Five restaurants in Greater Manchester have been listed amongst the top 100 in the country for Sunday roasts and brunch.
Research compiled by the bookings site OpenTable has collated the reviews for the best 100 restaurants in the UK across its platform, and today its findings have been published.
The site’s top 100 list for 2023 has named Albert’s Worsley as the highest-ranking brunch spot in Greater Manchester, with the restaurant having received 6,351 reviews on the site and earnt itself a rating of 4.5 out of five.
Alongside classics like the Full English with Cheshire pork sausages, granola bowls and avocado on toast, you’ll also find the likes of Turkish eggs, chorizo hash scrambler and fluffy buttermilk pancakes on offer at the chain, which also has sites in Didsbury and Castlefield.
Image: Albert’s Worsley
Image: Albert’s Worsley
Also high on the list was Bolton countryside restaurant The Cherry Tree, located near Blackrod. With a total of 5000 reviews and another 4.5-star rating, it ranked very highly on the Greater Manchester leaderboard.
This bustling bistro-style restaurant boasts rural settings and only uses fresh local produce, something that owners maintain makes it the best restaurant in Bolton.
Their Sunday roast options include corn-fed chicken breast with sage and shallot stuffing, 28-day aged roast beef and slow-braised Lancashire lamb.
Huevos rancheros at The Blues Kitchen. / Image: The Blues Kitchen
Huevos rancheros at The Blues Kitchen. / Image: The Blues Kitchen
Closer to town, meanwhile, The Blues Kitchen on Quay Street, The Menagerie in Salford and Northern Quarter favourite Evelyn’s Cafe and Bar both also made the list.
Known for its rich American-style barbeque food, The Blues Kitchen hosts a popular bottomless brunch offering with unlimited drinks. Dish choices include ‘small plates’ like smashed avocado blue corn tostadas and Szechuan baby back ribs, and mains ranging from huevos rancheros to Cajun spiced blackened salmon.
It’s not hard to see why they made the list and great to see the Manchester brunch and Sunday roast scene growing bigger and better.
Feature Image – Cherry Tree
Food & Drink
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 -
10th March 2023 
