A pub in Manchester has launched a new ‘traditional’ pub menu for dogs featuring roast dinner bones, ‘Bark’ burgers, roasts, and fish and chips.
The Metropolitan Pub in Didsbury, part of the Stonegate Group, has partnered up with Sir Woofchester’s, a hospitality-focused dog food provider, to provide the new gastro-style feast for customers’ furry friends.
The group has over 80 Stonegate pubs across the UK offering the new dog menu, and also plans to introduce some seasonal new dishes to the menu as the year progresses – promising it will introduce a doggy Christmas dinner and a Valentine’s Day menu in the coming months.
Staples of the new menu, available now at The Metropolitan pub in Didsbury, include roast dinner bones, Bark burgers and a fully-fledged roast dinner, as well as traditional British pub favourite, fish and chips.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
The menu also includes doggy drinks, with dog-friendly beer ‘bark brew’ and even a paw-star martini on offer.
All the doggy food products included in the new menu are grain free and include freeze-dried raw ingredients, so no matter what your dog’s dietary requirements there should be something on the menu for even the fussiest pooch.
We headed down with The Manc superstar Vinny, a six-year-old Bulldog cross with allergies of his own.
On arriving at The Metropolitan, Vinny received special treatment as staff filled up his very own water bowl from a dedicated doggy service section that has been created outside.
Dog water bowls are refreshed from a dedicated black barrel wearing a dog collar, whilst next door, dog menus and cosy blankets for colder can be found in the house kennel.
After a quick scan of the menu, we opted for a plate of fish and chips for Vinny and a bowl of treats – both brought to our outdoor table by friendly staff who went above and beyond to make sure Vinny was comfortable.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
We can confirm that the treats and meal were a hit, as he dug in with absolute gusto – spilling biscuits around the floor and he buried his nose in to get at the sweet potato chips and tasty morsels of silver fish.
The pub has always been dog friendly outside, but it has only recently begun to welcome dogs indoors too – a move that was initiated by new General Manager Sam Rawlinson.
Sam told The Manc that so far the new dog menus have been going down really well, and on average the pub is currently selling between four and five a week.
Being that Didsbury is such a doggy area, he said, “it works really well.”
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 -
4th July 2023 
