TASTE of Manchester like surprises. So too do the city’s amateur food enthusiasts. No sooner had a new Spanish restaurant announced its arrival out of the blue than they were falling over themselves to crack into its croquetas or pimp its polpo. Call it Blogs on Heat. All a bit spooky.
The MEN Diary were delighted to report that a footballer (always a winner) had turned up to enjoy an early morsel or two. Not that the diminutive David Silva from Manchester city has the look of a trencherman, but he is Spanish and has well over three million Twitter followers
Normally there’s a long run-in between a new eateries arriving. The two much-lauded Spanish invaders for 2015, Iberica and El Gato Negro won’t be in situ until spring and summer respectively. The first will occupy the much altered shell of the old Brasserie Blanc off Chapel Walks, while Iberica, part of a London chain, are ousting All Saints outfitters from their Spinningfields store.
It helps that La Bandera (I thought I’d leave its name as a surprise for three paragraphs) has moved, however stealthily, into an existing restaurant space in Ridgefield just off King Street. Briefly it had operated under the excruciating name of 2Kosy; previously it was Harpers, a popular but critically ignored English restaurant that latterly had diversified into ‘Mediterranean tapas’.
By all slavering accounts, La Bandera won’t be like that. For one thing it is run by a Spaniard (like David he’s from the Canary Islands), one Yashin Dadashnejad, formerly of footballer-friendly Neighbourhood. The 50-cover dining space is decorated in the colours evoking the Spanish national flag and the ambition is to ‘serve up Manchester’s first truly authentic Spanish restaurant experience’.
In the quest for this he appears to have aimed high, consulting on menu development with an “executive chef” called Josetxo Arrieta who has seen action in serious Michelin restaurants, including Akelarre (now that set the starry-eyed ones swooning). The cynic in me (take a bow, Marco, bravo Jean-Christophe) wonders if we’ll see the man at the stove enough for us to christen the place ‘2Jose’.
I’ve seen pictures of the food and it looks good, decidedly not tapas but hardly Ferran Adrià. I’m not sure how much all this is going to cost because – surprise, surprise – the menu lists are still not up on the website. Of course, it makes sense to observe the critic's rule of not going into a “serious” place until the kitchen an service settled in, so it will be my mid-January treat. I hope it lives up to all its promises.
I might even strum a bit of Flamenco auténtico on the guitar that’s apparently available for customers’ use. Now that would be 2Lousy.
La Bandera, 2 Ridgefield, Manchester, M2 6EQ. 0161 833 9019, www.labandera.co.uk.
