Celebrity chef Tom Kerridge will be offering diners a ‘too good to be true’ set lunch menu deal at three of his restaurants.
The chef, who owns the Bull & Bear in Manchester’s Stock Exchange hotel as well as the world’s first two-Michelin star pub, will create a £15 set menu, executed by his head chefs across the country.
He said he wants to ‘get the excitement and buzz back into restaurants’ during the cost of living crisis.
Kerridge’s menu will include classic pub favourites, executed to his usual high standard, like cottage pie, lasagne, and jam roly poly pudding.
There’ll be two courses for £15, with the option to add an extra course for an extra £7.50 – and bearing in mind that the cheapest starter on the Bull & Bear’s usual menu is £14.50, that’s quite a bargain .
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The acclaimed chef pulled off a similar stunt during the 2008 financial crisis when people were ‘very worried about the money in their pockets’ and says it made ‘absolutely no money but filled the pub with noise, excitement and laughter’.
Credit: Tom KerridgeCredit: Facebook
Tom Kerridge added: “Now, in 2022, it feels like those times are here again. You can’t turn on the TV, look at social media or read a newspaper without the grim news of the cost-of-living crisis.
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“So, it is time to bring back the ‘too good to be true’ offer. We are very excited to launch a set lunch £15 menu. Yes, that is right, £15 for two courses (a third course can be enjoyed for an additional £7.50), running across three of our sites. Kerridge’s Bar & Grill in the heart of London at The Corinthia, the one Michelin starred The Coach in Marlow, and the beautiful Bull & Bear in Manchester.”
He continued: “The dishes will champion classic pub favourites or even school dinners, so expect cottage pie, lasagne and caramelized onion sausage with mash followed by old school desserts of spotted dick, jam roly poly and crumble and custard.
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“The aim is to get the excitement and buzz back into restaurants without guests having the fear of spending too much money. A taste of the good times at a fraction of the price.
“Please come and join us, and most importantly, make a booking in London, Manchester or Marlow.”
The £15 set lunch menu will be available at Tom Kerridge’s The Bull & Bear in Manchester from Monday 5 September.
Featured image: Bull & Bear
Eats
Ancoats neighbourhood bar shames customers who ran off on unpaid rosé bill
Daisy Jackson
A waterside cocktail bar in Ancoats has slammed a group of customers who left the venue without paying their bill this weekend.
Finders Keepers on New Islington Marina has publicly shamed the trio, sharing CCTV images of them making off from the venue.
The local business has labelled the customers ‘Manchester’s newest girl group, Rosé & The Runners’.
They added that the group had enjoyed a few bottles of rosé wine but left before paying their £160 bill.
Finders Keepers also said that the incident occurred on a ‘record-breaking’ day last Saturday, when the city bathed in beautiful spring sunshine.
Since releasing the CCTV images this afternoon, the bar has been flooded with messages of support – including one very notable one from Sacha Lord.
Sacha has offered to pay off the girls’ tab so that the bar isn’t left out of pocket, AND has suggested providing a £500 reward to anyone who can name and shame them.
He commented: “Everyone knows how tough it is in Hospitality right now…how can anyone want to do this to a small independent business. I’ll settle that bill mate…plus give a £500 reward to name and shame them.”
Finders Keepers bar on New Islington MarinaFinders Keepers shared this CCTV of the customers who left the bar without paying
Another person commented: “foul behaviour! Sorry this happened to you guys.”
Someone else wrote: “Love a good photo shame when folk rip off a business… Hope they pay!!”
Posting earlier today, Finders Keepers said: “We’d like to thank Manchesters newest girl group, Rosé & The Runners. Who enjoyed a few bottles of Rosé wine with us on this record breaking Saturday, without paying.
“If you’d like to come back & pay your £160 bill then we’re back open on Wednesday, alternatively get in touch and we can send you a payment link.
“Next time you fancy a free bar tab perhaps join us for our quiz this Sunday from 7pm. £100 tab to be won!
Brilliant Salford Greek restaurant receives glowing national review
Daisy Jackson
A fabulous Greek restaurant in Salford has received a glowing review from a top food critic, who described its food as providing ‘its own gorgeous kind of sunshine’.
Acclaimed restaurant critic Jay Rayner has heaped praise on Kallos in his Financial Times review.
The modest restaurant has been open for just over a year, but has already earned itself a place in the prestigious Michelin guide – and now a rave national review too.
Operated by couple Ioanna and Ivan, Kallos brings a taste of Santorini to their stripped-back, concrete-filled, light-flooded new space in Salford.
And while Jay Rayner admits in his review that Kallos’s interior hasn’t done much to lift this corner of Salford’s ‘badly organised grid of fast-rising apartment blocks’, the food itself ‘provides its own gorgeous kind of sunshine’.
Rayner heaped praise on Kallos’s phenomenal flatbreads, noting how it’s impossible to exercise restraint ‘in the face of bread this good’.
He also raved about their topped flatbreads (like one with ‘knots of sweet roasted lamb shoulder cooked until it has collapsed’), red prawns the length of a hand, and soft dolmades stuffed with rice and minced meat.
Topped flatbread with lambTinned fishPrawn SaganakiThree of the dishes Jay Rayner loved at Kallos. Credit: The Manc Group
Kallos is part-owned by sommelier Ivan, who is striving to have the largest collection of Greek wines in the UK at the restaurant.
Jay Rayner noted both the selection and the affordability of this carefully-curated wine list, saying that it’s nice to find that ‘outside London, drinking well need not require the sale of a spare kidney or child’.
And then he came to the section of the menu that’s dedicated to premium tinned fish.
“It feels like the UK has woken up only relatively recently to the possibilities of impressively fine foods from a can,” he wrote.
Kallos in Cortland at Colliers Yard, SalfordKallos in Salford has been added to the Michelin Guide
“It is genuinely exciting to see Kallos devote a whole section of the menu to these treasures, even if it is basically the same victory of shopping that results in a good cheese board.
“But it takes both serious knowledge and a brave evangelical enthusiasm to offer a list like this.”
Rayner’s review went on to praise the tinned mackerel, served with a ‘balloon of hot bread’, pickled chillies, and an ‘aioli made with so much garlic, consenting adults should make sure to eat it together’.
Signing off his review, Jay Rayner wrote: “As the plate lands on the table, the sun finally comes out over both Salford and Kallos. Finally, the grey is banished. At last, all the beauty is here.”
Daisy Jackson -
2nd September 2022 
