IT seems these days that each time a ‘modern English’ fine dining establishment gives up the ghost a new tapas joint appears on the scene. But it’s unique for it to happen within the same ‘empire’.
So Damson Media City shuts after three pioneering years championing the culinary values that made the Heaton Moor original such a success, while that Damson has now sprouted a Spanish small plate side project called La Cantina (which the locals seem to like).
We suspect that little bar will never be visited – and verbally trashed – by Times food critic Giles Coren. We’re not going to finger him for putting the nail in the Salford Quays coffin.
The place never quite did the expected trade; we suspect the Beeb fat cats splashed the expenses cash somewhere less obviously in their domain. Their minions certainly enjoy themselves in the neighbouring Dockyard pub – another project of Damson owners Steve Pilling and Simon Stanley.
After the success of that and Dockyard Mark II on Spinninigfields Leftbank their next project is the brewpub Gasworks on First Street. These guys are quick on their feet – there is a portfolio of low-key bars in the Northern Quarter as well as The Moortop pub, Heaton Moor, and the Red Lion gastropub they operate in collaboration with Robinson’s Brewery up in High Lane.
None of this is any consolation for now seeking in vain an independent place to eat well sourced, well cooked food on the Quays. Maybe Damson wasn’t to Coren standards but it spared you Prezzo.