A popular Italian restaurant group in Manchester has revealed it will be operating under a new name going forward.
Cibo Manchester, which has two sites in the city centre, has rebranded as Italiana Fifty Five Manchester following a challenge from a rival business.
In a statement regarding the name change, effective from today, a representative from Italiana Fifty Five Manchester told The Manc: “While we have cherished the Cibo name and the brand we’ve built, we don’t consider the name to be of utmost importance.
“Our staff and customers are our focus and delivering exceptional service and quality food is what we need to get back to concentrating on.
“To avoid wasting any more time […] we have made the decision to rebrand.”
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Group
The restaurant group closed its doors on Monday 19 June for a full site rebrand, replacing its signage and menus to reflect its new moniker as well as updating its website and social media handles.
The group’s popular food and drink offering, however, remains the same as before and both its Great Northern Warehouse and Castlefield restaurants will continue to serve up a host of tasty Italian favourites going forward.
Offering everything from classic pasta and hearty meat dishes to traditional pizzas, chargrilled steaks, and homemade Italian desserts, going forward the team will focus on what it does best – serving great Italian food.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
Diners can choose their dishes from a large a la carte menu, or opt to save a few pennies by dining from one of Italiana Fifty Five’s express menus where prices for two courses start at just £14.
The restaurant’s popular bottomless brunch offer, which sees diners treated to a three-course Italian feast with ninety minutes of unlimited Aperol Spritz, will also continue to run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 12 and 3pm at their Great Northern Branch.
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.
Georgina Pellant -
20th June 2023 
