House of Fu, the popular Yorkshire ramen restaurant with a huge following in Leeds, is making its way over to Manchester.
Eyeing up a new home on Portland Street, the restaurant has submitted plans with Manchester City Council to take over the former Leaf site.
Having first begun life as a street food pop-up, House of Fu has revealed it will bring its Toyko and LA-inspired Japanese dishes across the Pennines for the first time – just a year on from opening its first brick and mortar site in Leeds.
Brought to Manchester by the team behind Leeds’ Belgrave Music Hall, Headrow House and Ox Club, diners can look forward to a range of different umami-rich ramen and noodle dishes, as well as dumplings, small plates and sides when it opens its doors later this year.
As for drinks, think frozen yuzu margaritas, homemade kombucha and cans of session sake from Kampai, as well as.a solid sake and wine list and craft beers sourced from local breweries.
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Image: The Hoot Leeds
Fried cauliflower with gochujang hot sauce, house shichimi spice blend, sesame and QP vegan mayo. / Image: The Hoot
House of Fu’s pork gyoza are made freshly in the restaurant every day. / Image: The Hoot
From homemade gyoza to handmade noodles sourced right here in Manchester, there’s a lot to get excited about – all thanks to head chef Ben Iley, who spent nearly a decade at some of Japan’s finest restaurants before coming home to work on the House of Fu project.
With an impressive CV that includes Aquavit, The Tokyo American Club and Fujimamas, he landed in Leeds following nine and a half years Japan, only to be introduced to the Belgrave team ‘the very same day.’.
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From that initial introduction, it would take six years for the concept to fully come to fruition – first beginning life as award-winning street food pop-up Fu-Schnickens before ultimately becoming the ramen restaurant it is today, with Ben taking a short detour into live fire cooking as the Head Chef at Ox Club somewhere in the middle.
Original Fu ramen in a tonkatsu broth, and fried cauliflower. / Image: The Hoot Leeds
When House of Fu opened in Leeds last summer, he told The Hoot: “I first met these guys and we spoke about doing this in 2014.
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“The year that I was over in Japan, the guys behind this, Ben Davey included, who was working in Belgrave at the time, had a pop-up […] doing bao buns, chicken wings and that kind of thing, and that’s the year that they won best street food of the year or whatever it was, so they thought right, ok, we’ve got something here, let’s expand and look at building a restaurant, let’s do ramen […] and so they needed to find someone who could do ramen.
“Probably the day that I arrived back from Japan, a mutual friend between myself and Ash hooked us up and said ‘this guy’s just come back from Japan, these guys want to do ramen, like off you go!’ and I was like ‘wow, what an amazing opportunity.'”
In the summer of 2019, ahead of opening the first House of Fu site, Ben took the directors on a intense three-night dash through Tokyo – all eating and drinking their way in a blur across the city in the name of research.
Ramen choices range here from classic tonkatsu broths to miso chicken and mushroom options, and a special ‘green ramen’ made using a shitake dashi. Prices sit between £12 and £14 for ramen bowls, with diners given the option to add on ingredients to suit themselves from just £2 each.
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There are also rice bowls and ‘super bowls’ to choose from, as well as sides like kimchi, chilli crunch rice and a ‘sunshine salad’ with Japanese radish, mizuna, jalapeno and yuzu.
Having been incredibly well-received in their hometown, House of Fu is now branching out with a second site here in Manchester.
The new restaurant is tipped to open in early 2023, although an exact opening date is still yet to be confirmed.
Owners Simon Stevens and Ashley Kollakowski said of finding their ideal Manchester site at Bruntwood Works’ West Village Building: “Manchester is home to some of our favourite restaurants and shops and it’s been great getting to know the city a little more whilst looking for a home for House of Fu.There’s such an exciting food scene in Manchester and there seems to be more great openings announced every week, we’re really excited to be part of it!”
