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Manchester restaurant Neon Tiger to close down after less than a year in the city

The neighbourhood bar and Thai BBQ hinted it might be back 'in a different form', but for now this is goodbye.

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant - 27th April 2023
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Manchester’s Northern Thai BBQ-inspired restaurant Neon Tiger is closing its doors after less than a year in the city, owners revealed last night.

Sharing the news in a heartfelt statement on social media, the team wrote: “We’re sad to announce that Neon Tiger will be closing our doors for the final time on Sunday April 30th.

“We’d like to thank everyone who has come to see us, raised a glass with us and made this place so special to us.

“We’d like to thank all of the staff for being so wonderful and for all their hard work. We’ll see you for a send-off drink or two this week…. remember when it’s gone, it’s GONE!

“Then, we might just see you again, only in a different form. Keep your eyes peeled, but for now, thank you again. x”

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First opened by brothers Ben and Dan Morris on Bridge Street last summer, the short-lived venture briefly wowed diners with an adventurous New York-meets-Northern Thai menu focused on strong cocktails and chargrilled ‘baan yang’ sharing dishes.

Read more: This northern bar is doing a bottomless crisp butty buffet with over 30 flavours

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Roughly translated to ‘grill house’ in Thai, these rural-style grill dishes saw Neon Tiger pay homage to traditional charcoal cooking methods with a host of grilled skewer dishes and a hero dish of coconut chicken curry noodle bowl – made using hand-pulled noodles created by the Manchester-based Komuji team.

Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats

Drinks, meanwhile, reflected the brother’s desire to bring a Dead Rabbit-style neighbourhood bar to the city centre and included a cracking negroni, alongside other strong cocktails, mocktails and a seasonally-changing wine list.

Read more: The best restaurants and bars to open in Manchester in 2022

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Inspired by the sort of cool New York neighbourhood joints where you can just pop in and enjoy quality plates with good wine and cocktails, Neon Tiger got off to a slow start when it opened on Bridge Street at the start of the summer – then wowed with the introduction of a new Northern Thai-inspired breakfast and brunch menu later in the year.

Now, it seems it has reached the end of the road less than a year after opening its doors in Manchester – and by the comments flooding in on the announcement, it will be very missed.

Featured image – The Manc Eats

Eats

Acclaimed restaurant staffed by prison inmates announces sad closure

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson The Clink restaurant in Styal is closing
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The Clink, an acclaimed restaurant where the food is prepared and served by prison inmates, has announced its devastating closure.

The charity behind the restaurant, which is attached to HMP Styal, has confirmed that it will close for good on 31 July 2025.

The Clink is famed for the training and experience it provides inmates, helping them to get a head start into the hospitality industry when their sentence ends.

It’s also achieved plenty of acclaim as a restaurant in its own right, consistently being rated as the best restaurant in Wilmslow and voted Cheshire Restaurant of the Year in 2024.

Over the years, hundreds of students have earned qualifications including City & Guilds NVQs in Food and Beverage Service, Professional Cookery and Food Hygiene.

The Clink restaurant in Styal is closing
The Clink restaurant in Styal is closing
The Clink restaurant in Styal is closing

But The Clink has now announced that it will be closing this summer due to ‘a number of factors’, including costs and participant numbers.

Donna-Marie Edmonds, Chief Executive of The Clink Charity, said: “The decision not to renew our contract at HMP Styal has been made with an incredibly heavy heart.

“The Clink Charity’s mission is to reduce re-offending and we have been doing this at Styal, producing outstanding results for over a decade.

“Although the restaurant will officially close this summer, our partnership at Styal will be remembered not only for its landmark training outcomes, but as a beacon of hope, where women have sought refuge and rehabilitation.”

As one of those students put it: “If it wasn’t for my journey at The Clink, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

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Featured image: The Manc Group

Eats

Deansgate’s new mini brunch triangle attracting big queues – and rightly so

Danny Jones Danny Jones New Manchester brunch spot triangle Deansgate
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Manchester is absolutely bursting at the seams with brilliant brunch spots, and don’t even get just started on trying to pick from all 10 boroughs as a whole, it’s impossible.

However, over the past year or so, we suddenly realised that somewhat of a city centre trio of brunch spots serving unreal breakfasts, midday delights and early afternoon scran has emerged.

A new Manc brunch triangle, if you will.

While some have been there longer than others, all three of these places within aren’t just within spitting distance of each other but are enjoying a real wave of success at the moment – and it’s no surprise why: they’re all utterly incredible.

Three brilliant city centre brunch spots for you to try

1. Bruncho

First up on the list is the aptly named Bruncho, which opened just last summer, and despite announcing itself to the Manchester hospitality scene rather quietly at the time, it’s starting to pick up some serious pace now.

Specialising in unreal breakfasts and Mediterranean exports like menemen, Turkish eggs, their own spins of spicy favourite shakshuka, as well as plenty of dessert-forward plates with colour palettes as full as the plates themselves.

It goes without saying that you can obviously get a proper good ‘Bruncho Full English‘, but we’d encourage you to branch out and, who knows, maybe have a brekkie that features ice cream? In fact, it’s sentences like that which make it our Thomas’ favourite way to start the day – albeit ideally a lie-in.

2. Alex’s Bakery

Now, another very strong candidate which has been around on the Manc brunch scene much longer than the other two on this list is local success story, Alex’s Bakery, though we’ll admit we’d mainly visited this place for the unreal brownies, cupcakes and other assorted sweet treats until recently.

However, in addition to the popularity of their lunch deal (a panini, cupcake and drink), they’ve really stepped up their wider brunch offerings of late, going from what was once just a Manchester Artisan Market back in 2014 to branching out into everything good you can put on toast and tonnes more.

It may not garner the often ridiculously long queues of other places, but that’s because this place has a steady flow of regulars all week long who’ve steadily fallen in love with it over many years. They’re tres leches cakes alone are well worth the visit.

3. Acai And The Tribe

Last but not least, the acai craze is undoubtedly one of the biggest foodie trends around right now, as proven by the lines that gather outside this Great Northern venue at least once virtually every weekend – but Acai And The Tribe has actually been on the hype for ages.

That being said, after moving from Arndale Market to Deansgate Mews back in 2022 and now along the main strip in recent months, their popularity has skyrocketed. If you’re looking for a health brunch open packed with vibrance, vitamins and plenty of other very nice toppings, this is the one for you.

We’ll warn you, finding the right window to visit is essentially if you don’t want to wait around for ages these days, but both Clem and Daphne still greatly approve, so it’s it gets the seal of approval from us.

So, while we could recommend you a whole load of fantastic places in around Manchester city centre, we’ve been particularly charmed by this mini Manc brunch triangle around Deansgate.

Best of all, it’s just always great to see local businesses thriving, isn’t it? Especially when it comes to people lining the streets and sending it viral just for a chance to taste their offerings.

Modern breakfast and brunch are things that can be either perfect in their simplicity or surprising in their creativity; either way, we’re glad there are plenty of examples of that here in Manchester.

Trust us, we take this stuff very seriously…

The top 25 places for the best breakfast and brunch in Manchester

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Featured Images — The Manc Group

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