When it comes to Sunday roasts, everyone likes theirs done in a particular way – normally however their mum cooks it.
Sometimes this leads to weird and wonderful combos. Sweetcorn, baby corn, mashed potatoes AND roasties (served together) all count as crimes against the roast in our book, as does adding ketchup and mayo.
Thankfully, there’s none of that to be found at Manchester restaurant Hawksmoor – one of the only London brands to launch in Manchester during the 2010s and successfully stay the test of time.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
Housed in the former Victorian Courthouse on Deansgate, the steakhouse manages to be chic, glamorous and entirely unpretentious all at once, which is – we assume – how it’s become such a hit with Mancs where other London openings have, sometimes brutally, failed.
Whilst it’s pretty hard to beat the way your mum does it, I think it’s fair to say that Hawksmoor’s roast is a pretty strong contender for the best in the city. Even better, they won’t ask you to help with the washing up.
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Designed to share, roasts here can be split between two or three people – with starters, mains, sides and puddings all included and priced from just £50.
Mains choices include perfectly-pink cuts of bone-in prime rib, chateaubriand and sirloin, as well as Dartmouth lobster with garlic butter, whilst sides span the likes of creamed spinach, macaroni cheese, grilled bone marrow, carrots, roasties, cabbage and – or course — giant Yorkshire puddings.
We’re talking Yorkshire puddings bigger than your face, crispy beef fat roasties, unlimited jugs of bone marrow gravy, and an oozing skillet of cauliflower cheese made with a four-cheese blend of Ogleshield, mozzarella, Stichelton and ‘good Cheddar’.
When we visit, we’re also treated to half a dozen Vietnamese oysters to start – topped with soy sauce, micro coriander and a crispy onion that just adds the perfect amount of crunch to the otherwise firm-yet-slippery molluscs.
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Vietnamese oysters with crispy onion and micro coriander. / Image The Manc Eats
An Amaro Correcto and a Silver Bullet cocktail. / Image: The Manc Eats
The passionfruit pavlova and the Ambassador’s Reception. / Image: The Manc Eats
And for pudding? A tart passionfruit pavlova, featuring the most perfectly round meringue I’ve ever seen, and the famous ‘Ambassador’s Reception’, which nods to a nostalgic childhood favourite that Hawksmoor isn’t, for legal reasons, allowed to name.
Of course, being a steak house, the wine list here is excellent too – helped along by the fact that one of the co-founder’s mothers just happens to be a wine critic for The Guardian.
Frankly, you really can’t go wrong here. From the food, to the friendly service, to the bar offering, it’s not hard to see why this Manchester restaurant is the undisputed king of the Sunday roast – and then some.
Feature image – The Manc Eats
City Centre
Luxury Manchester gym Blok confirms permanent closure after weeks of uncertainty
Daisy Jackson
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure, weeks after the doors to the premium fitness facility mysteriously closed.
Around a fortnight ago, members began to arrive to their classes to find the gym on Ducie Street locked up and a forfeiture notice on the door – but at the time, Blok said that it was fighting to reopen.
Sadly, in an email sent to members today, its founder has confirmed that the studio is now permanently closed.
Blok – which has several very successful sites down in London – said that its relationship with its landlord has ‘broken down to a point where trust has been lost’.
The gym wrote that it’s been left with ‘no workable way forward’.
They said: “BLOK Manchester was a space built by our loyal and dedicated community. Whether you joined us for one class or one hundred, we are deeply grateful. You helped create something genuinely special in an incredible city.”
In the immediate future, they said they’ll be supporting the team of fantastic trainers who worked here, as well as looking after members.
Members will be contacted within a few hours with options and refunds owed.
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure. Credit: The Manc Group
CEO and founder Ed Stanbury said: “While this marks the end of a chapter, we don’t see it as the end of our story in Manchester. We’re already speaking with developers about potential future sites and remain committed to returning to the city when the time is right.
“Thank you for being part of our story so far. Let’s shape the future of wellness. The mission continues.”
Commenting on Blok’s Instagram post – its first in almost a fortnight – people have been sharing their sadness at the closure of its Manchester site.
One person wrote: “beautiful space, beautiful staff and beautiful community.”
Another said: “Sending love to all the instructors !! :(((( gutted”
Someone else commented: “THE BEST CLASSES. I’m gutted.”
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Georgina Pellant -
1st June 2022 
