Eats

A Manchester restaurant is serving deep-fried dippy chocolate eggs with churro soldiers

This might just be the best Easter special we've seen this year.

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant - 4th April 2023

Manchester’s go-to fried chicken shop Yard and Coop has gone all-out for Easter this year, serving up deep-fried dippy chocolate eggs with churros for soldiers as part of its Easter menu.

After fans went wild for its deep-fried Creme Eggs last year, the Edge Street favourite has one-upped itself again for 2023 by releasing a whole array of battered chocolate goodies.

Ranging from the Cadbury’s classic to Reese’s, Hershey’s, and Lindor Salted Caramel varieties, customers can order these naughty treats inside Yard and Coop’s Northern Quarter restaurant all Easter week long.

Taking their eggs and soldiers game to the next level, each egg is dipped in tempura batter before being deep fried until crisp, then served with churros soldiers ready to be slam dunked into a waiting hot, gooey chocolate middle.

Image: Yard and Coop
Image: Yard and Coop

Priced at £5 each, customers are invited to the chocolate egg of their choice – with dunkable fillings ranging from Reese’s peanut butter to Lindor’s salted caramel, Hershey’s cookies and creme, or the well-known Cadbury ‘egg’ fondant classic.

Read more: Amir Khan banned from all sport for two years after failing drug test

Launched on Monday 3 April, the deep-fried ‘dippy eggs’ are available at Yard and Coop up until Easter Sunday itself which falls this year on 9 April.

First launched by twp friends united by their love of fried chicken back in 2015, Yard and Coop has been a mainstay in the Northern Quarter for the past eight years.

A go-to for all things fried chicken, not to mention saucy wings, sticky nugz, cocktails, beers and other bites, other menu must-tries include the epic Massive C*ck burger.

A mixture of Buttermilk fried chicken thighs, not nugz, bacon, cheese sauce, handmade waffle, onion rings, creamy slaw and a mac n’ cheese filled Yorkshire pudding with lashings of Dr Pepper BBQ, Ranch, and Sriracha mayo), it’s then finished off with three BBQ wings – with owners instructing you to ‘bring your tape measure’ because ‘size matters’.

Featured image – Yard and Coop


Eats

Lupo Caffe Italiano – a taste of sunny Rome on a Prestwich industrial estate

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson

The sun is beating down on you, there’s a couple of luminous orange Aperol Spritzes on the checked tablecloth, Italian pop music is trickling out over the speakers and you’ve got two heaping bowls of pasta on the way.

The setting could easily be a cobbled street in front of the Colosseum in Rome. But it’s not. It’s an industrial estate in Prestwich.

Lupo must be one of Greater Manchester’s most hidden gems in a very literal sense.

To get here, you have to drive or walk a strange looping circuit around industrial warehouses peddling everything from splashbacks to burglar alarms to grow tents.

One of these warehouses, located in the very furthest yard, looks a little different to the others, festooned with bunches of garlic and dried herbs strung up from the ceiling.

There are shelves full of pasta, sauces and even crisps, a fridge packed with delicious Italian wines and beers, and retro football shirt-inspired merch hanging from the walls.

Its awkward location does nothing to hold back its loyal customers, who repeatedly return for the authentic taste of Rome on offer here.

Lupo is operated by Nico Pasquali, who first ran it as a tiny Italian cafe on Chapel Street in Salford (before all the high-rises appeared), then shifted it over to the odd shiny-commercial-office-land that is Exchange Quay, then took it almost entirely remote to trudge through the pandemic.

Lupo's charming interiors
Lupo’s charming interiors
Nico has added outside seating to Lupo
Nico has added outside seating to Lupo
The pasticceria selection at Lupo
The pasticceria selection at Lupo

At one point, Caffè Lupo existed mostly on WhatsApp, with customers texting in their orders ready for a doorstep drop on a Friday night.

But now the large-ish commercial unit is its main business, and it’s a special one.

You are greeted, always, with a friendly wave, then given the sort of service where you’re very gently guided to order all the best things on the menu that day, feeling like you’ll personally offend Nico if you order differently and stray from his recommendations. Thankfully it’s pretty easy to trust this man.  

It’s extremely hard for me to see amatriciana on a menu and not order it – so I don’t try. One bowl of rigatoni amatriciana for me, and make it cheesy. 

