One of Manchester’s most popular street food stalls has won a huge accolade in the Deliveroo Restaurant Awards, scooping the prize for Best Newcomer.
Salt & Pepper serves a Chinese-inspired menu from a stall inside the Arndale food market, as well as from the kitchens at Black Dog in the Northern Quarter.
The local business has centred its menu around the ever-popular Chinese dish of salt and pepper, with variations including chicken wings, surf and turf, and battered king prawns.
They also serve up sticky Canton-glazed meals, all loaded onto salt and pepper crinkle fries or rice.
Salt & Pepper operates from the Arndale food market and Black Dog in the Northern Quarter. Credit: Supplied
Owner Chloe Tao said: “We’re absolutely delighted to win the award for best newcomer and wanna thank everyone that voted for us.
“Quite honestly, we’ve not had a lot of good news this year and this award has really cheered us all up and kept us validated.
“We’re really grateful that we’re still able to serve good food to good people and I’m so proud of my incredible team who continue to make this their priority.”
Wingstop won the very top prize – and opens in Manchester this week. Credit: Supplied
Several larger restaurant groups with presences here in Manchester did scoop an award though, including Dishoom, which was crowned best Indian restaurant, and Gaucho, for fine dining.
Wingstop, which is about to open its first Manchester location just off Piccadilly Gardens, was named the Restaurant of the Year.
The chicken wing restaurant beat out the likes of Proove Pizza and Fat Hippo to claim the top prize.
Read more: Kampus’s restaurant-on-stilts to become bakery, florist and bagel shop
The Deliveroo Restaurant Awards were first launched in 2019 to celebrate the best restaurants and grocers on the platform, with winners across 21 categories chosen by public vote.
The Restaurant of the Year was chosen by a panel of expert judges, made up of food critic Grace Dent, presenter and TV chef Big Zuu, Junior Bake-Off judge Ravneet Gill, and Deliveroo CEO Will Shu.
Will Shu said: “Well done to all of our winners and finalists in every category, the food we’re delivering to customers has never been better and that’s thanks to the incredible restaurants and grocers on our platform.”
Featured Image – Salt & Pepper Manchester
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 -
16th November 2021 
