TIME flies and El Gato Negro has packed a lot into its first year in situ on King Street, its near decade at Ripponden on the Yorkshire moors overtaken by recent acclaim – City Restaurant of the Year at the Lancashire Life Food and Drink Awards, Best Restaurant at the City Life Awards and, most significantly, Newcomer of the Year at the 2016 Manchester Food and Drink Festival Awards against some awesome competition.
Oh, and we almost forgot its listing in the National Restaurant Awards Top 100 in the UK and the only Manchester restaurant awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
So it was no hardship for Taste of Manchester to join the first birthday celebrations (yes we quite understand the angle the main picture after that one Negroni too far!).
Meanwhile, its chef/patron chef/patron Simon Shaw (below, left), the Yorkshireman with the Spanish touch, looked remarkably fresh considering he had overseen in an amazing 12 months 290,000 drinks and dishes served to customers.
Such was the demand to dine at the King Street restaurant that an extension to the ground floor and top floor bars saw the creation of a further 40 covers. ToM doesn’t quite approve of this dilution of the rooftop Black Cat with its retractable roof, one of the city’s finest cocktail bars, but we do understand.
The folks who have been racking up the stats tell us that the Black Cat bartenders have created over 34,385 cocktails, the champ being the Espresso Martini with over 3,170 shaken and stirred.
Meanwhile, El Gato’s fave dishes have been Catalan bread, tiger prawns and Spanish classics such as patatas bravas, with over 38,980 portions sold. “Straight from the grill and with 9,366 enjoyed, the individual lamb skewers are also in high demand”. Not an elegant phrase but ToM’s team couldn’t resist them either.
Classically trained Simon Shaw (ex Harvey Nicks) said of the restaurant’s success: “Quite simply, we’ve had a truly overwhelming year. The level of support and recognition we’ve received has been phenomenal. It’s great to be able to take stock of our first year and look forward to an exciting twelve months to come.
“We’ve certainly had those really hard days, but looking back over this past year and seeing everything we’ve managed to achieve is incredible and so worth those long hours. It’s always been important that we gain the trust of our customers and really create something special here in terms of our knowledge, service and ambience.”
El Gato Negro, 52 King St, Manchester M2 4LY. 0161 694 8585.
