NOW the Honey Trap has been sprung with a launch date announced (Thursday December 6) we wonder how far behind will be the late-night bars’s kebab-happy twin BAB?
We like the sound of this ‘quality grown-up kebab concept’ from the team who brought you Pen & Pencil – both venues are a shot in the arm for the Northern Quarter after recent body blows. We love the brick-led work in progress shots like the one below and the blind faith all will be well on the night.
BAB will be an all-day, 60 cover restaurant with an open chargrill kitchen in a ground floor venue just off Stevenson Square. The focus will be fresh creative kebabs from an open
The menu, will include both Kebabs, and non-babs, with a selection of meze which can be shared by the table or eaten as a starter.
Kebabs will include the Lamb Adana with with feta labneh, radicchio and pomegranate; chicken with aleppo chilli, hummus, and peppers; or hanger steak with cauliflower, cumin and chilli. Vegetarian options will includepaneer with carrot and currants orbfalafel with tomato, harissa and pistachio. Kebabs will be served with homemade flatbread and pickled chilli. There will also be a selection of ‘non-babs’ to include stone bass with winter tabbouleh or aubergine with tomato, kale and baba ganoush.
Pen & Pencil co-owner Kevin Connor told us: “This new concept, completely different from what we do at The Pen and Pencil, is all about the food. Everyone’s eaten a kebab, often on the way home from boozy nights out! These though will be special – fresh, vibrant and full of flavour.
“Our chefs have spent the last six months creating the menu, we’re going make our own bread, our own paneer and have some amazing cuts of meats and fish with home-made marinades and sides. I can’t wait to get open and show it to Manchester.”
It’s a given that the doner kebab as we know it was developed by Turkish expats in Berlin in the Sixties, so it seems strangely apt that the Honey Trap dive bar in the basement below BAB should take its inspiration from the German capital’s nightlife. It’s thankfully eschewing glitz – think beer, shots of whisky, dirty cocktails, and table football.