Once the hustle and bustle of the festive season dies down, January can often be a much quieter month with not a lot to look forward to.
Those carefree summer nights are still in the distant future, and your friends may have resolved to drinking less, spending less, and sleeping more. The long and short of it? The party’s over, basically, which is the last thing you want to hear when your birthday falls in January.
People with January birthdays have drawn the short straw when it comes to celebrations.
But luckily, one of Greater Manchester’s most-popular restaurants is offering Capricorns and Aquarians the chance to ease the January blues with a ‘Birthday Bonus’ offer.
The Botanist – which has a number of local branches on Deansgate in the city centre, MediaCityUK, Didsbury, Alderley Edge, Warrington, and Chester – is giving those who choose to celebrate their January birthday at one of its restaurants the chance to “pay for the year you were born”.
The offer means that those with the January birthday and everyone in their booking will only pay for the amount that corresponds to the year you were born when dining from the restaurant’s group set menu.
Need an example? Let’s say, if you were born in 1993, then you’ll only pay £19.93 each, instead of the usual cost of £30 per person.
The Botanist is giving people with January birthdays the chance to “pay for the year you were born” / Credit: The Botanist
The older you are, the cheaper your meal is.
That means you’ll make a saving of about a third per person, so if you do have a January birthday, your friends will have no excuse but to celebrate with you over one of The Botanist’s signature dishes.
The menu offer applies to lunch and dinner sittings and includes three courses plus a glass of wine, bottle of beer, or non-alcoholic mocktail.
Some of the dishes on offer include favourites such as Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings, Rump Steak, and the mouthwatering Oreo Cookie Dough, as well as vegan options including the Plant Based Burger, Cauliflower Wings, and Raspberry and Almond Frangipane Tart, and for an extra special touch, you can also pre-order a birthday dessert or cocktail, complete with an edible ‘Happy Birthday’ message.
Booking is essential to redeem the ‘Birthday Bonus’ offer, so you can view the menu and book at your nearest restaurant on The Botanist website here.
Featured Image – The Botanist
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.
Emily Sergeant -
12th January 2022 
