The Manchester Gin bar under the arches selling chocolate-topped espresso martinis
In celebration of the big reopening, Three Little Words is serving up an intriguing-looking spring menu - with new additions among the drinks and dishes.
Manchester Gin’s bar and restaurant under the arches is back with a bang.
After months of closure, Three Little Words is flexing its culinary muscles as the team revamp their small plates and cocktail menus for the new season.
The swanky little spot, which is tucked inside the Grade-II listed building between Deansgate and Great Northern, also acts as the sister site to the Spirit of Manchester Distillery – a venue renowned for its ‘gin experiences‘ (where you can make your own bottle to take home).
In celebration of the big reopening, Three Little Words is serving up an intriguing-looking spring menu – with new additions among the drinks and dishes.
The fresh cocktail list includes recipes like the Bonnie & Clyde, a blueberry flavoured vodka-based drink made with house vanilla and honey syrup, and a house twist on a Pina Colada served with rum-soaked toasted pineapple wedge skewer and pineapple leaves
But our must-try? A salted caramel chocolate-topped espresso martini called (wait for it) 99 Problems (but this drink ain’t one).
Not only does it sound delicious, it perfectly sums up the year (and then some) that Manchester’s hospitality has just had. Made with Manchester Gin’s own signature house blend, amaretto, freshly brewed espresso, dandelion and burdock, it’s then topped with a slab of salted caramel chocolate.
On the food side of things, new small plates include pork popcorn with juniper and fennel salt, red onion and chilli bhaji with sumac and yoghurt, and asparagus & dolcelatte arancini.
We also really like the look of the new pork belly bon bons, served with apple, maple bacon and lambs lettuce.
Reopen Wednesday through to Sunday, with a live DJ on Friday and Saturday evenings, Three Little Words serves until late with weekend close times of 2.30am.
Thursdays and Sundays feature live band entertainment, with doors shutting at 1am.
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 -
21st May 2021 
