on street markets everywhere, and there’s not a scrap of sourdough to be found – it’s a proper nostalgic sarnie flattened in a Breville toastie maker so that your snack comes out all scored and lined with grill marks.
Having said that, they are a little more elevated than the toasties you were whipping up in your student halls.
Blinker cacio e pepe toastieA braised beef and red onion toastie at Blinker in Manchester
Tucked away in the very back of the menu you’ll find Blinker’s list of (very affordable) toasted sandwiches.
One such toastie on the menu at Blinker is inspired by Italian pasta classic cacio e pepe.
This posh sandwich features a three-cheese blend and masses of black pepper, then is served piping hot with a shower of Cora Linn cheese on top.
There’s also a braised beef toastie with caramelised red onion, and another with goats cheese, apricot jam and dried rosemary.
Inside Blinker ManchesterInside Blinker Manchester
The most impressive thing is that its menu is priced in line with that at Frankie’s Toasties, a notoriously cheap novelty spot on Portland Street that makes toasties with your more nostalgic (read: cheap and cheerful) fillings.
With this snack menu, Blinker has tapped in to what the people really want after a couple of drinks – loads of cheese slapped between white bread.
And when it comes to sandwiches, sometimes the old-school ones are the best.
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.
Daisy Jackson -
14th June 2024 
