A GLOOMY summer of downpours, Brexit and Euro shame at the hands of Iceland doesn’t look like cheering up very soon as a further raft of Manchester restaurants goes down the pan.
Quill was last month’s high profile casualty in the wake of Splendid Kitchen, Grinch and the Ridgefield Pizza Express closing and Red Hot World Buffet going into administration but continuing to trade. TOM’s headline was Reqiuem for City Centre Restaurants.
Sad to report, here is Requiem: The Sequel as Urban Cookhouse and the Mount Street Bourbon and Black close and Burger & Lobster puts its Spring Gardens premises on the market in order to downsize. So what went wrong?
We weren’t surprised that Burger & Lobster has reduced its expectations of Manchester just 11 months after opening. The Russian-owned group, currently developing a second New York restaurant in, have admitted the 250-cover King Street site here was too big, so are putting up for sale and searching for a smaller 90 cover venue.
TOM rattled around the place during a review visit where we failed to see the point of with lobster and burger equally priced at £20 (even if the burger tasted considerably better than the crustacean). It might work in London but up here. Remember the equally restricted ‘steak and chips our way’ Relais de Venise that didn’t last long on King Street either?
Bourbon & Black, successful in Didsbury, expanded into city centre premises that had hosted Beluga, Citrus and Velvet Central to no great acclaim. Easy to think cursed location but perhaps the muddy American bar/kitchen concept just wasn’t up to scratch.
Fellow independent Urban Cookhouse (below) ploughed a similar US-inspired (or uninspired) furrow of wings, ribs, nachos and build your own burger. It’s only a fortnight since we carried a jolly story about the converted warehouse on Princess Street launching a ‘Summer camp’ that included a menu makeover, new pool and foosball tables and allowing dogs in. It felt like a last throw of the dice for an operation that never really established an identity in a crowded market.
Its owner Tim Coulston says: “Following the volume of restaurant openings in Manchester over the last 12 months the ‘restaurant bubble’ is beginning to burst. It seems there just aren’t enough people living in the city centre to fill all these new openings.”
That’s debatable. Surely quality will out and some new openings promise that. We are looking forward to eating at Anthony Barnes’ just opened Squid Ink up in Ancoats and the imminent arrival of Grafene in Chapel Walks. Refuge at The Palace, run by the Volta team, is due to open on September 12 and it looks spectacular.
Bundobust, craft beer meets Indian veggie food in Piccadilly, won’t be far behind, while the coming months will see the arrival of chefs who have made national reputations elsewhere – Gary ‘Sticky Walnut’ Usher, who is opening Hispi in Didsbury, and Michael ‘Man Behind The Curtain’ O’Hare, who is overseeing ambitious restaurant plans for Gary Neville’s planned boutique hotel in the former Stock Exchange.
Good times, as always, are just ahead. Even for the England football team. Well maybe not for them.