Eats

Independent wine company Salut has launched a ‘Party in a Box’ for businesses this Christmas

Salut is saving office Christmas party season for businesses right across Manchester.

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant - 17th December 2020
Salut Wines

With office parties sadly off the menu this year, an independent wine specialist in Manchester has launched a host of innovative ways to celebrate Christmas a little differently.

Salut – an independent wine specialist in the heart of the city centre offering the most diverse and impressive hand-picked range of wines from around the globe – has launched a Party in a Box, which allows companies the chance to enjoy wine, cheese and games, all while supporting independent business and a local charity initiative at the same time.

It means that whatever the workplace situation, colleagues can still get together to celebrate and share in excellent wine this Christmas.

After a phone consultation with the party organiser/employee, Salut will then build a bespoke box (or boxes) dependent on the requirements of the business, so for companies who want to celebrate in the office with their workplace bubble, the perfect wine experience can be delivered direct to the office door – plus optional matched cheeses from the Crafty Cheese Man too – for a hassle-free, COVID-safe Christmas office celebration that still keeps things feeling special.

Salut can even provide the glassware to avoid the dreaded ‘wine from your favourite office mug’ situation too.

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If it’s a ‘virtual’ get together however, Salut will help despatch wine to multiple destinations and then host a wine tasting via Zoom for teams to enjoy in their own homes.

Salut Wines
Salut Wines

Whilst traditional office party games may be a no-go for a COVID-safe Christmas, Salut has decided to join forces with Forever Manchester – a charity that raises money to fund and support community activity right across the region – to bring some light-hearted office competition to the workplace celebrations. 

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The Big Forever Manchester Quiz of the Year is an online charity quiz that can be played anywhere – hosted by well-known Manchester personalities including Julie Hesmondhalgh and Justin Moorhouse – and Salut has made a donation to Forever Manchester to license the quiz (usually £100 to play) as part of its Party in a Box to be able to include it free to the first 50 to purchase a box.

Not only that, but this is a box that donates to the charity on your behalf too.

Wine gifts for employees are also a Salut-speciality, with passionate and knowledgeable staff on hand to help businesses pick the perfect gift to suit the budget and package, and despatch for a hassle-free way to ensure teams feel valued after a tough year.

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And if a more foodie celebration is in order, Salut has also teamed up with Open Kitchen – Manchester’s leading sustainable catering company – to create fabulous food and wine-matched packages that can be delivered straight to the workplace, with Open Kitchen’s passionate chefs having created beautiful and unique menus to compliment Salut’s Christmas wine boxes.

All profits from Open Kitchen also go towards providing food and supplying meals for people in crisis across Greater Manchester too, which really makes Salut’s Party in a Box the ultimate independent and thoughtful corporate Christmas solution.

You can view potential packages and find out more information via the Salut website here.

Eats

The GIANT £375 chocolate Easter egg that’s ‘too beautiful to eat’

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson

One of the north’s most legendary hospitality businesses has created an Imperial Easter Egg, and the effort that goes into crafting it is wild.

Coming in at 10kg, 22 inches tall, and £375, Bettys enormous chocolate treat shows off a whole lot of artistry.

The iconic tearoom, which has sites across Yorkshire, has shared the behind-the-scenes video to its TikTok page, drumming up almost half a million views.

The mouth-watering video shows first milk chocolate being hand-painted onto a chocolate egg-shaped mould to create the Easter egg’s beautiful textured appearance, The Hoot reports.

Then layer after layer of melted chocolate is poured in from a chocolate tap, before being trimmed and tidied.

Bettys, which has tearooms across Harrogate, York, and Leeds, uses the finest Swiss Grand Cru chocolate for its imperial Easter egg, and every bit that’s trimmed away is melted down to reuse elsewhere.

Then a pastry chef at the tearoom will spend up to an hour PER EGG piping on the ornate decorations, carefully piping on coloured white chocolate stems and ferns.

Then colourful royal icing flowers are placed on its surface, each one again hand-piped by their cake decorators.

The end result is a whopping Spring-time masterpiece covered in shades of green, yellow and purple.

