AN interesting newcomer sniffing around Ancoats, Manchester’s hippest quarter. Joe Akka, the entrepteneur behind glamorous Panacea, has plans to open a new restaurant in the Ice Plant, home to the more industrial chic Seven Bro7hers craft beer bar and neighbourhood bar/kitchen Elnecot with pioneering Rudy’s Pizza across on Cutting Room Square (pictured), not a destination of the glitterati (it is named after their pet pooch).
Akka has lodged a licence application has been lodged with the council for a new, as yet unnamed venue, to be open until 1am, but he tellsToM: “The plan is for a 70 cover restaurant with an all-day food offer and we’d like to open next spring.”
That will be before his most high profile project since opening Panacea in 2005 – Fable, a lavish Pan-Asian bar and restaurant, featuring suspended dragons and massive tapestries. It’s planned for the expensively refurbished Manchester Hall (formerly the Freemasons Hall) in Bridge Street, but has hit hitches.
He told us: “Fable is taking a little longer than anticipated, largely due to the unique nature of the building. Listed buildings always throw up challenges, but the effort is not in vain, as this site really does have so many incredible attributes.”