A new Chinese restaurant is opening at Circle Square this month, bringing its signature ‘secret recipe’ dumplings, noodles and broths to the Oxford Road corridor.
Due to open its doors this month, new opening Mr Su has already been a fixture in Leeds since 2019. Now owners have their sights firmly set on Manchester.
When the new restaurant opens next week, customers will be able to build their own noodle bowls from scratch: choosing their own toppings before picking one of Mr Su’s signature secret recipe broths.
Founded by Jimmy Su, who has over 25 years of experience working in top restaurants in Dubai, China, and the UK, the menu features high-quality noodles, dumplings, and a range of broths all prepared in-house to special secret recipes.
The offering is extensive, but in a good way with multiple variations of what it does best: noodles and dumplings all at reasonable prices.
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Image: Quest4Diabetes
Image: Mr Su
Broth choices include normal, tomato, seafood, spicy, or pickled, whilst the toppings station will offer up a range of traditional and more localised options from veg and chicken, to prawns and beef.
Once toppings have been picked, customers simply take their selections to the counter where they’ll be made up into a mouth-watering bowl of noodles.
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The menu features specialty dumplings filled with a variety of ingredients like lamb and Chinese leaves, priced from just £3.90 for six. Elsewhere, you’ll find the likes of chicken and duck street noodles and mixed veg noodles.
Mr Su is set to open on the ground floor of the Vita Student Medlock Building at Circle Square from Monday 15 May.
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Speaking on the new opening Jimmy Su, co-owner of Mr Su, said: “We can’t wait to officially open the doors to Mr Su Manchester to show the city our specialty noodles and dumplings, that have been 25 years in the making.
“We’re all about great tasting, good-quality homemade noodles and dumplings accessible to everyone which is reflected in our price – traditional Chinese food isn’t meant to break the bank, and we’re incredibly excited to open in Manchester building upon the success of our Leeds store.”
Mr Su opened its first store in Leeds in 2019, situated on Blenheim Terrace, the restaurant has gone from strength to strength, cementing Mr Su’s as the go-to place for noodles and dumplings in the city.
Featured image – Mr Su
City Centre
Timings confirmed for Manchester’s legendary Dragon Parade to celebrate Chinese New Year 2025
Emily Sergeant
Manchester’s legendary Dragon Parade will make its way through the city centre once again next weekend.
As Manchester gets ready to celebrate Chinese New Year 2025 – which begins next Wednesday (29 January) and runs through to Sunday 2 February – and mark the ‘Year of the Snake’, the iconic Dragon Parade will be making its grand return to the streets of our city centre next weekend, and bring a spectacular show of colour and light along with it.
In case you’re unfamiliar with what the Dragon Parade is all about, it’s the focal point of the city’s annual Lunar New Year celebrations – and it’s a real spectacle, to say the least.
The parade is known for attracting thousands of visitors from all across the region each year.
— Chinese New Year in Manchester (@ChineseNYMCR) January 14, 2025
Headlining the festivities, the popular parade is set to take place on Sunday 2 February 2025.
Once again, organisers are expecting visitors in their thousands to turn out and watch as the famous 175ft Chinese dragon weaves its way through the city’s main shopping streets.
Kicking off from 12pm onwards, starting on the junction of Oxford Street and George Street, the parade will make its way along Portland Street before concluding in Chinatown for a final performance on Princess Street.
There will also be a night dragon parade in the Chinatown car park at 6:30pm and 7:30pm on the Saturday 1 February, while an illuminated dragon will feature through the streets of Chinatown as part of the celebration’s conclusion from 6:30pm on Sunday.
Manchester’s legendary Dragon Parade is returning to celebrate Chinese New Year 2025 / Credit: Chinese NY Manchester (via X)
There’ll also be even more cultural celebrations and activities to get involved with over in Manchester’s popular Chinatown, with live stage performances, a fun fair, and loads of stalls serving up tasty and authentic street food.
All the action in Chinatown will start from midday right through to 8pm on both days.
And to top it all off, we have also seen the return of Manchester’s famous traditional red lanterns dotted up above all around town too, adding colour to dark winter days.
As always, this year’s celebrations have been organised by the Federation of Chinese Associations of Manchester (FCAM), in partnership with Manchester Business Improvement District (BID) and Manchester City Council.
Featured Image – Chinese NY Manchester (via X)
City Centre
Manchester’s Cat Café is set to reopen four years after its closure
Danny Jones
Feline fans, rejoice, because Cat Café Manchester looks like it is reopening more than four whole years after its unfortunate closure.
The city centre’s much-loved cat café – the only one of its kind in Greater Manchester and among just a small handful in the North West – closed back in 2021 following unavoidable economic struggles brought about by the pandemic
Despite being hugely popular before having to shut its doors, the business was unable to reach an agreement with their landlord at the time and the owners were left with no other choice than to close permanently – or so we thought…
Seemingly back from the dead and published their first post since 11 January 2021, the official Instagram page shared just one line along with a picture of their soon-to-be new premises.
Briefly teasing fans ahead of an official announcement, the post reads: “Manchester we’ve missed you! There’s only one thing this place needs…”
The shot taken across the road from Manchester’s historic Barton Arcade shows the large shopfront unit on the main Deansgate strip where the original Classic Football Shirts store used to be.
As you can see, although the vintage footy kit reseller’s brand and decals still remain plastered on the windows, the two-storey location has been vacant since October 2023 when CFS moved their flagship Manchester branch to Dale Street in the Northern Quarter.
We’ve personally been wondering what might take the old venue’s place for a while now, with the rest of the Grade II-listed Victorian shopping arcade populated by food and drink spaces, a barbershop and fashion retailers like The R Store, but after all this time the last thing we expect was the Cat Café.
This will no doubt come as wonderful news to the countless fans who were gutted to see it disappear just a few short years ago.
At the time, a fundraiser was set up in an attempt to rescue it and the pet-forward coffee shop format also paved the way for similar ventures like this one over Salford.
Although we’re still yet to hear any more details regarding a possible reopening date, we can safely assume their four-year hiatus will be coming to an end sometime in 2025.
When they were still up and running, the café had 10 resident cats at their original site on the edge of NQ, now home to one of two Gooeys in Manchester.
It is worth noting that there were some concerns raised around hygiene and animal welfare, though we’re sure steps have been taken to address these issues in the interim.
Georgina Pellant -
12th May 2023 
