Eats

Renowned Stockport restaurant Where The Light Gets In is heading to Manchester for a very special event series

The series includes a conceptual pop-up fast-food diner and a banquet.

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 15th October 2024

Acclaimed Stockport restaurant Where The Light Gets In has just announced details of an exciting five month-long residency in Manchester city centre.

The Green Michelin Star restaurant, famed for its seasonal tasting menus and natural wines, will be opening a temporary concept restaurant and a series of events right across town.

Where The Light Gets In: A Play in the City will take over two venues (as well as the city streets) – The Bungalow at Kampus and community space Altogether Otherwise in NOMA.

It’s a bit of an unusual concept but just bear with us here.

Although billed as a ‘four-act programme’ that has been presented like a play (complete with scenes), this incredible project from Where The Light Gets In (WTLGI) is really a series of pop-up events, from workshops to dining experiences, across Manchester.

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The events will include a free night of natural wine and food, a conceptual pop-up fast-food diner, film screenings, walking tours, a pop-up restaurant, panel talks, and a full-blown banquet.

You’ll even be able to go litter-picking and trade in your bag of rubbish for a glass of wine.

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Where The Light Gets In: A Play in the City will run between 21 November and 30 March, kicking off for the first month with ‘A Man Eating A Leg Of Chicken’.

This will be a free-entry, no-reservations pop-up where you can drink natural wines and ‘gorge on shellfish and animals roasted over wood’.

There’ll also be weekend takeovers from WTLGI’s favourite labels and record shops at Altogether Otherwise.

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Altogether Otherwise in NOMA will be used as a venue for the Where The Light Gets In Manchester residency. Credit: Supplied
Altogether Otherwise in NOMA will be used as a venue for the Where The Light Gets In Manchester residency. Credit: Supplied

From early January until 2 February, Where The Light Gets In will turn The Bungalow at Kampus into a conceptual fast-food restaurant The Land of Cockaigne, from wood-fired burgers to ice cream floats to spritzy grape juice.

It’ll involve self-serve counters, name tags and sauce udders, with the option to order a takeaway with an automated phone service.

In February, it’ll be Une semaine de bonté (A WEEK OF KINDNESS) at The Bungalow, with a restaurant ‘dressed with the beginning of spring’ serving simple dishes celebrating the arrival of a new season and delicious wines.

And finally in March, there’ll be the Luncheon of the Boating Party banquets, where guests sit at one long table and eat family-style platters with plenty of wine.

Sam Buckley from Where The Light Gets In. Credit: Supplied
Sam Buckley from Where The Light Gets In. Credit: Supplied
Sam Buckley from Where The Light Gets In. Credit: Supplied

Alongside those four main events will be masses of foraging and gardening workshops, walking tours, Q&As and loads more.

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The intention of the concept restaurant and residency is to bring Where The Light Gets In’s passion for sustainability and great food right into the bustling city centre for five months that combine food, art, and urban living.

The restaurant team has asked: “Are we heading to a cataclysmic dystopia or can we rewrite the future?

“Set against the backdrop of the city of Manchester, this programme explores the tension between city life and rural tradition, asking critical questions about food systems, and our own identity within nature, the city, and the arts.”

Where The Lights Gets In in Stockport is headed up by acclaimed chef Sam Buckley and is easily one of Greater Manchester’s best and most exciting restaurants.

Tickets are available from midday on Tuesday 15 October.

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Full programme for Where The Light Gets In: A Play in the City Manchester residency

ACT 1: “A MAN EATING A LEG OF CHICKEN”

SCENE: A bustling Metropolis.
When: Thursday to Saturday, 21 November to 21 December 2024, 5pm-11pm
Where: Altogether Otherwise, NOMA, 6-10 Hanover St, Manchester M4 4BB
What: We raid the cellars of WTLGI to bring you our favourite natural wines from the continent. Gorge on shellfish and whole animals roasted over wood. Weekender takeovers from our favourite labels and record shops. Welcome to your now. Welcome to the city.
How: Free entry, no reservations

ACT 1 events highlights (running alongside):
Opening night party: Living Room Dance Club 21st November 2024, 5pm-midnight
Honest shop: Thursday, Friday & Saturday 12pm-4pm

ACT 2: THE LAND OF COCKAIGNE

SCENE: A fast food restaurant.
When: Monday to Sunday, 10 January – 2 February 2025. 5pm-late
Where: The Bungalow at Kampus, Aytoun St, Manchester M1 3GL
What: A conceptual fast-food diner. Churning out wood-fired burgers, ice cream floats and spritzy grape juice. It’s self-service counters, name tags and sauce udders. Eat in or take away using our automated telephone service. Grab a tray and find a seat, welcome to the future of convenient feeding: fast-paced and unlimited choice.
How: Head HERE to reserve your seat, or order a takeaway for collection on our phone line. Open for walk-ins also.

