Manchester’s massive street food venue Hatch has been given a dose of 80s nostalgia in time for Christmas, with traders launching a whole raft of festive specials.
The huge Oxford Road hub of street food and independent retail has been kitted out with fluorescent lights and disco baubles for the festive season.
Hatch has said it wants to ‘transport customers back to a different era when iPhones and ‘furlough’ were yet to enter our mainstream vocabulary’, which sounds good to us.
As well as retro events, there’ll be festive food and drink from its many traders to dig into too.
Pigs in blanket parmos from Parmogeddon at Hatch. Credit: Jody Hartley
Seasonal specials will include a pigs in blanket parmo from Parmogeddon, topping a classic chicken parmo with pigs in blankets and deep-fried stuffing.
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The duo will also put their spin on the Christmas sandwich, with bacon, melted brie and cranberry sauce loaded onto a parmo and served in a toasted brioche bun.
Vegan street food legends Herbivorous have created plant-based festive alternatives like a sage and onion seitan roast served in brioche bun with braised cabbage and red onion gravy, and a ‘turkey’ and stuffing burger.
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Grandad’s Sausages will be on hand with their take on traditional German bratwursts, while Biscuit and Brew have created festive cookie dough pies with spiced ice creams.
Festive desserts from Biscuit & Brew. Credit: Jody Hartley
Then Sicilian street food experts T’arricrii have created a menu of specialty arancinos with fillings like bolognese sauce and ham and cheese.
There are – naturally – plenty of winter tipples to work your way through at Hatch too, like Kir Royales (made with O’Donnell’s berry moonshine and prosecco), Christmas Manhattans, and Clementine Cosmopolitans.
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Hatch bar Miami Ice have created festive espresso martinis – expect flavours like Black Forest, gingerbread, Terry’s Chocolate Orange and Biscoff.
A Biscoff espresso martini. Credit: Jody Hartley
Hatch has also opened its own hot drinks bar, which will serve mulled wines, hot cider and hot buttered rums, which can be grabbed from the Oxford Road entrance for takeaway too.
Craft beer bar ÖL, one of Hatch’s very first traders, will be supplying a number of Christmas themed beers.
The festive specials are all available now right through until the end of the year.
Events over the festive season will include Christmas Carols, 80s discos, and live music.
Live your Come Dine With Me dreams with this all-new dining concept
Thomas Melia
Across the world, one app has been uniting strangers in 235 cities, matching six lucky diners for an evening meal at a surprise restaurant table and now Manchester is the latest city to open its taste buds to this pseudo-Come Dine With Me concept. Only this one involves less cooking.
Guests are expected to partake in an evening of food, booze and plenty of interesting conversations between six total strangers, only with hopefully less drama than the hit Channel 4 show. Strictly no Jane’s spoiling anything…
The concept is being pushed by French entrepreneur Maxime Barbier and his company ‘TimeLeft’. He has a lengthy career in the nightlife industry behind him and now wants to further strengthen good food and good times via this app.
And it’s clearly working: according to the company’s official website, 96% of dining groups consider themselves compatible meaning their carefully selected pairings are pretty accurate.
All curious diners have to do is download Timeleft and take a personality test before they’re whisked away for a night of entertainment and lush catering picked out by the pioneering new app.
Fear not, there will be a ‘Break the ice’ game where you can get to know the like-minded and compatible strangers you’re spending the rest of the evening with.
Once the table fills up and the evening is well away, everyone round the table will receive a notification to continue the night at a nearby bar chosen once again by this new dining concept app.
This new mealtime experience is a really good way of making connections, especially for newcomers to the city who are looking to expand their friendship group and navigate Manchester with some similar fresh-faced companions. There’s crucially much less cooking involved too, by which we mean none.
Throughout their website, the company shares a range of blogs breaking down everything from ‘6 tips for smoothing over a heated conversation’ to ‘the ultimate guide to Timeleft’.
In a standout piece entitled, ‘The 10 types of strangers at your table‘, they discuss the different types of personalities that you may come across during your meal.
From the simpler and recognisable labels like the introvert and extrovert to the more complex like the contemplative and the humourist, these little excerpts are handy to anyone who may have any nerves ahead of the meeting.
So, anyone located in Greater Manchester who might be interested in this new dining concept can participate by downloading the TimeLeft app and seeing where the night takes them.
You might not go home with £1,000 in cash but you’ll certainly create some memories and come pretty close to living out your Come Dine With Me fantasy – there really is an app for everything.
The stalls causing massive queues at the Manchester Christmas Markets
Daisy Jackson
If you looked at our comment sections during the Manchester Christmas Markets you’d assume everyone hates them – but one look at the queues forming again this year proves that is FAR from the case.
The annual festive event is back with a vengeance for another year, with wooden sheds and pop-up bars all over the place.
Whether you’re after a traditional mulled wine and bratwurst, or a loaded mac and cheese and shimmery cocktail, you’ll find it.
And while the Manchester Christmas Markets always get busy, especially at the weekends, this year is looking especially lively.
Videos shared online show huge queues of gridlocked people on Market Street, in Piccadilly Gardens and on King Street.
The cause of one of the biggest queues is again The Flat Baker – the Ancoats indie debuted at the markets last year with huge croissants served with pots of dipping sauce including pistachio and dulce de leche.
For 2024 they’ve introduced hot chocolates served in an edible cookie cup.
It went viral last year, it’s gone viral again this year, and the queues have gone so wild there’s now actual fences, Disney-style, specifically to manage The Flat Baker crowds.
These wind all the way from their stall in Piccadilly Gardens to the outside of the markets, travelling along the Piccadilly Wall.
And while getting your hands on a Flat Baker croissant requires some grit and determination, it’s not the only spot where you’ll be facing a wait.
Molten dark, milk and even golden chocolate can be bought here in an edible chocolate cup, poured over brownies and strawberries, or used as a base for hot chocolates and affogatos.
The Flat Baker are at The Winter Gardens in Manchester Christmas Markets and causing big queuesWaffle Kart are back at the Manchester Christmas Markets 2024
The team here move fast but if you go at peak times you’ll still be looking at a queue.
Down on the King Street section of the Manchester Christmas Markets you’ll find Waffle Kart, a brilliant little business serving fun family recipes inspired by Hong Kong street food.
Expect fried chicken and waffles, waffle prawn toast and loaded waffle fries – and a bit of a queue that’s worth the wait.
And finally, the biggest queue of the lot is just Market Street in general.
This is Manchester’s main shopping street so ahead of Christmas it’s always busy, but now that there are stalls all the way down it luring shoppers in, it’s totally gridlocked.
Daisy Jackson -
23rd November 2021 
