We all love a good roast, and if you’re anything like us you’re perpetually on the hunt for ‘the best’ out there (your mum’s aside, of course).
Well, one restaurant and bar in Manchester has just been crowned the UK’s best to get a Sunday roast – and if you haven’t been, we strongly recommend putting it on your list.
Ducie Street Warehouse in Manchester city centre has just been awarded the gong of the best roast dinner in the country by Rate Good Roasts, an annual list that pits dinners up and down the country against each other in a never-ending search for the best of the best.
The Manchester restaurant, which has its own dedicated cauliflower cheese menu as part of its roast dinner offer, came in joint first place with The Hawthorn at Howarth.
Now in its fifth year, the Rate Good Roasts list also ranked Manchester eateries 10 Tib Lane, The Refuge, Kong’s Kitchen and Ate Days A Week amongst the best roast dinners of 2022.
Image: Rate Good Roasts
Image: Ducie Street Warehouse
“Every roast is reviewed against ten categories that make up a special Sunday lunch,” the team at Rate Good Roasts explained.
“We score each of these out of ten to work out the score and rankings. The categories are meat, vegetables, sides, venue, drinks, value, potatoes, gravy, service and, of course, Yorkshire puddings.”
The ‘Sunday with Sides’ roast at Ducie Street Warehouse includes options like dry-aged local shorthorn beef sirloin, rosemary roasted leg of lamb and roast turkey breast with stuffing and a pig-in-blanket, as well as a regularly changing vegan roast served with all the trimmings and a vegan Yorkshire pudding.
All plated roasts are served with ‘proper’ roast potatoes, a giant Yorkshire pudding, seasonal vegetables and gravy, with more sides available to order from £1.50.
Additional sides include extra Yorkshires and gravy, Tuscan pork stuffing, maple roasted parsnips, Honey roasted rainbow heirloom carrots, lemon and garlic tenderstem broccoli gratin, and macaroni cheese.
As for cauliflower cheese sides, there are a total of seven different options available topped with everything from frazzles to truffle.
Scott Monroe of Ducie Street Warehouse told theManchester Evening News: “It was a bit of a surprise to get ranked first but, in the same breath, we’re not surprised because the quality of our roasts are just so good.”
“I’ve been here since the inception of the Sunday roast menu and I’ve been able to watch it grow from a concept into this absolute machine. We’re very happy to get this kind of recognition.”
Feature image – DSW
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 -
2nd January 2023 
