Eats

Skof, Manchester’s most hotly-anticipated restaurant, confirms opening date and menu prices

It's opening so soon.

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 23rd April 2024

A restaurant with a serious Michelin pedigree is set to open in Manchester very soon, as chef Tom Barnes readies to launch Skof and gives a glimpse into its menu.

Tom’s impressive CV includes time spent at L’Enclume, the three-Michelin star Lake District restaurant widely considered one of the best in the world, and he’ll bring that same farm-to-table ethos to the city centre with his debut restaurant.

Skof will be taking over a historic building in the NOMA neighbourhood, right by Manchester Victoria, with an official opening date now locked in.

Skof is set to launch on Wednesday 29 May, with bookings going live today and tables available all the way through to 14 September (and likely to fill up fast).

Tom Barnes has also teased what’s to come on his menu, with two different tasting menus available.

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Skof will have a 12-course tasting menu priced at £120, and a 15-course menu for £165 – plus a £50, four-course lunch offering.

The restaurant will be owned and operated by Tom but falls under Simon Rogan’s UMBEL Restaurants group, and he’ll be weaving in new suppliers as well as using daily deliveries of produce grown specifically for him from Simon Rogan’s Our Farm in the Cartmel Valley.

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He’ll be using small-scale suppliers such as Cinderwood Market Garden in Nantwich and Lake District Farmers to fill his exciting menu of home-grown dishes.

The first set of menus will include dishes like roasted Sladesdown duck, peach leaf, Ibis celeriac, and wholemeal bread; Berkswell cheese sable biscuit, crushed broad beans, whipped roe, and bronze fennel; and a lightly set custard, served with Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms, truffle, and mushroom dashi.

Tom Barnes with the team outside Skof, a new restaurant opening in Manchester in May which has confirmed its launch date and menu prices. Credit: Supplied
Tom Barnes with the team outside Skof, a new restaurant opening in Manchester in May which has confirmed its launch date and menu prices. Credit: Supplied

There’ll be a lot of thought that goes in to the drinks pairings too, working with restaurant manager Sean Oakford and assistant restaurant manager Max Lawrence (both ex-L’Enclume), on a range of drinks options to include alcohol-free or mixed-alcohol pairings, or matching wines to go with the menu.

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Tom has also collaborated with Manchester brewery, Track to create Sidney, a light and refreshing beer intended as an alternative to kick off the meal.

Tom Barnes said: “It’s been a long time coming, so I’m excited to be able to finally release our reservations. I can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on and to return some of the incredible hospitality I’ve received from the people of Manchester.

“With Skof, my purpose is to create an incredible experience that focuses on great quality ingredients but above all, puts a smile on peoples faces.”

Skof will open in Manchester’s NOMA district on Wednesday 29 May.

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Featured image: Supplied

Eats

New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson New Manchester restaurant Pip receives rave review as another is slammed as 'torture'

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.”

You can read his full review HERE.

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Featured image: The Manc Group

Eats

Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson Ice cream at Milk Maids in Bolton, Greater Manchester

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
Milk Maids, Bolton - The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Milk Maids, Bolton - The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
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. 

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Featured image: The Manc Group

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