By Neil Sowerby
HERE’S how Lunya will look when it opens in the Barton Arcade this autumn – and it looks pretty amazing. This is among the genuinely impressive additions to the city’s dining scene. The original Catalan tapas bar has already wowed Liverpool and the 2016 Good Food Guide, which has just named it Best Readers’ Restaurant in the North West for the second year running – the only place in the UK to have received this award twice.
Owners Peter and Elaine Kinsella are investing £1m, sensitively converting the historic Deansgate site, formerly occupied by Spirited and the neighbouring Each To Their Own clothes store, which is expected to be given the full OK by planners on September 3.
It will cater for more than 200 diners and also include an exclusive outdoor seating area on both the ground floor and the first floor of the beautiful Victorian arcade.
Executive Chef Peter told TOM: “We’re very hopeful of a positive decision at the upcoming planning meeting and we are delighted to be moving into Manchester. This is a fantastic location right in the heart of the city with the business district on our doorstep and other retail businesses and restaurants as our neighbours.”
His wife and co-owner Elaine added: “We are providing a unique dining experience for the city. With the Deli stocking over 1,000 rare and artisan Spanish foods and our alfresco dining terrace under the protection of the arcade itself means that our diners can have all the benefits of eating outside without the rain affecting them.”
The ground floor will be a large deli and an intimate bar area where people can enjoy coffees and pre-theatre snacks, tapas and drinks throughout the day. The first floor will be the main dining area and feature an open kitchen.
After only four years in the business – and inspired by the culinary culture of Barcelona – they are planning eventually to roll out Lunyas across the nation.
For the moment we’re glad they are par of an upmarket Hispanic invasion of Manchester with Iberica already setting the bar high and El Gato Negro moving into King Street this autumn.
Their current Liverpool summer menu features the likes of deep fried Monte Enebro goats cheese with orange blossom honey and beetroot crisps, a lamb fillet encrusted with ras el hanout spice mix and served with roasted Med veg and Catalan style miniature chicken patties with sweet chilli jam and alliol.
We also love their fabulous olive oils, sprinkled in abundance on their pa amb tomaquet (bread and tomato), their sharing meat platters and their Catalan take on ‘surf and turf’, Mar i Muntana. Suckling Pig Banquets use four-week-old milk-fed porkers sourced from Segovia and the whole roast beast is carve at table for parties of over eight.
The Manchester Lunya will serve from breakfast through to dinner, coffees and cocktails and will even have its own Spanish gin bar. They’ll bake their own sourdough bread on site and promise modern inventive Catalan food, including gambas pil pil with vanilla, estofada with an orange infusion, salt cod spring rolls, chorizo and fennel seed sausage rolls – and new to Manchester, fusion dishes such as Catalan hotpot and crema Catalana Manchester tart.