Eats

Lead singer of Aussie band blasts mystery Manc café for rude and ‘aggressive’ treatment by staff member

Always sad to hear someone having a bad experience with Manc hospitality.

Danny Jones Danny Jones - 8th May 2024

The lead singer of Australian indie and alternative band, The Buoys, has come out to criticise a mystery Manchester café after receiving rude and ‘aggressive’ treatment from a member of staff.

Lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player, Zoe Catterall, hopped on the band’s TikTok account to vent and indirectly inform others about the as-yet-unnamed coffee shop ahead of the group’s show at Gorilla in the city centre this week.

Noting that much of her family originates from Manchester and she usually gets “excited” by the “sense of home” away from home whenever she comes here on tour, her visit this time around was sadly marred somewhat by the treatment by one unknown member of staff.

As Catterall details in the video, despite going out of her way to be polite and familiarise herself with a new city centre spot as a tourist, she was unfortunately met by the purportedly blunt female worker, who “rolled her eyes” at a simple question and a general rude demeanour. Here’s how she says it went down:

@thebuoys Pls let me know if you’ve been to this cafe. Eughh anyway I feel better now and I’m just excited to play in Manchester this Thursday at Gorilla and I’ll just get coffee elsewhere 🙂 #manchester #cafe #storytime #mean #rude ♬ Subject A – The Buoys

Admitting she “was not expecting the response that I got”, she goes on to detail the woman finger-pointing and exhibiting just a generally rude tone.

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Initially suspecting that she might be holding up a queue or irking the staff in some other way, she eventually goes on to describe her behaviour as “being an arsehole for no reason” and reiterating that you “don’t have to be that mean”.

Adding that she was welling up and feeling overwhelmed by the whole incident after a jet-lagged morning without any breakfast or caffeine in her system yet, she eventually felt so uncomfortable that she decided to grab her coffee and go decompress elsewhere.

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Moreover, after explaining that she ended up going on to the café’s Google reviews out of curiosity, it turned out that the Manchester spot had racked up quite a few people who also had negative experiences and rude or ‘aggressive’ treatment by staff.

We’re not going to join in on the speculation but the comments have some ideas.

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To Zoe and anyone else who may have unfortunately been on the receiving end of this rude individual’s service, we’re sorry you had to put up with that and we assure you it doesn’t represent the majority of Manchester hospitality.

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And for those trying to help get to the bottom of who the mystery Manc coffee shop/employee was, we hope it serves as a kick up the backside for whoever it may be and a reminder that it takes virtually nothing to be nice.

All that being said, we can’t think of any better way of helping Zoe and co. shrug it off besides plugging their gig supporting fellow Aussie alt-rockers Vacations at one of our favourite venues on Thursday night.

If you fancy going along you can grab a ticket HERE. Oh, and if you think you know which Manchester café might be, don’t go and be rude to anyone yourself – we’re better than that. We’re sure they’ll come across it themselves soon enough, don’t worry.

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — The Buoys (via TikTok)/PxHere

Eats

Albert’s Schloss – Manchester’s busiest nightlife hotspot is also serving some of the city’s best roasts

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson Sunday roast at Albert's Schloss

If someone were to ask me the root cause of most of my adult hangovers, I would turn and point at Albert’s Schloss quicker than you could say ‘stiegl’.

I’m not the only one either – this nightlife hotspot on Peter Street is busy all. the. time.

Whether it’s a few happy hour drinks straight after work or dancing on the benches into the early hours, there is always something going on in this Bavarian beer hall.

With a ‘Showtime’ programme of events that includes some sort of live entertainment every night of the week, it’s easy to see why most of us start and end our nights out here.

It all started back in 2015 and quickly grew, becoming one of the country’s most voracious venues with a footprint in multiple cities almost a decade later.

But despite us all knowing Albert’s Schloss so well, do we really know and appreciate everything it’s got going on beyond the party atmosphere?

Because I’ll bet a load of you didn’t know that Albert’s Schloss is also whipping up one of Manchester’s very best Sunday roasts.

Schweins in blankets
Schweins in blankets
This huge pork knuckle is one of Albert's Schloss Sunday roasts
This huge pork knuckle is one of Albert’s Schloss Sunday roasts
Cauliflower fondue, side dish on Albert's Schloss Sunday roasts menu
Cauliflower fondue

And that’s along with a pretty impressive, Bavarian-inspired food menu that’s always ticking away in the background.

