I’D like to say that this Taste of Manchester scribe made his debut call on Northern Quarter indie bookstore Chapter One to set down the opening lines of his long-anticipated literary masterpiece in one of the typewriter booths specially created to encourage such creativity.
If I say it was actually to try out the coffee and cake, then I’m sure you’ll appreciate that professional responsibilities came first (now how did that line go about the body being discovered?).
Cake and rather excellent coffee aside, the snacks on offer are just the kind of nibbling food to keep at your elbow as you type, though beware crumbs in the pristine new editions of primarily fiction. The hand-raised pork pie with mango salad at £3.20 migt be a prime suspect here.
I liked the Continental collection (£6.50), an in-house baked croissant, ham, cheese, omelette, yoghurt, orange juice, tea or coffee. Among £2.50 a slice cakes the Vanilla Victoria Sponge and Coffee and Walnut Cake stood out, served by the engaging Emily.
The gorgeously light-filled bookshop, created by sisters Christine Cafun and Lyndsy Kirkman, is a daring move in these Amazon-ridden book-buying times. There are no discounts here, just a bookish environment sowing the seeds of connoisseurship rather than consumerism.
OK, you can tell I’m a fan. Quite randomly I bought a book (gothic noir naturally) and discovered on the way home it was published by our own small press, Comma. Inspired, I’m tempted to smuggle a bottle of Bourbon into the booths and struggle with some Hemingwayesque prose.
Follow them on Twitter @chapter1uk to check on upcoming events.
