One of Manchester’s most popular restaurant spaces, in the heart of the city’s shopping district, is staying open right the way through the festive season.
The Brasserie at Harvey Nichols has one of the best views in the city centre, perched above the Christmas Markets.
People will be able to tuck in to three-course party menus throughout December, sipping on champagne or sipping coffees with a view across the historic Corn Exchange building.
The restaurant is tucked up on the second floor of the luxury department store and is always popular with shoppers.
Inside the Brasserie at Harvey Nichols. Credit: Supplied
The Brasserie is famed for its afternoon teas, a perfect way to finish a day of Christmas shopping.
One of the city’s best, visitors are treated to a tower of miniature sandwiches and cakes, with unlimited tea and coffee for £25 per person, or upgrade to champagne for £35 per person.
The rest of the food offering ranges from brunch classics like scrambled eggs on sourdough, eggs Benedict, and full English breakfasts, to hearty toasties stuffed with fillings like nduja and pesto, or mature cheddar and caramelised onion chutney.
Credit: Supplied
There are Sunday roasts, where a choice of chicken supreme or Josper-grilled striploin from Cheshire is served with roasted chunky root vegetables, cauliflower cheese, tenderstem broccoli, carrot and swede, duck fat and rosemary roasties, Yorkshire pudding and bottomless gravy.
Vegans can still get in on the roast action at the Brasserie with a vegan Wellington served with plant-based trimmings.
It’s open for lunches and dinners too – expect modern fare from across the globe like rack of lamb with a pistachio herb crust, beef fillet carpaccio, and pan-fried chicken breast with creamy pesto gnocchi and rocket.
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 -
26th November 2021 