Feature image – The Hoot
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Manchester band Westside Cowboy release ‘thrilling’ debut album that critics are calling one of the year’s best
Emily Sergeant
One of the UK’s best rising bands have released their debut album today to glowing reviews from critics and fans alike.
Jimmy Bradbury, Reuben Haycocks, Aoife Anson O’Connell, and Paddy Murphy – better known together as Westside Cowboy – formed back in 2023 when they were students at the Royal Northern College of Music, so while they may not all be from Manchester, they definitely have the spirit of our city at the heart of everything they do.
After playing in different bands across the city throughout their student years, the four-piece joined forces to create Westside Cowboy – an indie rock collective credited with self-coining the genre of ‘Britainicana’.
Put simply, Britainicana is a cultural concept that mixes the hazy, mythic feel of American country and folk, with the sound of raw British punk, indie rock, and small-town life.
Westside Cowboy have released their debut album, It Goes On / Credit: Clementine Schniedermann (Press Shots – Supplied)
If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you’ll be pleased to know that Westside Cowboy have released their debut album, It Goes On, to the world today (21 August).
And the reception from critics, arguably, couldn’t be better.
Prior to the release of their debut album, the band had released two EPs, including So Much Country ‘Till We Get There in January earlier this year, and had started to make a name for themselves with their popular debut single ‘I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love (Until I Met You)’ in 2024.
They went onto make even further waves when they supported equally-rising American rock band Geese on their UK and Irish tour back in March – with many fans calling it one of the best support and main act combinations in some time.
Three singles from their debut album were shared with the world ahead of its release – ‘Kick Stones (The Boys)’ came first, followed by ‘Pin Up Boys’ and ‘Dobro’.
So, it’s fair to say the anticipation for album was high… and if the reviews are anything to go by (which we think they are), it looks like the band has very much delivered what they set out to achieve.
Westside Cowboy’s debut album It Goes On is now available to stream, or you can purchase a physical copy in a range of formats from their website here.
Take a listen👇
Featured Image – Press Shot (Supplied)
News
UK set to be battered by storms as ‘unprecedented’ El Niño arrives this autumn
Emily Sergeant
The UK is being told to brace for a series of storms this autumn when the ‘unprecedented’ El Niño weather event arrives.
It’s already been a summer of extremes for the country, with multiple heatwaves over the past couple of months, but now it appears that autumn and winter are set to have some extremes of their own, as the Met Office is warning that this upcoming El Niño could be one of the most significant in recent memory.
El Niño is declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5°C above the long-term average, which therefore impacts global rainfall patterns and average temperatures.
The natural warming of sea temperatures is forecast to reach more than 3°C in the coming months, according to the Met Office, making this year’s weather event have the potential to be ‘the largest since the 19th century’.
The UK is set to be battered by storms as ‘unprecedented’ El Niño arrives this autumn / Credit: Johannes Plenio (via Unsplash)
El Niño will create a heightened risk of drought in the tropics, southern Africa, and north eastern Australia, but over in north western Europe – including the UK – it means we are likely to experience wetter and stormier conditions.
The UK, and of course Greater Manchester, is absolutely no stranger to a storm around this time of year, but forecasters say this could be an entirely different beast.
“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event,” warned Professor Adam Scaife, who is the Head of Long Range Forecasting at the Met Office.
“I have never seen an El Nino signal this intense in our forecasts.”
Professor Scaife concluded: “A typical El Nino leads to an equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperature rise of between one to 2°C, with 2°C being a really big event. This implies that, if the forecast is accurate, and other forecast systems show similar extreme values, then 2026 will far exceed our recent experience of El Niño and its worldwide climate influences.’
Forecasters and officials, however, have warned that it could take months of sustained rainfall before rivers, reservoirs, and groundwaters are ‘completely replenished’ – which is when a drought can officially be declared as over.
It also warned drought conditions could persist into the new year as, despite El Niño, as current forecasts do not suggest this autumn will have the amount of rainfall needed to drive recovery.
Georgina Pellant -
27th June 2022 
