YOU’VE got to hand it to social media motormouth Gary Usher – he knows how to milk a crowd. The swift success of the Sticky Walnut chef/patron’s latest crowdfunding push means Chorlton at last is going to get a restaurant that’s a contender.
The Hispi project was tipped over the £50,000 Kickstarter target on Sunday night, meaning a £100,000 bank loan will kick in, allowing plans for a site on Wilbraham Road to go ahead. Though with Usher describing it as “needing work as it currently has no kitchen or toilet and almost no walls” TOM doesn’t expect to be reviewing there any time soon.
Usher’s previous crowdfunding coup to open Burnt Truffle in Heswall on The Wirral last year has paid off with glowing reviews, the latest from Jay Rayner in The Observer this weekend, where he decided “the kitchen can do no wrong”. Hispi is unlikely to stray from that same neighbourhood bistro formula honed at Sticky Walnut in Hoole, near Chester.