A new street food stall has recently opened inside Manchester’s Arndale Market, bringing an authentic taste of Napoli to the city centre.
Called M’ama Italiano, it’s a relative newcomer to the Arndale street food market having first opened its doors here four months ago.
Serving up their signature ‘cuoppo’ – cones filled with the likes of freshly-fried dough balls, potato and courgette crisps, calamari, prawns, whitebait, cod and more – it’s well worth checking out if you fancy switching up your lunchtime staple.
The Napoli street food favourite comes in seven different styles, with other filling choices like fried mozzarella, pasta, aubergine parmigiana, croquettes, and fried chicken.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
That’s not all they do here, though, with drinks like pistachio lattes and the ‘Nutellocoffee’ – which can be made either hot or cold, with a shot of Nutella, espresso, and cream on top.
You’ll also find an array of homemade biscuits, rustic Neapolitan paninis made using pizza dough, and a stunning-looking dessert menu with various babas and tiramisus.
Choices include the classic Neapolitan Baba – a small, rich sponge cake that is typically soaked in rum-flavoured syrup – either on its own or hollowed out and filled with cream, custard, or Nutella from £4.50.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
As for the tiramisus, these come in generously sized pots for £3.50 and can be ordered either as the well-loved classic or with pistachio cream. Elsewhere, profiteroles with chocolate and cream, and homemade Neapolitan sour cherry biscuits also look very tempting.
Pasta lovers are also well-catered to, with staples dishes like penne in a Neapolitan Genovese sauce or with fresh tomato, plus a housemade lasagne bolognese and a special Neapolitan pasta with potatoes and provola cheese.
Located on the ‘new’ side of the Manchester Arndale street food market, you can find M’ama Italiano next door to the equally brilliant Japanese stal Takoyaki Master.
Featured image – The Manc Eats
Eats
Inside Soots, the tiny new pasta restaurant in the Northern Quarter
Daisy Jackson
There’s another success story coming out of Altrincham Market – pasta kitchen Soots has gone and opened its very own restaurant in the Northern Quarter.
Owners and co-founders Ellie Proudfoot and Ruth Duarte have taken the leap to their very own bricks and mortar site on Tib Street, where they can serve up their handmade fresh pasta in their own restaurant space.
Named after their cocker spaniel Soots, the restaurant opens officially tomorrow.
The pair had hoped that Altrincham Market would be a launchpad to them eventually opening their first restaurant – and it’s worked brilliantly.
Inside Soots, it’s a cosy space with amazing green arches along the walls and a huge window that opens out onto this iconic Northern Quarter street.
Soots will again have a fully plant-based menu, broken down into snacks, small plates, pasta and puddings.
Everything is plant-basedEverything is plant-basedThe menu at SootsFresh, handmade pastaSmall plates
Expect heritage tomatoes with stracciatella and basil oil, butternut squash and chilli arancini, and a beautiful dish of marinated beetroot.
As for the pasta, there’ll be rigatoni with browned butter and confit tomatoes, sundried tomato-filled girella, and a lovely basil pesto spaghetti (a firm favourite from their Altrincham Market days).
And it wouldn’t be a pasta kitchen without a tiramisu on the dessert menu, along with lemon and olive oil ice cream, and white chocolate mousse.
Soots Pasta has been the first solo venture for Ellie, who used to work as a private chef as well as at restaurants around the region.
She’s taken her background – which includes culinary school in France – to create this modern European menu that takes inspiration from Italy.
What’s not immediately obvious, on reading the menu or eating it, is that everything on the Soots Pasta menu is entirely vegan – and they have gluten-free pasta available on request.
Soots Pasta is on Tib Street and officially opens on Saturday 9 Augst.
A mobile Manc cocktail bar is rolling into a thriving new Greater Mancheser neighbourhood
Danny Jones
Greater Manchester has plenty of up-and-coming areas both here in the city centre and out in the boroughs, and one of those – Middlewood Locks over in Salford – is about to be treated to its own mobile cocktail bar.
You’ve got to love a Manc-born and bred independent business.
The canalside New Makers Yards apartments on Middlewood Locks are some of the most desirable new homes and flats you’ll find on the outskirts of the city, but with their on-site Seven Brothers pub sadly closing earlier this year, it is lacking one key thing: somewhere to drink.
However, with Cocktail Cartel MCR rolling into town for National Rum Day, residents can get a taste of, hopefully, what’s more to come.
Cocktail Cartel is a brand new, completely independent mobile bar that’s already starting to take the events industry by storm.
Serving unique and innovative creations (including plenty involving Captain Jack’s go-to tipple), they’ll be slinging cocktails to the New Makers Yards natives along the stunning and ever-thriving Middlewood Locks this month.
Created by Katie and Erik, who have been working in Manchester’s hospitality scene for nearly 20 years combined, these two have a passion for supporting fellow local indies and bringing amazing drinks to the table wherever the opportunity presents itself.
From their ‘Grown Up Coke Float’, which has all the punch of a classic Long Island Iced Tea only with a scoop of toffee ice cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles thrown in there, to a Pedro Pascal-inspired tequila numbers (yes, really), they have a lot of fun behind that bar.
Better still, most of their spirits are coming from local legends, Spirit of Manchester, and for this particular upcoming event, it wouldn’t be right to host National Rum Day in 0161’s second city without a gorgeous bit of Salford Rum.
But it doesn’t stop at just cocktails; the Cartel will also be pouring pints from nearby Track Brewery among various other regional favourites.
Once again, they’ll be popping up at New Makers Yard on Saturday, 16 August from noon onwards, promising rum, cocktails, beer, wine, cider and softies – so let’s just hope we get plenty of sun for it.
Keep an eye on their socials for how you might be able to grab some freebies also…
If you visited the most recent edition of Middlewood Locks Fest, you know this place is buzzing when the weather hits just right and the drinks are flowing. See you there.
Georgina Pellant -
13th July 2023 