ACT 2 event highlights:
Film screenings. Altogether Otherwise
DATE TBC Silo: The Zero Waste Blueprint – Q&A with Douglas McMaster & Sam Buckley
DATE TBC WTLGI X SILO MEAL
Manchester Utopia – The Modernist walking tour

ACT 3: Une semaine de bonté (A WEEK OF KINDNESS)

SCENE: A pleasant garden; simple and sufficient
When: Monday to Sunday, 3rd February – 2nd March 2025. 5pm-late
Where: The Bungalow at Kampus, Aytoun St, Manchester M1 3GL
What: A clean and well-lit restaurant dressed with the beginnings of Spring. We offer a moderate choice of simple dishes carefully prepared with ingredients selected for their freshness and relevance to the time and place. A thoughtful selection of wines from small-scale producers.
How: Head to HERE to reserve your seat. Open for walk-ins also.

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Act 3 event highlights:
Panel discussion on the history of communal green spaces.
Open Call for Manchester Chefs: Master Whole Animal Butchery with Samuel Buckley and Marcus of Littlewoods Butchers, followed by a meal for EatWell.
TRIAGE: A Pickling walk-in centre. Drop in with your veg and we’ll help you to preserve it. 12-2 Friday.
Film screening Altogether Otherwise
Urban Foraging Walk & Litter Picking: A guided exploration of local green spaces, teaching participants to identify and gather wild edibles. Pick a bag of litter, get a glass of wine on us.
Book tables with a stranger – In this act we encourage discussion and conversation around the dinner table. It is often the non-tangible delights that arouse pleasure and satisfaction.

ACT 4: LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY

SCENE: A long wooden table in the middle of a garden.
‘And if one day my wisdom should desert me – ah, it loves to fly away! – then may my pride too fly with my folly’
When: Monday to Sunday, 3 March – 30 March 2025. 5pm-late
Where: The Bungalow at Kampus, Aytoun St, Manchester M1 3GL
What: Join us for a banquet to celebrate the finale of our residency in Manchester. Guests will sit at one long table and enjoy an array of dishes designed to eat family-style. Platters of vegetables, meats and fish will adorn the centre of the table. We will share, we will pour wine.
How: Head HERE to reserve your seat at the table.

Act 4 events:
Hand-drawn ‘fruit maps’ that plot the locations of fruit trees and foraging spots, growing on, or overhanging, public space in Manchester.
Urban Gardening Workshop: Led by Manchester Urban Diggers, participants learn to cultivate their own urban gardens, regardless of space constraints.

Read more: Northern Quarter transformed as Peaky Blinders creators film new Netflix series House of Guinness

Featured image: Supplied

Eats

The brilliant Tameside restaurant helping turn Stalybridge into a new foodie neighbourhood

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson Inside Cafe Continental in Stalybridge. Credit: The Manc Group

One of Greater Manchester’s coolest new restaurants has quietly opened in recent months, and if you’re looking in the direction of Ancoats, turn around – we’re off to Stalybridge.

This often-overlooked town in Tameside has welcomed Cafe Continental, a charming little neighbourhood restaurant that feels like it’s been plucked from a pretty Parisian back street.

With its cafe curtains, red leather furniture and wood-panelled walls, it feels like the sort of local hangout that’s been here for decades.

But Cafe Continental is barely eight weeks old, and already firmly finding its feet as one of the region’s most exciting newcomers.

As with all good neighbourhood restaurants, the menu spans breakfast all the way through lunch and dinner and into cocktails, stopping off for an epic Sunday roast too.

It’s also got one of the internet’s most viral sweet treats, a proper Paris hot chocolate, where you dollop thick cream into dainty cups of molten hot chocolate.

Inside Cafe Continental in Stalybridge. Credit: The Manc Group
Inside Cafe Continental in Stalybridge. Credit: The Manc Group
The Paris hot chocolate. Credit: The Manc Group
The Paris hot chocolate. Credit: The Manc Group
Inside Cafe Continental in Stalybridge. Credit: The Manc Group
Inside Cafe Continental in Stalybridge. Credit: The Manc Group

This place might have caught the attention of the social media food crowd, but it’s far from gimmicky.

On its menu you’ll find classics that will stand the test of time, like giant tiger prawns with garlic butter, ribeye beef, flame-roasted chicken, croquettes and hand-dived scallops.

There’s a lunch menu that will stop you in your tracks – think seasonal soups with wedges of bouncy focaccia, spicy twice-fried chicken buns, and a steak sandwich with fries.

