The city of Dubai is renowned globally for its brunch scene – and now a dining experience inspired by it is coming to Manchester.
The Dubai Brunch Project will be a bottomless brunch filled with glitz and glamour, plus party anthems, top DJs and live percussion.
The elevated experience will be coming to Motley Manchester, the restaurant and bar space within the beautiful Yotel on Deansgate.
Dubai – which attracts the rich and famous year-round – is famed for its brunches, where thousands flock to eat eggs, pancakes, fruit and more.
Motley’s new weekly Dubai Brunch Project hopes to get the party started every weekend throughout summer.
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The first themed brunch will kick off on Friday 28 July, between 4pm and 8pm, and Saturday 29 July from 11.30am to 4pm.
They say it will feature ‘back-to-back high-energy entertainment and Instagrammable moments, making it the hottest ticket in town’.
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Manchester-based music producer and international DJ, Brett Wild will be soundtracking the brunches, alongside entertainment by LED saxophonists Tommy Sax and Caitlin Laing.
Motley Manchester will soon host Dubai-inspired bottomless brunches. Credit: Supplied
Brunch dishes on offer will include burger tacos, chicken and egg waffles, and a full breakfast.
Bottomless drinks included are frozen cocktails like the refreshing Vimtonic, blended with BACARDÍ, summer berries, coconut, lemon and Vimto, or the Candyfloss-topped Sugar Baby with lychee, BACARDÍ rum, bubblegum and prosecco, plus other selected drinks.
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Tickets are priced at £40 per person, which includes one brunch dish, live DJs, entertainment, and bottomless drinks for 90 minutes.
Motley is located on the ground floor of Yotel Manchester Deansgate.
The Motley Dubai Brunch Project takes place on Friday 28 July from 4 – 8pm, and on Saturday, 29 July from 11:30am – 4pm
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
Daisy Jackson -
20th July 2023 