I already proved that the city is slightly oblivious to the venue’s culinary prowess when The Manc Eats posted these pictures of the pastries made fresh here, and our audience were flabbergasted to learn that Schloss can be as much about viennoiserie as it is about Viennese beers.

So, back to those Albert’s Schloss roasts.

The huge venue hosts Sunday Service every week, where the house band serves up grooves to go with the gravy.

Alpine croquettes
Alpine croquettes
Hummus and pickles
Hummus and pickles

As you’re serenaded by goosebump-worthy harmonies, you can tuck into gigantic roasts and other comforting plates, like sides of fondue cauliflower and schweins in blankets.

The roasts themselves centre (obviously) around meat, with dry-aged beef, roast chicken, and a no-nut roast on offer, but the star of the show has and always will be the schweinshaxe, an enormous pork knuckle roasted to perfection and served with apple sauce.

If you’re not fancying a roast (who are you), there are other mains like a humble kroissant pie, pan-roasted salmon, and the venue’s signature cheeseburger.

Push for gravy buttons as the Albert's Schloss Sunday roasts
Push for gravy buttons as the Albert’s Schloss Sunday roast

Groups should come ready to banquet. There’s a Bavarian Feast for sharing, which comes with – brace yourselves – roast pork knuckle, chicken schnitzel, bratwurst, kaiserwurst, chilliwurst, pork belly, sformoto, braised red cabbage, seasonal greens, bier jus, kraut, and pickles.

Oh and please, please, if you have even a hint of a sweet tooth, don’t leave without trying the black forest brownie, liberally flavoured with Amarena cherries.

There are also pretzel doughnuts ripe for dipping in a pot of melted chocolate, and classic apple strudel with vanilla sauce.

And all of it’s available for £29 for three courses.

So now with evening beers, late-night dancing, pastries, lunches AND Sunday roasts covered, Albert’s Schloss is bringing back the old 24 Hour Party People mantra.

Desserts included in Albert’s Schloss Sunday roasts menu

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Featured image: The Manc Group

Eats

Moor Hall – What it’s like to eat at officially the best restaurant in England

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson Moor Hall in Ormskirk, the best restaurant in England

There are a lot of good places to eat around the north west. Some are even great. But very few are exceptional – and only one can claim to be the best not just in our region, but in the entire country. 

The restaurant in question is Moor Hall.

This two Michelin-star spot, just outside Greater Manchester in Lancashire, opened back in 2017. It achieved its first Michelin star at break-neck speed, proudly mounting a red plaque within six months of opening. A year later, it got its second. It’s been named the Best Restaurant in England two years in a row at the Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards. And that’s just the tip of the glittering iceberg. 

All this might seem quick, but I doubt anyone has walked through these doors without emphatically agreeing that Moor Hall deserves every accolade on its shelves. If I had the power, I’d give it another star on the spot.

The experience begins before you’ve even got through the door.

You’ll drive through the stone gates and down the winding driveway, passing a lake, a group of geese pottering about on the lawn, and around the back of the beautiful former mansion house.

You could have arrived on the set of Bridgerton (if the Bridgertons happened to have a wine list so comprehensive that the table shakes under the weight of the menu).

As each guest is given a staggered arrival time, they know who you are the second you walk through the door. Being greeted by name takes us both aback – is this how the Beckhams feel all the time? Fetch me my Birkin! Where’s my security?!

Anyway. The initial grandeur of Moor Hall carries through for the first part of your meal – drinks and snacks in the bar area, where the walls are covered in dark wood and cosy bay windows look out onto the lake. 

The main dining room at Moor Hall
The main dining room at Moor Hall
Moor Hall's Provenance menu
Moor Hall’s Provenance menu
The experience includes a walk through the kitchens
The experience includes a walk through the kitchens

Here, you begin to see the many, many cogs that go into making a restaurant like this function. Someone is in charge of water. Someone else is carefully slicing charcuterie into slices so thin it dissolves on your tongue like butter. 

Tiny black pudding bites pack a rich, meaty punch that immediately makes me wish we were staying overnight and could eat breakfast here too (there are 14 guest bedrooms at Moor Hall plus new garden rooms being constructed in the grounds). 

