It’s another great week for eating and drinking in Manchester, and boy have we got some tasty newcomers for you to check out this week.
From doner kebabs created by a Michelin star chef to a bottomless BBQ brunch at Manchester’s cricket-themed restaurant Sixes, plus a new Sunday menu from MFDF’s restaurant of the year winner Baratxuri an entire street of Thai street food at the Trafford centre you’re absolutely spoilt for choice.
Berlin street-style kebabs from a Michelin star chef
Michelin starred Brummy chef Brad Carter, behind restaurant Carters of Moseley, launched his kebab shop in lockdown – taking meat from his existing suppliers and repurposing them into fancy doners.
inspired by an amazing Berlin chip shop kebab he queued for four hours to get in minus twelve temperatures, he started making a different one every week – using his high-end cheffing skills to develop some of the fanciest doners going
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Now he’s opened a proper shop here in Manchester at Escape to Freight Island – bringing some top-shelf doner tackle to the city (think squid doner, made by taking squid and pork fat and emulsifying them on the spide to pave off squid sausage meat).
Find it at Escape to Freight Island, 11 Baring St, Manchester M1 2PZ.
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Image: The Manc Eats
A basque-style Sunday lunch at Baratxuri
Baratxuri is the place to be this month after winning two of the top gongs at this year’s Manchester Food and Drink Festival. Since taking home awards for Chef of the Year and Restaurant of the Year, the bookings have flooded in.
Whilst the Ramsbottom restaurant is, by all accounts, a complete joy to visit if you don’t fancy trekking that far out of town you can also enjoy Baratxuri’s food at Escape to Freight Island. Even better, the team there has released a new Basque-style Sunday lunch menu priced at just £21 for two courses.
Think wood-fired cuts of suckling lamb, beef cheek and whole-grilled sardines, plus smoked beetroot braised figs with blue cheese and a gorgeously spicy cauliflower bravas, finished off with a choice of Basque-style rum and orange syrup-topped trifle or orange and almond torta.
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Find it at The Ticket Hall inside Escape to Freight Island, 11 Baring St, Manchester M1 2PZ.
Image: Sixes
A British bottomless BBQ brunch (with optional cricket)
Manchester’s cricket-themed restaurant Sixes, housed inside the Corn Exchange, has launched a new bottomless brunch menu with a selection of dishes inspired by classic English BBQs.
Think mac and cheese croquettes, and beef short rib on bone marrow toast, burgers, steaks and sweet potato ‘from the ashes.’Drinks choices, meanwhile, include 90 minutes of unlimited prosecco and cocktails like ‘girl next door’ and ‘garden variety’ for £35, or you can opt for a champagne upgrade for an additional £5.
If you want to make a proper afternoon of it, you can play a game of cricket or two whilst you’re here too. Off-peak prices start from £20 for thirty minutes for up to three people.
Find it at The Corn Exchange in the former Alston Bar & Beef unit on Cathedral St, Manchester M4 3TR.
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Image: Thaikhun
A first-of-its-kind Thai street food buffet
In what owners say is a first-of-its-kind opening, the team behind Thaikhun has launched a buffet restaurant dedicated to popular Thai street food dishes.
Mains on offer will differ every day, but customers can expect to find classics like pad thai, massaman, and khao soi gai soup here – with owner Kim Kaewkraikhot promising every dish is one you’d really find on a Thai street food stall.
With loads of savoury favourites and its own fully-equipped dessert station boasting a chocolate fountain, popcorn machine, slushy machine, and ice cream machine, the Thaikhun Street restaurant makes an impressive new addition to the Trafford Centre.
Find it at The Trafford Centre, open seven days a week.
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Neil Young pulls out of ‘corporate controlled’ Glastonbury Festival
Danny Jones
Music icon Neil Young has pulled out of Glastonbury Festival 2025 after claiming it has lost its identity and is now under “corporate” control.
The 79-year-old singer-songwriter, widely considered one of the greatest and most influential to have ever lived, was due to play the festival as one of the legends named on this year’s lineup.
However, despite lots of excitement around the veteran being given the nod over others from what has largely been seen as a pop-leaning pool (at least according to the detractors) in recent years, Young has now decided to drop out of the festival.
Neil Young’s latest ‘NYA Times Contrarian’ post explains the decision to drop out of Glastonbury.Neil Young in 2023 Credit: Screenshot (via Neil Young website)/Per Ole Hagen (via Flickr)
“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favourite outdoor gigs”, it reads. “We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in.”
