Over in Sale’s newly redeveloped Stanley Square, you’ll find an Indian fusion restaurant serving up Scottish ingredients in some decidedly un-Scottish ways.
We’re talking haggis pakoras, Irn Bru negronis, wee puris and seven spice Scotch eggs – all served street food style in traditional metal tiffin boxes.
Opened by Ryan Singh, who hails from Edinburgh, Roti combines the best bits of his Scottish and Indian heritage by putting a spicy twist on some of Scotland’s most sacred foodstuffs.
Think deep-fried Mars bars, ‘chip butties’ in authentic rotis stuffed with curried aloo and chickpeas in aromatic pickle, and an aromatic take on mince and tatties made by combining Roti spiced pork and chole potatoes.
Irn Bru Negronis put a Scottish twist on the Negroni Sbagliato. / Image: The Manc Eats
Deep-fried Mars bars feature on the menu. / Image: The Manc Eats
Elsewhere, you’ll find a decidedly fresh spin on fish and chips combining fresh Panga fish in roti gram flour batter with fluffy masala potatoes on a bed of curried ‘mushy peas’ chickpeas, and a massive Highlander burger topped with a crunchy puri ball.
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Haggis – a Scottish delicacy traditionally served on Burns night – features heavily on the menu here too.
A savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (a mix of minced heart, liver and lungs) with oatmeal, onion, spices, suet, salt and stock, it’s typically served alongside neeps (better known as parsnips) on special occassions.
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Down at Roti, though, it takes some decidedly different forms: shaped into burger patties and topped with coleslaw and apple chutney, or lightly coated in a spiced gram flour and fried into pakoras.
Haggis pakoras at Roti in Sale. / Image: The Manc Eats
Seven spiced Scotch eggs and The Highlander haggis burger at Roti in Sale. / Image: The Manc Eats
Roti first opened on Chorlton’s Barlow Moor Road in 2019, but within a few months found itself forced to close its doors and switch to takeaway only as the country went into lockdown.
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After building up a loyal following of takeaway customers, the restaurant – described as ‘not your average Indian joint’ – was inspired to expand and owners moved into the newly refurbished Sale shopping precinct in 2021.
Sadly, they closed the original restaurant earlier this month but you can still find all their brilliant dishes over in Sale alongside hospitality heavy hitters like Rudy’s, Greens and Sugo Pasta Kitchen.
A fancy new pizzeria has opened in Manchester serving posh pizzas and seasonal sharing plates
Clementine Hall
If you’ve ever wanted a pizza with smoked eel on, then you’re in luck.
Introducing Proloco, the brand spanking new restaurant from chef Richard Carver, founder of Honest Crust Sourdough Pizza, and Dan Hope, co-founder of Manchester club Rainy Heart.
Located in One Port Street over in Ancoats, this isn’t your bog standard pizzeria – this is lavish.
Here you’ll find a weekly rotating selection of 18-inch pizzas and sharing plates all made with the very best local produce imaginable.
Forget your bog standard pepperoni slice, on the menu here you’ll find a porchetta pizza with shishito peppers and Cornish kern, a charred greens pizza with sugar snap peas and anchovies, and our personal favourite – a smoked eel pie with lemon basil and pine nuts.
There’s also a tomato butter pie, which features slithers of butter in place of your usual mozzarella.
And if you just can’t decide, you can have your pizza as a half-and-half of flavours.
Sharing plates include tomatoes with lardo, roasted beetroot and a crispy egg with mortadella and fennel.
A half-and-half pizzaBeautiful interiors of ProlocoThe butter pie pizzaSmall plates, wine, and £7 negroniProloco opens on Great Ancoats Street in AugustScoops of homemade gelatoProloco’s open kitchenThe eel pizza at Proloco
A real selling point, though, is the £7 negroni alongside a selection of honest wine and carefully chosen beer from local suppliers as well as an aperitivo list.
The interior is simple, but beautiful – a colour palette of butter yellow, blue, and huge burgundy speakers to match the chairs that invite you to sit at long banquet-worthy tables or in front of the many windows.
Richard will be calling on his longstanding relationships with producers across the North West (and beyond) for his ingredients, from flour grown and milled in the Lake District, vegetables from Cinderwood Market Garden and Organic North, artisanal charcuterie and cheeses from Somerset, and the best tomatoes and oil from Italy.
He said: “Proloco is about cooking food I genuinely love with the best people and produce around me.
“I want it to feel effortless – warm, a little bit fun, and always worth coming back to.”
Proloco will officially open its doors on Great Ancoats Street on Wednesday 26 August.
Team behind award-winning cocktail bar Stray to open second Manchester bar
Daisy Jackson
The team behind Manchester’s award-winning cocktail bar Stray have announced a second bar is on the way.
Bar Dos will be an all-new neighbourhood bar, promising to be the ‘tearaway younger sibling’ of Stray.
You can expect everything from pints of Stella to refined cocktails, plus DJs all weekend long.
Set to open very soon, with a September launch pencilled into our diaries already, Bar Dos will be joining a couple of other big names in a new building on Great Ancoats Street.
They’ll count Proloco and Osma as neighbours once all three ventures are up and running this year.
Stray first opened at Mackie Mayor back in 2023, and shot into the UK’s Top 50 Cocktail Bars just over a year later.
Bar Dos will open in Manchester in SeptemberBar Dos is the second site for Stray
There, it occupies a beautiful corner unit with huge windows, and an outside terrace, perfect for sipping on their best-selling cocktails like their tomato vine margarita and their Fanta Limon (a boozy version of everyone’s favourite balcony tipple).
Now ready to launch a second site, the team will soon open Bar Dos, which will be a late-night, music-focused neighbourhood bar.
DJs already announced, along with renowned artists who have curated playlists, include Space Afrika, Chunky, Private Joy, Konnie Kon of Children of Zeus, and Stray residents Rhod Parry and Stu Richards.
Bar Dos will open on Great Ancoats Street this September.
Georgina Pellant -
25th January 2023 
