Madre, that exceptional Mexican restaurant at Kampus, has just launched a new Sunday feasting menu with an usual star attraction.
Diners at the Manchester restaurant can now tuck in to a whole pig’s head, served to the table with ears, teeth and snout still in tact.
It’s not every week you sit down to eat your Sunday dinner and realise your dinner is looking back at you – but here we are.
It’s nose-to-tail dining in the most literal, perfect sense, and if your dinner arriving with a face freaks you out, there are plenty of other options.
One is that the restaurant will actually just carve your pork cut in the kitchen and bring it to you ready to eat.
And there are plenty of other mains too, like a whole chicken cooked on an open grill, a Cochinita Pil Bil (pig shoulder), and spit-grilled cauliflower.
For us, it has to be that pig head special. A slightly shocked-looking pig is surrounded on our table by a whole host of Mexican sides and trimmings.
There are crispy fried potatoes, with slithers of spud so skinny they end up like crisps, or chip chop scraps.
Elote – corn on the cob smothered in chipotle mayo, lime and queso fresco – is a sweet and fresh antidote to that ultra-rich pork.
The Madre pig head once it’s been carved Roasted cauliflower at Madre’s Sunday feastThe Sunday feast at Madre
So too are the pickled slices of onion and jalapeno, ready to lay down on top of the corn and wheat tortillas.
There’s a pot of refried beans with a twinge of heat throughout, topped with a sprinkling of feta.
Cabbage is carved in half then grilled so its edges blacken, before it’s topped with a spread of pistachio pepian, where nuts and spices are blended into an earthy and vibrant sauce.
And in place of Yorkshire puds and gravy, you’ll get fresh tortilla and a pot of Birria jus.
Once you get over the novelty of your meat maintaining better eye contact than your Tinder date, you’ll have some very happy feasting indeed.
The Madre Sunday feast is £24 per person and available at their Kampus restaurant from now.
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 -
8th October 2023 
