Three years on from its opening under the Grade-II listed railway archways in central Manchester, Manchester Gin’s bar and restaurant is very much settling into its surroundings.
As sleek and stylish as ever, it has recently introduced a new signature cocktail menu – the third in as many years – celebrating the processes behind its spirit-making operation next door at The Spirit of Manchester Distillery with a 16-strong drinks list.
No longer content with just making gin, the team has branched out to explore the worlds of rum, vodka, vermouth and even absinthe – the famous ‘naughty water’ beloved by artists like Picasso, Gaudi, Hemingway and Dali.
Image: The Manc Eats
Its new Bar & Drinks Development Manager, Daniel Clarke, has put together a new menu ‘Ground to Glass’ to showcase all of these new creations, whilst in the kitchen Head Chef Karl Kivell is busy crafting fresh, flavourful small plates – all thoughtfully developed to complement the cocktails on offer.
From a hearty Italian-inspired sausage roll served with mustard-yellow apple ketchup to beef skirt marinated in the house-made spiced One-Eyed Rebel Rum, Karl had certainly had some fun with the food menu.
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Whipped cheese with radishes, beer-battered fish with shoestring fries and curry sauce and prawns in a rich and spicy tomato ‘nduja sauce all make for pleasant table-fillers as you tuck into the impressive cocktails.
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
Image: The Manc Eats
Elsewhere, an anchovy and heirloom tomato salad is prepared with Manchester Gin Wild Spirit, whilst on the dessert menu sweet tooths will find a Manchester Raspberry Infused Millefeuille, giving another boozy hit to the food menu here.
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As for the drinks, hero cocktails include ‘For Miso Sake’, an Asian-inspired cocktail featuring Manchester Gin Wild Spirit, red pepper, plum saké, jasmine and miso, served in a glass inside a traditional Japanese Masu Box, and the striking ‘Under Pressure’, a smoky delight with Manchester Gin Raspberry Infused, watermelon infused Aperol, mint, lime distillate and apple, topped with a show-stopping bubble made from citrus.
Having recently won the Team of the Year at the Top 50 Cocktail Bar Awards, the venue is “really pushing” themselves, says Jen Wiggins, owner at Three Little Words and co-founder of The Spirit of Manchester Distillery.
The ‘For Miso Sake’ cocktail is a new addition at Three Little Words. / Image: Three Little Words
“In this menu, we wanted to hone in on the countless fascinating processes that take place to turn grains and plants into the spirits and drinks that we all love. Every day in our distillery we work with these processes from distilling, extracting, infusing and macerating.
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“We’ve taken 16 of these processes and harnessed them to inspire the cocktails and some of their ingredients on this menu, but it’s not style over substance – we’ve ensured that each cocktail has a place on the menu.
“In addition to our new cocktail menu, our new food menu perfectly pairs up with our enticing drinks offering, with several dishes incorporating our very own inhouse tipples into the recipe – making the menus a true match made in heaven.”
To see the full menu and book a table, visit the Three Little Words website here.
Feature image – Three Little Words
Feature
The Scottish-Indian restaurant selling haggis pakoras and deep-fried Mars bars
Georgina Pellant
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.
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.
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.
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.
The 1975 ‘At Their Very Best’ in Manchester — they certainly were
Danny Jones
On Friday, The 1975 rocked their way back up to Manchester for the homecoming gig of their ‘At Their Very Best’ tour at the AO Arena and ‘my, my, my’ did they live up to the title of the show.
Returning for the first time since 2020, the band from Wilmslow were clearly committed to putting on a memorable show for the city they grew up in and which essentially put them on the map, with Matty Healy openly admitting: “I don’t need to tell you how big this gig for us”.
It certainly felt pretty momentous for the 20,000 or so of us watching.
The calm before the storm
While a mix of ambient and classic music played before they took the stage and opener Bonnie Kemplay delighted both her die-hards and won over plenty of new ears with her soft and soothing tones, it all felt like a calm before the storm as we knew the level of performance and pageantry that was in store.
We couldn’t have been more right, as despite having fallen ill overnight and being hopped up on Lemsip — he literally spent the first few songs sipping on a cold and flu drink — you couldn’t tell, as Healy’s energy levels looked just as electric as in the now-famed London show, if not even more so.
