Popular tapas restaurant Bar San Juan in Chorlton has announced expansion plans to accomodate social distancing measures of reopening to the public once again this week.
It’s set to be a busy week for the hospitality industry leading up to 4th July with many establishments looking to lay out their plans of action for reopening, make necessary adaptations to adjust to the ‘new normal’ and welcome visitors back through their doors.
Bar San Juan, a much-loved tapas restaurant in the heart of the Manchester suburb of Chorlton, has announced its reopening plans for this Saturday and this includes the exciting acquisition of a former adjoining pub to create a larger premises and will allow for necessary social distancing measures to be correctly observed.
The Beech Road eatery has acquired an unoccupied venue that previously housed The Parlour before it closed back in 2018.
The two locations will be merged into one ahead of reopening.
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Announcing reopening plans in a statement via its website, Bar San Juan said: “Bar San Juan is looking forward to re-opening and accommodating as many customers as possible, so we have acquired a building – formally Parlour, one door away from Bar San Juan, to encourage social distancing.”
Bar San Juan / TripAdvisor
The owners have also provided an insight into what members of the public can expect upon paying a visit to Bar San Juan once lockdown measures are lifted.
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The statement continues: “As we have never taken reservations we are trying out different booking systems but we would like to first see how this new normal works before we start with it. In the meantime, we are setting up a similar system to the one we have always had that we can manage within the bar for walk-ins.”
“You will join a waiting list and be called 15 minutes prior to the table being ready.”
“There will be a set time on each table of two hours in order for us to be more accurate when we have to call customers and also have time for us to disinfect the table.”
For more information ahead of reopening, visit Bar San Juan’s website here.
Eats
New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’
Daisy Jackson
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Daisy Jackson
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.
Emily Sergeant -
29th June 2020 