@thehootleeds Just wait until the final result! 🤤 #easter #eastereggs #easteregg #chocolate #baking #learnontiktok #yorkshire #bettys #foodtok #fyp 📹: @Bettys ♬ original sound – Thehootleeds

Bettys Imperial Easter Egg weighs in at a massive 10kg and stands at 22 inches tall.

Bettys says: “Celebrating the creativity and craft that makes Bettys unique, our handmade Imperial Easter eggs continue a tradition stretching back more than a century, when our founder Frederick Belmont designed eggs which were ornately embellished with hand-piped icing designs.

“Containing over five kilos of Grand Cru Swiss chocolate made from prized Venezuelan criollo cocoa beans, the Imperial Egg is a true work of art, showcasing the highest skills of our chocolatiers and cake decorators.

“Each Imperial Egg carries an array of delicate, individually crafted spring blooms and foliage including primroses, narcissi and pansies, with hand-piped stems as a final perfect touch.

“Our Imperial Easter Egg is made to order and is only available for collection from one of our Yorkshire shops.”

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And if £375 is a bit out of budget, you can buy a miniature version that’s just as beautiful for a tenth of the price.

In the comment section on the video, one person wrote: “30 mins and a cup of tea and I’d polish that off.”

Another said: “A chocolate… tap?! I’m calling my plumber.”

Someone else wrote: “That’s just too beautiful to eat! A work of art!”

What a beautiful beast indeed.

Featured image: Bettys

Eats

Inside the Manchester restaurant serving ‘India’s answer to a Wigan kebab’

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant

When it comes to finding new and innovative ways to enjoy the humble potato, it’s fair to say that we Brits pretty much have the art down.

From creamy mash to deep-fried chips, crunchy hasslebacks, hash browns, and the all-time classic that is bubble and squeak, you name it, we’ve tried it.

Still, somehow it took the arrival of Indian street food favorite Bundobust for us to be introduced to the concept of a mashed potato burger – and we are forever thankful.

Comprised of a deep-fried potato dumpling placed inside a brioche bun, accompanied by two house-made chutneys and a whole green chili pepper, since its introduction to the Manchester food scene in 2016 the Vada Pav has become one of Bundobust’s most iconic dishes.

Also known as a Bombay burger, the vegetarian fast food snack sells in its thousands back home in Mumbai and has now become something of a signature dish here in Manchester too.

We recently popped down with Deliveroo for an episode of Takeaway Champions to try the dish, and after one taste our reviewer immediately called it the ‘Indian answer to a Wigan kebab’. It’s simply carbs on carbs on carbs, and we’re here for it.

Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats

That said, it’s not the only thing worth ordering when you visit.

Other longstanding menu staples at Bundobust include its barbecued paneer, mushroom and pepper tikka kebabs, sweet and crunchy Bundo chaat, and crispy okra fries; whilst new dishes include the Ragda Pethis – a north-meets-east combination of mushy peas and potato cake, sev, tomato, onion, and tamarind chutney.

Having first opened in Manchester in 2016, today Bundobust has two sites in the city centre. Its original home still sits underneath Piccadilly Gardens, with a second restaurant and in-house brewery residing over on Oxford Road.

The restaurant – initially born in Leeds before making its way to Manchester – has always had a strong reputation for sourcing excellent craft beer, but since quietly opening its own brewery during the Covid lockdowns it’s only gone from strength to strength.

Read more: ‘We were treated awfully’ – ex-staffer speaks out as Freight Island gears up for reopening

Housed in a unique 100-year-old space within the iconic Grade II listed St James building, the Manchester-based brewery is a custom-built 10-hectolitre facility capable of producing 20,000 pints a month.

Today, alongside beers from other respected brewers, the restaurant serves up a list of specially-made house beers, all designed to complement the flavours of its dishes.

These include a coriander lager, a masala chai porter and a tropical pale ale, as well as its latest concoction: a mango lassi beer created in collaboration with brewers at Northern Monk.

Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats

Read more: The Sparrows ‘ever so proud and honoured’ after award from famous ‘lip licking Michelin Man’

To see the full menu click here and to find out more about Bundobust head over to their Instagram page here.

Oh, and to save on your next Deliveroo order from Bundobust make sure to use our code BUNDO10 when you check out.

Feature image – The Manc Eats

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