TV & Showbiz

Acclaimed independent restaurant ‘stoked’ after Dua Lipa pops in for dinner and selfies

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 29th April 2022

Dua Lipa surprised a tiny independent restaurant by nipping in for her dinner last night.

The pop superstar posed for a photo with staff and took a series of stunning selfies in the basement bar.

She paid a visit to Maray, which currently has three sites in Liverpool and will open its first Manchester restaurant soon.

The Bold Street restaurant shared a photo of Dua with a staff member, saying they were ‘very stoked’ by the visit.

  • Credit: Instagram, @dualipa
  • Credit: Instagram, @marayrestaurants
  • Credit: Instagram, @dualipa

She’s posted a series of selfies from the restaurant on her Instagram to her 82.6 million followers.

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The One Kiss singer posed on one the restaurant’s wooden benches as well as in the mirrors in the basement bar.

Read more: The new restaurants and bars opening in Manchester this month | May 2022

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On Twitter, one person said: “Erm no way did Dua Lipa visit Maray in Liverpool which is round the corner from my work.”

And someone else asked the crucial question for all of us who are fans of Maray’s disco veggies – “Reckon Dua Lipa got the cauliflower in Maray?”

Dua is set to perform a sold-out show at the M&S Bank Arena tonight to a crowd of 11,000.

Featured image: Instagram, @dualipa

TV & Showbiz

Legendary Bury Black Pudding reveals secrets – including powdered blood

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson Legendary Bury Black Pudding reveals secrets - including powdered blood

Bury Black Pudding is one of Greater Manchester’s most famous and excellent exports, creating a breakfast staple that puts the borough on the culinary map. 

This familiar sight on a full English breakfast has been being made using a traditional time-honoured recipe for generations. 

And while this delicious blood sausage might not be to everyone’s tastes, Bury Black Pudding is the king of them all. 

It’s the leading brand in the UK, with a gold medal-winning recipe dating back more than 100 years, and has a whole variety of flavours including chilli, gluten free, vegetarian and white pudding varieties. 

Recently, Bury Black Pudding revealed some of its secrets, allowing the BBC unprecedented access into its factory in Bury for an episode of Inside the Factory. 

The series, hosted by Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey, went beneath the surface of this heritage brand, from production all the way through to packaging. 

Viewers have been stunned to learn what goes into Bury Black Pudding, and it really isn’t as much of a bloody mess as your imagination might’ve led you to believe. 

In fact, most of the ingredients are cereals – only 5% of it is blood. 

And the blood in the blood sausage? It’s powdered. 

Bury Black Pudding on BBC's Inside the Factory. Credit: BBC
Bury Black Pudding on BBC's Inside the Factory. Credit: BBC
Bury Black Pudding on BBC’s Inside the Factory. Credit: BBC

In the episode, production director Richard Morris (who has worked for Bury Black Pudding his whole life, following in his grandfather’s footsteps), said: “There’s no big tubs of blood.

“To actually transport it, it needs to be dry. And there’s also no bacteria in it, so we can use this over a 12 month period.”

Inside every delicious slice you’ll also find oatmeal, pearl barley, rusk, onions and pork fat.

Another surprising thing is the sheer size and volume of the black puddings before they’re portioned and packaged for our homes. 

A 600kg batch will make about 3,000 black puddings, with the mixture added to a vacuum filler before being pumped under high pressure into recyclable plastic casings. 

Hundreds of these tubes are cooked into a steam oven for an hour and 20 minutes, then sliced into the black pudding we recognise in an ultrasonic slicer. 

3,000 sticks a day, five days a week, are sliced up for the shelves into around 120,000 slices.

Speaking of the opportunity to appear on Inside the Factory, brand and marketing manager Matthew McDermid said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the heritage and passion that goes into making our black pudding. 

“We are incredibly proud of our history and our role in bringing this traditional product to consumers, we can’t wait for the nation to see how the UK’s leading brand of black pudding is made.”

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Featured image: The Manc Group

TV & Showbiz

Manchester streaming platform StreamGM unveils four-part creative industry careers podcast

Thomas Melia Thomas Melia

A new four-part podcast by StreamGM featuring some of Greater Manchester’s top creatives has launched with the aim of powering creative careers.

Produced by Rebecca Swarray, a.k.a. ‘RebeccaNeverBecky’ – the founder of the Manchester events and arts collective – this podcast is designed to “ignite and elevate creative careers in music.”

Swarray deep dives into the current Manc music scene and beyond with the help of fellow insiders who vary upon each episode.

There are four parts in this latest series and there’s lots to cover, especially in an industry that’s ever-changing and ever-challenging.

Some of the guests and speakers you can expect to listen to on ICAM.
Some of the guests and speakers you can expect to listen to on ‘ICAM’ (In Conversations and Masterclasses)
Credit: StreamGM/The Manc Group

Listeners can expect to learn all about ‘Women Behind The Music’ as part of the In Conversations and Masterclasses series with Sophie Bee, Sara Garvey and Kat Brown.

The next episode delves into another key music industry area, ‘Promoters, Venues And Events’, which is broken down by Baz Plug One, Strutty, Tashadean Wood and Liv McCafferty.

‘Artist Development And Management’ features Karen Boardman, Karen Gabay, Damian Morgan, and Via Culpan deep in discussion.

The final episode in this four-part series is ‘Videography And Photography In The Creative Industries’, which sees Johan Reitan, Alice Kanako and Ahmani Vidal talking all things visual.

These four features will be an incredible resource for any creative talents as it put together by professionals for upcoming professionals of any age from any background, race, gender and walk of life.

After all, that’s what is all about, right?

Abbreviated to ‘ICAM’, the podcast is certainly one to check out, with for aspiring artist managers, producers, photographers, promoters—anyone driven to make their mark in music and events.

These podcast sessions understand industry challenges, explore career journeys, creative influences, crisis management and lots more creative field concerns.

You can find the first episode in full down below:

The first episode of the new limited StreamGM podcast.

Read more:

This run of shows is the second instalment by StreamGM: Greater Manchester’s phenomenal streaming platform dedicated to all things music, nightlife and culture.

Whether you’re a budding creative arts talent or just curious to find out insights into this wonderful innovative industry, you can listen to all the episodes from the series directly on StreamGM HERE.

Elsewhere in Greater Manchester music news, another very special event is kicking off very soon:

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — Publicity Picture (Supplied)/The Manc Group

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