One of Manchester’s newest cocktail bars has swooped into the prestigious Top 50 Cocktail Bars list just six months after it opened.
Blinker, which is on Spring Gardens, said it was ‘thrilled’ and also ‘taken by surprise’ to receive the recognition so early on.
The gorgeous bar was opened in May by ex-Gordon Ramsay bars boss Dan Berger, and has gone from strength to strength.
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.
Where Blinker has placed in The Top 50 Cocktail Bars list will be unveiled at a glittering event in February, but the bars have begun to be notified of their entries into the prestigious guide.
Blinker’s cocktails. Credit: The Manc GroupBlinker. Credit: The Manc Group
In recent years, Manchester’s bar scene has really elbowed its way into the top 50, with both Speak in Code (10th place) and Schofield’s bar (16th) making the 2022 list.
Last year’s top spot was nabbed by Lab 22 in Glasgow, with London and Edinburgh dominating most of the rest of the top 10.
On receiving its award, Blinker wrote: “We are thrilled to receive this after only existing for 6 months! To be included in the top 50 cocktail bars for the UK has taken us by surprise and we thank everyone who believes and supports us! Excited for the event in London come February!”
When The Manc Eatspopped down to Blinker during its opening week, we were blown away by the martini offering and by the bar’s signature cocktail, a deliciously strong Prohibition-era cocktail called the Blinker, which fell out of favour when whiskey sours surged in popularity.
Our review said: “A combination of raspberry, grapefruit, and rye, it blends winter citrus and corn whisky in perfect harmony and will do much to appease Pornstar martini fans once they realise their passionfruit favourite is nowhere to be found.
“And if that doesn’t do it, Blinker’s Champagne martini certainly will.
“Unable to resist that particular section, we dove straight in with a classic Martinez – which seemed fitting, being the direct precursor to the martini – before moving on to sample a dry Vesper martini and a sweet Champagne martini, both viscously ice-cold.
“We try other things too: a sharp and frothy rhubarb sour, a fiery ginger and rhubarb drink, a tropical old-fashioned, and a Southside fizz, but after leaving I just can’t stop thinking about the martinis.”
Featured image: The Manc Group
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.
Daisy Jackson -
14th December 2022 
