Stockport’s famous Pyramid building will be transformed into a huge curry house buffet and banquet hall, it has been revealed.
The iconic structure has loomed over the M60 ever since its construction, but for more than five years has stood empty.
Originally built as part of a ‘Valley of Kings’ project that would’ve seen five pyramids built along the River Mersey in a nod to ancient Egypt, today it stands alone after developers went into bankruptcy.
The Co-op, which had paid for its construction, used it as a call centre base from 1995- 2018, but it has stood empty ever since the company relocated to NOMA in Manchester city centre.
Now, the unusual glass structure looks set for a new lease of life as the owners of one of South Manchester’s most popular curry houses reveals he is in talks with owners about taking the pyramid on.
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Image: Royal Nawaab
Image: Royal Nawaab
The owner of Royal Nawaab, an award-winning restaurant chain with roots in Levenshulme, has said that he is currently in talks with owners about the move.
Mahboob Hussain, one of the owners of Nawaab – which now has two sites in London, having recently closed its original 2003 restaurant on Stockport Road – revealed that talks about a takeover at the Pyramid are at an ‘advanced stage’.
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The famous all-you-can-eat Royal Nawaab buffet originally opened inside an old cinema on Stockport Road 20 years ago, but closed its doors in January after being taken over by Indian restaurant Merzee.
Image: Royal Nawaab
Image: Royal Nawaab
Its owners Tariq Mahmood Malik and Mahboob Hussain Junior reportedly parted ways in 2021 after a fallout, leading to a protracted court battle that saw 50 percent of the company go on sale despite the business being “very profitable”.
This led to the takeover of the original Stockport site and its social media channels by Indian restaurant Merzee.
Hussain has now told the Manchester Evening News that his company wants the iconic structure as the Royal Nawaab’s ‘next home in the North West.’
Featured image – Geograph
Eats
New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’
Daisy Jackson
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Daisy Jackson
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.
Georgina Pellant -
10th July 2023 
