BARELY a day goes by without a new restaurant or bar opening its doors – and that’s just the Corn Exchange! Yet amid all this frantic, helter skelter avalanche of hospitality we must remember to salute Manchester’s great survivors. Many places have fallen by the wayside, given up the ghost – victims of changes in fashion, hikes in rent or perhaps just battle fatigue.
So well done to the Yang Sing, Koreana, Cafe Istanbul, El Rincon de Rafa, the Chop Houses and all the other city centre stalwarts with decades on the clock.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this weekend (the all-day party is on Sunday, September 27) is one of the best-loved eateries, Dimitri’s, off Deansgate. It’s been a rite of passage for generations to munch ample mezze platters or tackle a toothsome moussaka off check table clothes in the Campfield Arcade passage.
Colourful founder Dimitri Griliopoulos, awarded a lifetime achievement gong at the 2013 Manchester Food and Drink Awards, spends much of his time now in Cyprus, leaving the day to day running of his empire (there’s Didsbury, too) to his sons, but TOM is assured he’ll be back to host the party in his inimitable style. Cheers!