Already loved in Liverpool for its inventive Middle Eastern-meets-Parisian small plates, the award-winning restaurant Maray is set to open its own restaurant in Manchester this summer.
Ahead of the restaurant’s launch on Lincoln Square, its owners are teaming up with other independents across the city on a series of collaborations.
First, they teamed up with Bundobust on a mash-up menu that saw chefs fuse each site’s most popular dishes. Now, Maray has been working behind the scenes with Track Brewery to create a special new pale ale – described as ‘Sunshine caught in a can’.
The new Maray PA. / Image: Supplied
Maray’s signature falafel and hummus. / Image: Maray
The Maray PA will be available on draft in the restaurant when they open this summer. Ahead of that, eager fans can also get a first taste at the Track taproom this weekend, alongside some of Maray’s staple plates.
Maray’s chefs will take over the taproom kitchen at Track on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 June serving up their famous disco cauliflower, hummus, chermoula and flatbread, and original recipe falafel.
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Open from 5pm – 10pm on the Friday and 1pm – 10pm on the Saturday, you can find Track Brewery’s taproom at Unit 18 on Piccadilly Trading Estate ahead of its Manchester opening.
First founded in 2014 by James Bates, Tom White and Dom Jones, the Liverpool-born concept was originally inspired by the owners’ experiences in the Le Marais district of Paris – a vibrant area of the city famed as a culinary melting pot of Middle Eastern flavours and stand out cocktail bars.
In a nod to this, the menu at Maray features a selection of mezze, and small plates like falafel, lamb shawarma and baked halloumi .
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It also boasts an extensive vegan and vegetarian offering – think wild mushrooms with cannellini beans, sweet potato with tahini and date molasses, and spiced lentil and rice mejadara.
Opening in the Bruntwood Works’ Union building on Brazennose Street next to ‘The Hidden Gem’ church, Maray’s new restaurant is due to open its doors in Manchester.
Feature image – Track
News
Travel warning issued as tens of thousands to descend for Manchester Half Marathon
Daisy Jackson
A travel warning has been issued ahead of the Manchester Half Marathon this weekend, with tens of thousands of runners and spectators expected to arrive in the city.
People are being urged to plan their journeys ahead of time, with significant road closures in place from the city centre as far out as Sale.
Road closures – and subsequent bus diversions – will also affect parts of Stretford, Chorlton, Trafford, and surrounding areas.
Around 32,000 people are expected to take part in the Manchester Half Marathon this Sunday, with thousands more coming out to cheer the runners on.
Transport for Greater Manchester is advising people that the Bee Network trams will be the best way to get around over the weekend.
Extra trams will be operating to provide as much capacity as possible.
Road closures and bus diversions will start on Saturday 3 October and continue until the actual race day on Sunday 4 October, lifting fully by 8.30pm.
Tens of thousands of runners and spectators will descend on Manchester for the half marathon
Earlier this year, the Manchester Marathon led to a record-breaking day for Metrolink trams, with the highest number of passengers ever recorded on a single day in the network’s history.
Whether running or cheering, people are advised to use the Bee Network app to plan their journeys and are strongly encouraged not to drive within the affected areas.
Steve Gilholme, Head of Events at Transport for Greater Manchester, said: “The Manchester Half Marathon is another one of those special occasions where the people of Greater Manchester and beyond come together, with thousands of people taking on the challenge and raising money for good causes, while many more will line the route to cheer them on.
“This does mean the city centre and especially trams will be incredibly busy so please plan ahead and give yourself extra time to make journeys.
“The Bee Network app and website will be the best places to get the latest travel information and tap and go contactless payments are the quickest and easiest way to pay.”
You can see all the road closures for the Manchester Half Marathon HERE.
Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the 14 national museums of the UK are all located in England – including the Imperial War Museum North, and the Science and Industry Museum in our region – and free entry to was first introduced all the way back in 2001, with millions of visitors having benefitted since.
National museums are said to add more than £1 billion a year to the economy, and bring in visitors from all over the world.
In fact, seven of the UK’s 10 most visited museums are national museums, and 7.1 million people visited the Natural History Museum and 6.4 million visited the British Museum in 2025 alone.
The Government has announced that all national museums in the UK will remain free for everyone to visit / Credit: Science Museum Group | Wikimedia Commons
Earlier this year though, the Government committed to working with local leaders and the museum and tourism sectors to explore whether charging overseas visitors could help museums’ finances.
But following this, it’s now believed that charging could deter visitors, and that the impacts and benefits would ‘not be felt equally’ across the sector.
Instead, the free entry will be funded by the £1.5 billion Arts Everywhere Fund – which is providing £760 million for museums – while £600 million of infrastructure funding is supporting national museums and DCMS-sponsored cultural organisations.
The latter funding will be used to address critical maintenance and works to estates, and enable institutions to deliver on their commitments to share collections with visitors from around the world.
Georgina Pellant -
13th June 2022 