There’s also an excellent cacio e pepe pasta, served with an egg yolk on top that you can pop and twirl into the pasta.

It’s co-owned and created by Ryan Robinson, who’s quick to point out that Cafe Continental isn’t the first restaurant worth travelling for in Stalybridge, which already has a deep-rooted independent food scene.

The fried chicken bun. Credit: The Manc Group
The fried chicken bun. Credit: The Manc Group
Cacio e pepe pasta. Credit: The Manc Group
Cacio e pepe pasta. Credit: The Manc Group

“We’ve already got some really good food establishments in the area,” he said, “With Gladstone and SK15 and Guiseppes, so the skeleton’s there with Stalybridge, you just need to have some meat on the bones, really.

“And obviously, like we’ve jumped in and hopefully that adds value to the area and then hopefully we see a few more drinking and dining establishments.

“There’s loads of space for development in Stalybridge, and it’s just gonna get better and better.”

Ryan says his inspiration comes from his travels to cities around Europe, and the sort of off-the-beaten-track, full-of-locals restaurants that are so often the most memorable part of a holiday. 

“No matter where you are, whether it’s France or Italy or Spain, there’s always that one restaurant you seem to find that’s set in the back streets, and it’s busy and it’s noisy and the food’s amazing, and you end up having such a good time on the off chance, that you just want to tell everyone about it.

Soup and focaccia at Cafe Continental. Credit: The Manc Group
Soup and focaccia at Cafe Continental. Credit: The Manc Group
Cod bites and a chicken bun. Credit: The Manc Group
Cod bites and a chicken bun. Credit: The Manc Group

“You want to stay there all night, and that was kind of the inspiration for Cafe Continental.

“We just wanted to make a really buzzy local place.”

Ryan, who previously worked as a DJ and across the hospitality industry, has always had a big passion for food.

He’s teamed up with a good friend who is his head chef, and a couple of other friends as business partners, who just ‘believed in the idea and trusted it’.

It seems to be paying off, with Cafe Continental already luring people out of the city centre to visit, and drawing in a decent returning local crowd.

Ryan finished by saying: “Support locally this Christmas – there’s a lot of great restaurants in Stalybridge and the surrounding areas that are working hard to bring people the best Christmas possible.

“So if everyone can support local, that would be amazing.”

Cafe Continental is open now at 5 Melbourne St, Stalybridge, SK15 2JE.

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Featured image: The Manc Group

Eats

Stow – Trof owners to open brand new restaurant and bar in Manchester

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson The team behind Trof in the Northern Quarter are opening a new Manchester restaurant called Stow. Credit: Supplied

Trof is one of Manchester’s most long-standing and best-loved bars, standing proudly on a corner of the Northern Quarter for more than 20 years – and now its owners are branching out with Stow.

This brand new restaurant and bar will open soon on Bridge Street, in a site that has at various points over the last few years been a Grindsmith coffee shop, Thai BBQ Neon Tiger, and Juicebox wine bar.

But this newcomer looks set to bring big things to the mosaic-cladded site, with a simple concept of live fire cooking and a great wine list.

The entire menu will be cooked over a custom-built grill from Firemade in Somerset, fuelled by wood and charcoal, with a concise menu of meet and fish plus veg-centric sides and snacks sourced from the ‘best produce they can get their hands on’.

Stow will be owned and operated by Matt Nellant and Jamie Pickles from Trof, who want to celebrate the ‘simplicity of great ingredients cooked over open fire with very little faff’.

The space will be filled with low lighting, bar seating and carafes to make a warm and cosy space for the city.

The wine list will be exclusively French but the beer list will show off local breweries, and cocktails will feature classics with a twist like a Cremant Cocktail.

As for Jamie and Matt’s backgrounds, they come from a proper hospitality pedigree.

The team behind Trof in the Northern Quarter are opening a new Manchester restaurant called Stow. Credit: Supplied
The team behind Trof in the Northern Quarter are opening a new Manchester restaurant called Stow. Credit: Supplied
The team behind Trof in the Northern Quarter are opening a new Manchester restaurant called Stow. Credit: Supplied

Jamie left restaurant management in 2018 to return to his hometown in the Peak District, working in The Devonshire Arms pub in Pilsley before holding a kitchen residency at Saint Francis Provisions in Kinsale, Ireland.

Once back in Manchester, he’s been developing dishes and writing menus for various restaurants, including Trof.

Matt took over as general manager of Trof and eventually acquired the business from Mission Mars in 2020.

His career started in cocktail bartending but includes management roles for large groups like Living Ventures and Revolution.

Stow will open to the public on 22 November on Bridge Street in Manchester.

Read more

Featured image: Supplied

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