Feature

The Royal Exchange used to be a Manchester Airport terminal

The Royal Exchange was home to a city centre air terminal once upon a time.

The Manc The Manc - 13th September 2021

Head down to The Royal Exchange arches on Cross Street today, and you’ll find yourself in the humble, heartwarming labyrinthine of hygge homeware.

The cosy Danish retail outlet Sostrene Grene sits peacefully at the entrance point – inviting passers-by to pop in and peruse shelves upon shelves of simple, elegant Scandi-style products.

By offering people a tranquil escape from the racket of the city around them, Sostrene Grene is in a rather fitting spot. After all, this section of The Royal Exchange has historically been associated with people ‘getting away’.

Back in the 1950s, this where you came to arrange trips to faraway lands.

It was, for a time, the Manchester Air Terminal.

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The old air terminal at The Royal Exchange where customers would check-in for their flights and board buses to the airport / Image: Manchester Libraries

The Manchester Air Terminal was moved from the corner of Oxford Street and Lower Mosley Street in the early fifties to The Royal Exchange – with the blue and silver buses parking up in St Ann’s Square.

Passengers were able to check in for their flights at the desks here and then board shuttle buses which would whisk patrons 10 miles south to Manchester Airport.

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Services were direct and didn’t stop anywhere else along the way – connecting with specific flights due to take off on that date.

These airport buses would also bear the names of the flight destination – meaning at the time you would see vehicles trundling around the city with ‘Madrid’, ‘Zurich’ or ‘New York’ splashed across the front displays.

According to Manchester Archives, the Air Terminal catered for passengers flying with multiple airlines – including BEA, BOAC, Air France, Swissair and Sabena.

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The Royal Exchange in 2021, of course, is a very different place – with the Air Terminal long since shut down and the iconic building now populated by retailers.

After being forced into hibernation for much of the year due to the pandemic, The Royal Exchange arcade has now fully reopened – filled with 40 outlets ranging from fashion stores to cafes.

For more information about the history and upcoming events at The Royal Exchange, visit the official website.

In celebration of the 100th birthday, The Royal Exchange is encouraging anyone who has any stories or pictures they’d like to share on social media to tag @royalexchangemanchester (Facebook and Instagram) or @TheRoyalExMcr (Twitter) and use the hashtag #ExchangeMemories.

Alternatively, people can email f[email protected] with #ExchangeMemories in the subject line.

Featured image: Manchester Airport

Feature

In celebration of Momo Shop: a Chorlton favourite that has flourished since its rebrand

Danny Jones Danny Jones Momo Shop Chorlton dumpling restaurant reviiew

It’s not often we go out of our way to hammer home just how staggering we found a restaurant, but after now losing track of the number of times that a member of our team has eaten at Momo Shop in Chorlton and come back near speechless, it deserves more than a review.

We regularly hold ourselves back and resist the urge to talk in superlatives wherever possible, especially because we worry we might be falling into the recency bias trap, but in this instance, we’re going to go out on a limb and fall on our hospitality sword. Well, this particular writer is…

It’s official: Momo Shop Nepali Street Food – for our money, anyway – is up there with one of THE best restaurants in Manchester right now.

And there are plenty of reasons why, not least of all because of the years of practice they have feeding increasingly discerning Manc diners under a different moniker.

little yeti rebranded
Simple but charming – all the focus is on the food
momo shop mcr
And the food speaks for itself
momo place chorlton
Some of the most flavourful fillings you’ll find in Manchester
best dumpling spots manchester
Busy any given night of the week
No review (Credit: The Manc Eats/Momo Shop via Instagram)

If you don’t live in/frequent Chorlton, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that this gaff was a somewhat new addition to Chorlton, but in actual fact it’s been gradually growing a loyal and passionate following for more than seven years.

This is because before the miniamlist rebrand that saw the walls stripped back, the exterior painted blue and cutesy little bits of artwork hung amidst that familiar and atmospheric festoon lighting, Momo Shop was once The Little Yeti.

Its former iteration boasted hundreds of glowing reviews in its own right, which already plated up plenty of stunning Nepalese food, but since switching primarily towards serving a menu primarily made up of momos (Tibetan-style fried dumplings hand-folded into various shapes) they’ve well and truly shone.

Now approaching a full 12 months under the new name, the Nepali street food spot isn’t just one of a relatviely small handful considering how much great South Asian food there is across Greater Manchester, we’d wager it could be the very best representing that Alpine-Himalayan belt in our region.

Our latest visit was genuinely just as good as our first, second, third and so on – take your pick.

