THINGS are looking up food and drinkwise for the architecturally glorious Barton Arcade. First the terrific Pot Kettle Black coffee shop moved into the old Kitchen restaurant site, then Spirited Wines shifted sideways and created Bistrovin upstairs, a perfect little wine bar with the best cheese and charcuterie plates in town.
Now comes news, via social media, of Lunya coming to the Arcade in the autumn on a site fronting onto Deansgate formerly occupied by Spirited and the neighbouring Each To Their Own clothes store.
Peter Kinsella’s Catalan tapas bar and deli was an essential reason for visiting Liverpool, so we can’t wait for its Manchester manifestation, blessed as we are already by the recent arrival of Iberica and La Bandera with El Gato Negro also due on King Street.
Lunya’s not out of place among that Spanish pantheon, having won the Good Food Guide's 'Readers' Restaurant of the Year for the North West 2015' – not bad for a place open only four years, the pet project of an educational psychologist with a passion for culinary Catalonia.
Superior sourcing from over 50 producers in that north-east region of Spain has helped big time, but there’s some serious talent in the kitchen, evidenced by their new summer menu featuring the likes of deep fried Monte Enebro goats cheese with orange blossom honey and beetroot crisps, a lamb fillet encrusted with ras el hanout spice mix and served with roasted Med veg and Catalan style miniature chicken patties with sweet chilli jam and alliol.
We also love their fabulous olive oils, sprinkled in abundance on their pa amb tomaquet (bread and tomato, main picture), their sharing meat platters and their Catalan take on ‘surf and turf’, Mar i Muntana. Suckling Pig Banquets use four-week-old milk-fed porkers sourced from Segovia and the whole roast beast is carve at table for parties of over eight.
In Manchester you should be able to enjoy such treats on one of the Arcade’s interior balconies with the main restaurant upstairs and the groundfloor operating as a deli food store come cafe. Planning permission is being sought and October pencilled in for the launch.