Not only did he grow into the gig as it went on, as typified by various costume changes (mostly just taking off his shirt), the trademark shaky knees dancing, swapping Lemsip for wine and cigs, as well as his general David Bryne-like eccentricities, but the whole show felt more like an ensemble performance.
From the way his various bandmates were introduced with opening credits as they walked through the various doors on the stage and fans screamed as each of their favourites switched on a light around the beautifully set design, to how they all gathered around the mics to nail the harmonies — it felt like everyone had their moment. And there were quite a few, to say the least…
Chucking on special guests, chewing raw meat and climbing through a TV
With fans having already seen footage of them bringing out Taylor Swift on the first night in the capital, those watching The 1975 ‘At Their Very Best’ in Manchester were understandably excited to see who might appear through the door towards the back of the stage. Oh, just Charli XCX, as you do.
Honestly, the noise that echoed around the AO Arena when she appeared was deafening and though perhaps not everyone in there would usually find themselves listening to her music, even with The 1975‘s own obvious and expertly attuned pop sensibilities, her energy was unparalleled and the crowd lapped it up.
It was a similar story when Carly Holt was brought on for ‘About You’ and they played old cult-favourite ‘Menswear’ from their self-titled debut album.
That being said, it was nothing compared to the slightly maniacal crescendo that closed out of the opening half of the show before she stepped out, as Matty punctuated the songs from Being Funny in a Foreign Language and the more easy-going tracks with a typically meta albeit bizarre interlude.
The frenetic frontman has always been self-referential but he was at self-indulgent best on Friday, as in one fell swoop he went from unbuttoning his shirt and sensually caressing his body whilst smoking on stage, to getting on his knees, eating a raw piece of steak and doing a bunch of press-ups. At one point you could literally see him mouth, “what the f*** am I doing!?”
We have absolutely no idea, Matty. We thought it was surreal enough when he started eating a sausage roll after a fan chucked it on stage, but that was nothing compared to him staring down a camera as he climbed through a TV and disappeared out the back of the set.
We assumed it had some kind of consumerist, fourth-wall-breaking message about being sucked in by media and whatnot, but who knows? It could just be the ever-artsy musician having a bit of mind-bending fun; it gave us trippy Trainspotting vibes and was unlike any other live gig we’d ever seen.
Credit: The Manc
Doing what they do best: putting on a proper show
With the new album and the majority of surprises behind them, the band then kicked things into fifth gear and started playing countless bangers throughout their now more than decade-long studio discography as they steamed towards the final act of their 25-track epic.
Part of the reason this latest record has gone down so well with fans new and old is that it’s much more succinct and simpler than the previous two; back to basics sounds reductive but it was about stripping away a lot of the frills and just writing good songs — the second half of the show very much embodied that ethos.
Matty’s often unhinged, ‘dancing with abandon’ and intoxicated persona on stage is never going to go anywhere, but it didn’t look like he needed anything other than the audience to fuel the performance. They fed off him and he fed off them, as was perfectly epitomised when they dropped ‘The Sound’.
Closing the door and looking towards a new chapter
More poignantly, after the now infamous antics earlier in the show that have now become part of the narrative for this tour, there wasn’t any more self-indulgence. There were no speeches about politics or art, kissing people on stage or sucking thumbs. There was simply no need for it.
There was only pure crowd-pleasing, Matty showing his appreciation for his bandmates and celebrating everything that the band is about at this moment in time, even if that is partly playing the hits and things like doing the ‘don’t like methols’ meme.
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I mean, he couldn’t not do it for us, could he?
Best lyric ever.
Last but not least, the set dressing was typically creative from The 1975’s production team as a whole and played a key role throughout, but it was until the end of the show that it hit home how important it was to the whole performance.
The doors dotted all over the stage weren’t just a nice nod to the iconic box logo that the band is known for. After it was illuminated and Matty passed through it for the final time, shutting it behind him and the credits once again rolling for the band, the metaphor hit you like a train: it signified the end of an era.
By walking through it on his way off the stage, it symbolised the band closing the door on the Music For Cars era that has encapsulated their last five albums and more than 21 years of their life as a band, with the last action of Matty going to turn the stage lights as if to ram home that final moment of closure.
Who knows what the next chapter will hold for The 1975? All we know is that we have loved the journey so far and you can sign us up for as many of those gigs as they’re willing to give us.
Georgina Pellant -
8th July 2022 
