Next week, Bury-born brothers Joe and Daniel Schofield will open their first-ever restaurant inside Gary Neville’s Manchester city centre hotel The Stock Exchange.
No strangers to the world of hospitality, the duo have vast amounts of experience working in some of the world’s best bars and have spent the past few years opening a string of award-winning drinking dens of their own.
With three Manchester cocktail bars now under their belt, including the eponymous Schofield’s Bar on Quay Street and the subterranean Stirling, which sits in an old bank vault beneath The Stock Exchange Hotel, the brothers are now making the venture into the world of full scale restaurants.
Working alongside chef Joshua Reed-Cooper (previously at The French with Simon Rogan, with Sam Buckley at Where the Light Gets In and at Michelin-starred Mana) and wine expert James Brandwood, The Stock Market Grill doesn’t officially open its doors until 1 March but it’s already the talk of the town.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
Sat inside the Edwardian splendour of the Grade-II listed luxury hotel, it takes over from lauded restaurant The Bull & Bear following Tom Kerridge’s exit at the end of last year.
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Gone are the giant TV screens so bemoaned by The Bull & Bear diners, and when we’re looking around Joe Schofield quips that they have eight for sale before asking if we want one.
Instead, the new focus of the dining space are two huge vases filled with dried flowers that draw your eye up to the gorgeous ornate ceiling and stained glass windows.
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When the Stock Market Grill officially launches next Wednesday, it will serve an elevated all-day menu showcasing ‘British Brasserie’ classics using the highest quality local ingredients.
Diners can expect to find the likes of oysters with mignonette, rabbit suet pudding with mustard cream, wild mushrooms with confit yolk and spelt, Mangalitsa pork chop with Yorkshire rhubarb ketchup and ex dairy rib eye with brown butter jus and lemon.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
Speaking ahead of the new opening, Joe Schofield told The Manc: “We’re really excited to be opening our first restaurant, myself, Daniel and James are very passionate about food and visiting restaurants. We do have twenty years experience in world class restaurants, and we’ve got the opportunity to work with the hotel and put a restaurant in, we jumped at the chance.
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“We already had a great chef working with us at Stirling, he was in the kitchen at Mana when they got their Michelin star. We thought it’d be a really good opportunity to showcase a restaurant and style of cuisine that we’re really passionate about.
“We’ve got a great relationship with the hotel, when we were having conversations about opening a restaurant it felt natural and it felt organic and we’ve put together a concep that we’re really excited about.
“Our hopes for the restaurant are to create an experience that guests love to come in and visit and enjoy the food. That’s what’s most important thing for us, people come and really love their experience in terms of the service, the hospitality and the food.”
Bookings are open now from 1 March and can be made now via the Stock Exchange Hotel website here.
Feature image – The Manc Eats
Eats
Northern bakery with Greater Manchester pop-up fires back perfectly at ‘bigots’
Danny Jones
All of us were no doubt hoping to start off 2026 on a completely positive footing, but we were gutted to see some of the messages and comments received by cult Northern favourites, Finch Bakery – still, at least they responded in a pitch-perfect way.
Who doesn’t love a good comeback?
In case you haven’t seen the story yet, Lancashire-born independent business Finch Bakery were met with a series of what they have quite rightly dubbed as “ill-educated, bigoted conversations” with a number of users on social media over flagging that lots of their food is halal-friendly.
Surely just a bonus and therefore a good thing across the board, right? Well, you would think so, but unfortunately, the beloved indies were still somehow met with backlash.
Sharing their reaction in the caption to this post, sharing a glimpse at some of the remarks they received, Finch Bakery wrote: “Just in case anyone was wondering why we’re halal-friendly: we have Muslim friends. We want to be inclusive.
“Everyone deserves to be able to shop where they want based on dietary requirements, whether that’s for religious or cultural reasons, allergy or intolerance purposes, sensory reasons, or digestive disorders.
“And we will continue to try and provide a selection for all of these people as long as it’s safe for us to do so (like our lack of a GF kitchen means we cannot provide gluten-free items). It also makes business sense to try to cater to as many people as possible.
“If you’re going to slide into an inclusive business’ DMs and then immediately block them, don’t think I won’t come for you. Yes, I’m 34. Yes, I’m a mum of 2. Yes, I’m a grown-up (apparently).”
The response to the messages, which left the team and countless others among their customer base ‘rolling their eyes’, continues: “You don’t have to agree with something to respect someone’s choices. Especially when we’re not adding any meat products into our brownies.
“We will and always will be inclusive for a wider group of people, and we are proud to be halal-friendly. If you don’t like it. Please unfollow.” Well said, guys.
The bakery itself was founded by two twin sisters, Rachel and Lauren Finch, who are now approaching more than a decade of success since opening their first proper location in Great Harwood near Blackburn. They now have pop-ups as part of the Selfridges chain.
We also enjoyed how they used it as an opportunity to simply show more of their stunning menu, which – while not fully Halal Certified – has extensive disclaimers and signposting towards what is appropriate for different diets.
Many of those individuals in question are said to have unfollowed the brand on Instagram; however, their hundreds of thousands of fans across the North West and online have sent plenty of love and praise for how they handled the situation, not to mention respecting other cultures and life choices.
If you want to show your support for a brand doing things right, which also happens to be bloody delicious, go and try some of their brilliant bakes at their site in The Trafford Centre.
Featured Images — Finch Bakery (via Instagram)/The Manc Group
Eats
A restaurant dedicated to all things truffle is opening in the Northern Quarter
Daisy Jackson
A new restaurant and takeaway with a menu dedicated to truffle-infused dishes is opening in the Northern Quarter.
Mother Truffler is set to open on Tib Street, taking over the former Kingfisher chippy (which we didn’t even know had shut down).
Signs have appeared in the windows of the corner unit, which will count venues like Siop Shop and Ad Maiora as neighbours.
Mother Truffler has been successfully operating as a dark kitchen with glowing reviews on delivery platforms, but is now venturing out into its first bricks and mortar site.
Based on their delivery menu, Mother Truffler will be serving a menu of different burgers, each one featuring a truffle-infused sauce.
And there’s a gap in the market for burgers in the Northern Quarter since the closure of Super Awesome Deluxe.
Founder Youssef Taha has been sharing updates of the renovation of the space, as work gets underway to transform the old chippy into a truffle restaurant.
The new website states: “Proudly crafting truffle-rich food in the heart of Manchester. Rooted in quality. Inspired by truffle.”
And menu items are set to include smash burgers with truffle mayo, chicken burgers with truffle ranch, truffle parmesan fries, and a range of other mouth-watering sides.
Georgina Pellant -
23rd February 2023 
