WELCOME to the cavernous basement that will host Bundobust’s Manchester adventure. At the moment it hasn’t shrugged off two years of neglect since the Metro Chinese Buffet shut, but the designers and builders have moved in, deadline late September/early October for the arrival of the much acclaimed craft beer meets Gujerati vegetarian street food concept that has wowed Leeds.
I joined its twin creators Marko Husak and Mayur Patel for a tour. In their heads is a complete vision of how it will look and work; the artist’s impression below is like all such things – a mite sketchy.
If Bundobust 2 comes close to the Leeds original it’s a major addition to an Indian street food restaurant scene currently led in the city centre by Indian Tiffin Room and Mowgli.
They are both great, but quite lacking on matching beer. Bundobust is big on beer but is not competing as a bar in a crowded market. There’ll be an array of keg lines and a couple of cask pumps dispensing the likes of Magic Rock and Kirkstall from across The Pennines plus Cloudwater and other Manc hop heroes but, for license purposes, they are there to accompany the small plates Mayur’s team will be cooking up from an open kitchen.
Here’s the Leeds menu to give you a taste of what they do – a pared down snack interpretation of dishes created at Prashad, the Patel family restaurant in Drighlington, a Gordon Ramsay and Taste of Leeds favourite.
From various Leeds jaunts TOM recommends the okra fries, classic chaat, idli sambhar steamed dumplings and the only veggie burger you’ll ever want to eat – Mumbai speciality vada pav, deep-fried gram flour-coated mash, served in a brioche bun with fiery chillies and chutneys.
The Marko contribution is beer expertise honed at Bradford’s groundbreaking craft beer bar, The Sparrow. Where it has led, many others bars have followed along the cit’s hippest strip, North Parade. At Bundobust, beside the draught beers you’ll find a long bottle list featuring Mikkeller, Fourpure, Siren, Wild Beer and US cult beers from Odell and its ilk.
For the moment, though, Marko and Mayur are showing me all the white Victorian tiles they have uncovered and pointing out the stained glass skylights that will bring some natural light to this large 140 cover space. The kitchen will be vastly bigger than the cramped one in Leeds. The diner has an entrance off Piccadilly Gardens and another at the back (currently very graffiti-daubed and characterful) into the Northern Quarter. Footfall past both doors is enormous.
The duo hope this will be the first of several more Bundobusts across the nation. A quest for world domination?
“No, certainly not,” Marko tells me. “Our secret is the best ingredients cooked to order to create the most authentic tastes we can. We won’t compromise on that, but also we won’t stand still.”
Witness to that is the lovely coriander pilsener I remember from their Leeds place that so matched the spice. “We’ve scrapped that,” says Mayur. “Northern Monk are doing a wheat beer for us instead, which has coriander seed but also other, complex flavours.
I suggest he creates a special ‘Manchester signature dish’ for the launch. How about an Indian take on Eccles Cakes.”Not a bad idea,” he retorts.”Our flaky samosa pastry is not dissimilar. With fruit and spices, who knows, it might just work.”
Bundobust, 61 Piccadilly, Manchester M1 2AP. Follow Manchester opening on Twitter @BundobustMCR
Interior pictures: Ben Bentley; food pictures: Thom Archer