From the simply incredible deep fried pork dumplings and the deeply moorish butter sauce that goes with literally any momo filling, to the super traditional buffalo ones that are not only authentic but, come on, where else can you find such a unique meat in these parts? It’s some of the best food we’ve eaten.

And we don’t just mean of late; Momo Shop might genuinely among of the nicest scran we’ve had in ages and it’s no exagerration to say that the first taste we enjoyed from many of these flavours have formed some of the strongest culinary memories we’ve created in quite a while.

It’s also worth nothing that it isn’t just one main snack-sized dish. The chow mein, keema noodles and cheesy chops are showstoppers themselves, and we’ve already booked in again for a 30th birthday celebration purely so we can try those lambs ribs and their take on a shashlick.

Nevertheless, we love the idea of the numerous configurations and concotions by pairing different dumplings and owner Niti Karki gave us some pro-tips of the best duos and even let us in on the trade secret of her go-to combo when she’s hungover. Legend.

Once again, at the risk of sounding too hyperbolic, odd moments have felt like core foodie memories on a par with our favourite all-time meals.

Personally, I’m glad to report that this isn’t just a review: consider this a declaration that Momo Shop has quickly become my favourite restaurant not just in Chorlton but in all of central Manchester, something I haven’t had since the heartbreaking closure of Cocktail Beer Ramen + Bun in 2023.

momo menu chorlton
Plenty of variety
dumpling drawings
Damn straight
Niti Karki Momo Shop
Niti = absolute icon
We’ll keep your condiment secret forever, Niti…

There might be an element of the almost HakkaPo-esque style drawings, the colour palette and the carefully curated pop-punk, old school emo and post-hardcore playlist that’s over half a decade in the making that makes particualrly partial to this place

But before we wrap up this glorified love letter parading as a ‘review’, we also want to give a special nod to the charming staff and Niti’s mum, specficially, who was too modest to even let us share her picture, but whose wealth of wisdom, influence and experience has clearly inspired Momo Shop’s success.

Don’t be shy, Sue – the only thing more stylish than the food was you, girl. Pop off.

Put simply, we’ll be going back here as regularly as possible until we try every different momo + sauce variation there is, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.

If you are in the mood for more dumpling excellence, by the way, you might want to check out the unassuming Northern Quarter gem that is Chef Diao.

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The modest and unassuming Chinese restaurant serving some of the best dim sum in town

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Featured Images — The Manc Group

Feature

Lady Gaga is a tour-de-force of talent at the Co-op Live Manchester

Clementine Hall Clementine Hall

Lady Gaga proves she’s a truly world-class act after two sold-out nights at the Co-op Live Manchester, as if we needed any reminding.

The city of Manchester has been flooded with harness-wearing, mesh-sporting little monsters over the past two days.

And that’s because the absolute icon that is Lady Gaga brought her ‘Mayhem Ball’ to the Co-op Live for two nights.

I don’t think you’ll find anyone who doesn’t know who this fabulous woman is. Over the past decade, she’s won an Oscar, headlined the Super Bowl, performed in blockbusters alongside Al Pacino, no less, and her songs are literally ingrained into our minds.

Credit: Audio North

It’s been a whole 11 years (yes, really) since she performed in Manchester, and it’s safe to say she was back with a bang.

The performance was split up into five distinct acts, and each one was as exhausting and exhilarating as the next.

She begins the show by bopping out of a comically huge red dress, but this staging was only the start of what madness was about to ensue.

Luckily, we’d been prepared by the other half of the Audio North team, who had the equal privilege of seeing her on night one and were left similarly speechless.

Throughout the 30-song epic, we had crutches, sand pits, cages, skeletons, enough wigs to produce an amateur production of Annie, and we didn’t question any of it. Why would we? It’s Lady Gaga.

Kicking things off with ‘Bloody Mary’, the two and a half hour marathon didn’t leave any stones unturned.

We had all the bangers, from ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Paparazzi’ to ‘Bad Romance’ and ‘Applause’, it had us wondering why any other superstar even bothers putting a song out these days.

Pop is in a good place at the moment with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish and so on, but you can make a strong case for Gaga having helped pave the way for every lady in the business ever since.

Credit: The Manc

Gaga truly had us in the palm of her hands (or claws at one point), even more so when she left the stage to de-robe and show her more vulnerable side for the last two songs – beanie firmly on.

It wasn’t just a concert: this was a fully-fledged tour de force of talent that Manchester won’t forget any time soon.

Sometimes there’s no point in intellectualising why someone has that ‘X-factor’; sometimes you just have to take a step back and say WOW.

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Featured Images — The Manc Group

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