This is a textbook example of the deceptively simple pasta dish. Fatty guanciale cooked right down so that all that delicious pork fat melts into the tomatoes, then it’s seasoned with, I presume, several generations of secrets and love from Italian nonnas. 

Rigatoni amatriciana, and fennel sausage orecchiette
Rigatoni amatriciana, and fennel sausage orecchiette
A spread of Lupo's Italian food
A spread of Lupo’s Italian food
Pepernata - Nico's mum's recipe
Pepernata – Nico’s mum’s recipe
The Pizza Lupo
The Pizza Lupo

The sweet, salty, meaty sauce is available on a pizza too, which will be top of my list next time I visit.

Across the table it’s a special (but it’s been on the menu for a while now) of orecchiette with fennel sausage and romanesco broccoli.

Nico tells us a customer once refused to pay for this dish because it wasn’t ‘saucy’ enough. Heathen.

That’s the running theme with Lupo – don’t come here expecting Neapolitan pizzas, or flat whites, or hot honey dips for your pizza crusts. It isn’t the Roman way, and Nico isn’t about to veer away from his proud roots to mould into any passing fads or trends.

If you’re after authenticity and tradition though, this is comfortably the top Italian in Greater Manchester.

If you can come to Lupo and walk away without ordering something sweet from the counter, you’re a stronger person than me.

Pasticceria
Pasticceria
Owner Nico
Owner Nico
Lupo's famous millefoglie
Lupo’s famous millefoglie

They’re famed for their doughnuts (rightly), with bouncy dough filled with flavours including pistachio cream, lemon, and homemade jams.

Also displayed in neat rows are fruit tarts with a glossy glaze, towering cream cakes in neat layers, and puff pastry cannoncini.

But Nico is adamant, absolutely adamant, that we order a slice of his millefoglie. It’s a sell-out, he says. We’re lucky he even has some in stock, he tells us. Who are we to argue?

And if you’ve made it this far, just stop reading right now, get in the damn car and go get yourself a slice before it sells out again.

Layers of lighter-than-air homemade pastry are sandwiched together with delicately sweet cream, hints of almond throughout, and it’s good enough to bring a tear to your eye.

We leave with a doughnut in a box too, so that we at least have a snack if we get completely lost finding our way back out of the industrial estate.

You can find out more about Lupo here.

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Featured image: The Manc Group

Eats

A bottomless brunch with unlimited lager is launching in Manchester

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson A bottomless brunch with unlimited lager is launching in Manchester

A bottomless brunch with unlimited pints of lager will be launching in Manchester this month.

Forget the mimosas and warm prosecco and lacklustre portions of French toast – this new bottomless offering is all about proper pints and hefty focaccia sandwiches.

The Lager, Lager, Lager bottomless brunch is the newest fixture in the Trading Route’s roster, taking place in the lagerhouse at St John’s every Saturday.

It’s designed to be Manchester’s first bottomless tailored to those who love, tall, foamy pints of the good stuff.

Every punter will get 60 minutes of unlimited, freshly-poured foamy pints, as well as a choice of the restaurant’s focaccia sandwiches, made in-house every single day.

DJs will be spinning classic house and disco tunes as you tuck into your pints and butties.

Jamie Scahill, Trading Route Co-Founder said: “Lager, Lager, Lager isn’t an underworld event, it’s for everyone who loves a freshly poured foamy pint to come down and enjoy.

“Whether you were born slippy or not, the fun is to leave slippy, having revelled in great beer, food and company.”

A bottomless brunch with unlimited lager is launching in Manchester
A bottomless brunch with unlimited lager is launching in Manchester
A bottomless brunch with unlimited lager is launching in Manchester

Trading Route opened last year, specialising in perfectly-poured pints of Manchester Union, as well as rotisserie chicken and huge sandwiches.

As well as Lager, Lager, Lager’s launch, over the bank holiday weekend there’ll be a happy hour which will include £4.80 pints, cocktails at £8.50 and a carafe of wine for £12.50 on Thursday 21 August.

Funkademia will then take over the venue from 5pm on Friday 22 August.

Lager, Lager, Lager will begin on Saturday 23 August and will run every Saturday from 12pm until 5pm.

The Trading Route bottomless lager brunch costs £28, and you can book your spot HERE.

Read more

Featured image: the Manc Group

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