For context, the BBC has been partnered with Glasto since way back in 1997 and Neil Young has already headlined the festival back in 2009, so this shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise.
“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being. Thanks for coming to us the last time!”, he continues. “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.”
The message concludes with him hoping to catch fans at other venues and a simple “LOVE Neil – Be well”, but the tenor of the somewhat abrupt update is that the ever-opinionated and long-celebrated protest song-writer clearly believes the BBC‘s influence over the festival has now grown too strong.
Known not only as ‘Shakey’ and the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ but as one of the pioneering anti-establishment figures of a generation, the Canadian was previously in the headlines for demanding Spotify remove his music after taking issue with Joe Rogan’s anti-vax messaging on his show.
All that to say, the solo artist co-founding member of supergroup, Buffalo Springfield, is no stranger to taking on big business and companies if he feels he has good reason. Meanwhile, Rod Stewart will be performing in the coveted ‘Legends’ headliner slot at teatime on Sunday, 29 June.
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts are looking set for a European tour this summer but if he’s taking on corporations and concerts under umbrella control, it seems unlikely we’ll see him at too many festivals or the likes of Co-op Live.
The better question is: do you agree – has Glastonbury Festival become too corporate and sanitised, or do you think it still upholds the same core values it had when it first popped up on Worthy Farm in 1970?
Featured Images — Ross Belot (via Flickr)/The Manc Group
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Andy Burnham urges Greater Manchester residents to ‘switch to the Bee Network’ in 2025
Emily Sergeant
Andy Burnham is urging Greater Manchester residents to ‘switch to the Bee Network’ in 2025.
With the new year now here, the Greater Manchester Mayor has reflected back on the past 12 months, and has set some goals and intentions for 2025 – which he expects to be a “busy” year full of change and historic milestones for the region.
2025 is, of course, set to start off strong, beginning with the introduction of Bee Network buses to the southern part of Greater Manchester from 5 January.
“Four decades of deregulation will be over,” Mr Burnham declared. “We will finally be back in charge of our entire bus network.”
One week today, GM will make the biggest change yet to our buses – completing re-regulation on time and on budget.
This flurry of delivery should set the tone for the rest of 2025.
The Mayor says that completing this first phase “on time and on budget” is a “huge achievement” for the region, and he hopes this means that 2025 can “begin on a much-needed optimistic note” – adding that in an era where it has felt like “most things are broken or going backwards”, Greater Manchester transport has “bucked the trend”.
He called the Bee Network “the most visible piece of successful public service delivery in recent times”, and said its popularity “proves things can indeed be fixed, moved forward, and made to work better.”
While he conceded that there is likely to be “a bumpy few days” next week until things settle down, Mr Burnham insists he is “confident” that passengers using Bee Network services in the southern half of the region “will soon see a difference”.
This is why he is urging everyone to make full use of it and “leave the car at home”.
Andy Burnham urges Greater Manchester residents to ‘switch to the Bee Network’ in 2025 / Credit: TfGM
Addressing Greater Manchester residents directly as the new year begins, Andy Burnham said: “I hope to ask you to make a New Year’s resolution – switch to the Bee Network in 2025 and to leave the car at home.
“The more that people do this, the longer we will be able to keep our £2 cap in place, hold fares as low as possible, and make the whole transport system flow better for everyone.
“For many years now, Greater Manchester has been growing faster than the UK economy, and our skyline tells the story of that change. But, as with any global city of our stature, congestion is a constant challenge and public transport has to become the priority way of getting around.”
Looking ahead to the highly-anticipated introduction of the London-style transport system in March, Mr Burnham continued: “If people are to buy into [using the Bee Network over a car], I know we have to work even harder to make it feel safer, more reliable and convenient to use. So, on 23 March, Greater Manchester will bring in a London-style tap-in, tap-out payment system, across trams and buses, with a daily cap on what people can spend.
“I hope this flurry of delivery sets a good tone for the rest of 2025.”
Mr Burnham says Greater Manchester is going into the new year “with a spring in our step and a can-do spirit” that he hopes becomes “infectious” to the rest of the UK.
“If the local control achieved with our buses starts to bring similar benefits to housing and skills, then perhaps the country can draw a line under these dysfunctional recent times and start to look to the future with more confidence and optimism,” he concluded.
Georgina Pellant -
5th October 2021 