The next miniature mouthful bursts open with flavours of barbecued asparagus and smoky chorizo, then a dinky English muffin topped with buttered lobster turns me misty-eyed. 

A pair of pretty leaf-shaped crackers, each one embossed with herbs, arrives next, alongside a tin of cod roe and caviar, like a classic pate but 1000 times richer and more interesting. 

Crackers with cod roe and caviar
Crackers with cod roe and caviar
Highlights from Moor Hall's snack menu - an English muffin with poached lobster
An English muffin with poached lobster

At this point, you’re whisked off your feet by another Moor Hall staff member, who promptly escorts you out the door. Have we done something wrong? Nope – it’s time to see the kitchen gardens. 

He expertly points out all the herbs, fruits and vegetables that are grown on-site in the beautiful walled gardens, tended to by a small team of gardeners. 

The tour then spits you out into the kitchen, where each of the many, many chefs whipping up your dinner will greet you with a friendly smile, and chef-patron Mark Birchall offers a warm handshake and yet another snack (this one resembles a small bird’s nest, filled with smoked eel and potato).

While the bar is dark and stately, the dining room is a modern, simple space flooded with sunlight and views of the lake. 

The dishes at this stage of the Provenance menu become instantly more theatrical. 

'Royal Oak Rainbow' - baked carrots with doddington cheese 'snow'
‘Royal Oak Rainbow’ – baked carrots with doddington cheese ‘snow’
Rudy red Devon beef with beetroot and mustard
Rudy red Devon beef with beetroot and mustard
Guinea hen with morel mushooms
Guinea hen with morel mushooms
Grilled cornish turbot with mussel and roe sauce
Grilled cornish turbot with mussel and roe sauce

Suddenly we have people spooning brilliant white crumbles onto plates of carrots, herb-infused stocks being poured onto plates, quenelles of butter being rolled out of wooden dishes. 

Some dishes are simpler, like a loaf of the best sourdough we’ve ever had, but most are unimaginably intricate, like 80-day aged beef served with beetroot and mustard, and rich guinea hen complimented by even richer morel mushrooms.

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Whatever the dish (and we get through a LOT), it’s the sort of food that makes you stop in your tracks. It triggers involuntary reactions – I keep catching us smiling, or closing our eyes, or gleefully pointing out goosebumps on our arms. I actually well up at one point. I didn’t know ice cream could move me to tears, but laced with spicy stem ginger – a staple on Moor Hall’s menu from day one – apparently it can. 

And throughout, Moor Hall will go to great lengths to show you where each dish has come from (because let’s be honest, fine dining sometimes gets so complicated it stops resembling food at all), whether that’s showing the huge joint of meat your dish has been carved from or handing you a tiny card telling the story of Ormskirk gingerbread. 

Three of four sweet courses on Moor Hall’s Provenance menu

If you add a cheese course, you’re even escorted into the cheese room (is this… heaven?) to build your own cheese board from the huge selection of British creations inside. 

There’s a refreshing level of transparency throughout and although we’re surprised plenty of times, it doesn’t feel like trickery. 

It’s hard not to appreciate the meal you’re eating because you’ve seen every painstaking step and every ingredient being used before you’ve even sat down, from the gardner pruning the rosemary shrub to the sous chef placing micro herbs on bright green butter with a pair of tweezers.

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It’s elaborate but intimate, complex but never intimidating.

The cheese room, where you can build your own cheese course

You might wonder how a £235 tasting menu could ever NOT be intimidating to the average person, and that really comes down to the team who work at Moor Hall. 

They’re so warm and inviting, it’s like dining with friends. They could switch it up from explaining one of the most intricate menus in the world to joining in with our debate about whether it’s weird for adults to have a favourite colour. 

It’s hospitality on an unparalleled level.

At Moor Hall, it’s all about comfort. 

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It’s the best restaurant in England, but it feels welcoming to everyone.

It’s the best restaurant in England, and it’s just an hour from Manchester. 

It’s the best restaurant in England and I’ll never stop thinking about it. 

@the.manc

Have you ever wondered what a £235 lunch looks like? Well here it is – and Moor Hall is pretty exceptional. #moorhall #manchester #ormskirk #michelinstar

♬ original sound – The Manc

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Featured image: The Manc Group

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