WITH all due respect (as the football pundits say when not wishng to offend) to previous and existing Spanish restaurants in Manchester, Evuna, El Rincon, La Tasca et al, we have never been blessed with a Gastronomic Galactico in the city centre. Grado, Paul Heathcote’s long-departed joint in New York Street, never quite made the grade, but under the masterly management of Marco Ficini it was a joy to sip sherry and nibble on slivers of jamon iberico at the bar.
Iberico, of course, means of the Iberian Peninsula, that (mostly) sun-baked region south of the Pyrenees. It seems in recent times it has extended north into London’s trendier clefts. I’m a huge fan of Jose Pissarro’s colonisation of Bermondsey and, queueing apart, adore everything about the newly Michelin-garlanded Barrafina in Soho. I’m not likely to afford to eat Nuno Mendes’s food at the Chiltern Firehouse, so maybe I’ll check out Omar ‘Tapas Revolution’ Allibhoy when he opens his third outlet, in Shoreditch. You get my drift, though. Spanish is hip.
In contrast to the previous names, Michelin-starred Asturian super chef Nacho Manzano is something of an absentee landlord for the Iberica chain, which has four outlets in London and, one in Manchester scheduled for March. A very benevolent absentee, mind, on the evidence of my recent visit to Iberica Canary Wharf, It was uniformly excellent with majestically sourced raw materials mustered by his protege group head chef, Cesar Garcia, which bodes well for the arrival up here.
Iberica is coming to Spinningfields (above), where every retail fashion outlet is currently being transformed into a restaurant. All Saints is the fashion victim in this instance! So for a window full of sewing machines and cool tee-shirts that are just too tight for a food critic, substitute 200 covers being served mackerel tartare with Galician seaweed, mushrooms with bone marrow, anise and eucalyptus oil, perhaps even Roasted whole Segovian milk fed pig (approx 6kg – £190)... plus a deli and take home recipe ideas.
I dropped into Iberica Canary Wharf recently, not for a full meal but for a designer cava tasting, accompanied by exemplary air-cured Iberico hams and sheep milk cheese plus some very cheeky takes on tapas such as chorizo 'lollypops'. The wines poured on the build-up to the cavas were also impressive and Iberica promise cutting-edge cocktails, too, in Manchester’s central bar and outdoor Madrid-style terrace.
The soaring Canary Wharf setting was spectacular. We have high hopes for its Manc sibling. Watch this espacio. And check this link.
