Food and Drink

  • My Manchester in 2017 – in pictures

    The highs, the lows and the love that stemmed. Beautiful Manchester. .

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  • Fall fork first into autumn at Malmaison

    After a summer of outdoor activities, beer gardens and sun terraces (yes, even in Manchester, naysayers), October heralds a time for taking it back indoors . Personally happy to see the back of light summer salads, all I can see ahead is a series of extended Sunday lunches with friends and family and delicious decadent dinners. Autumn

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  • Mancs vs Food – aka my Saucy Sunday 

    Sunday, Bloody Sunday.  You wake up in the morning, you’ve got to read all the papers, the kids are running around, you’ve got to mow the lawn, wash the car, and you think  Sunday. Bloody Sunday With a few adjustments to the woes listed by Alan Partridge , I often do think the same. They’re

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  • Brasserie Abode – bringing it home.

    It was on a balmy night in Manchester when Brasserie Abode threw open its doors, banged on its bongos and welcomed Manchester into its loving, refurbished arms. If the recently rebranded bar and restaurant is anything like its welcome party, us mancs (born and honorary) are in for a treat. Last Thursday I got a

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  • Malmaison brings the Millennial touch to Afternoon Tea 

    When I was young, I had two major concerns about getting older: I wouldn’t be allowed to wear my hair in a ponytail anymore; and  What would I do about coffee mornings – I hated coffee and indeed tea. What world I was living in where the latter was a real worry, I don’t know.

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  • AltrinCHAM (no pagne, no gain)

    Yes, I did that in the title. It’s tenuous but almost could have been brilliant. Running through my veins is champagne – or at least it would if only I could. Another passion is Italy whose prosecco  has in recent years probably tripled the sale of flutes and quadrupled the use of the phrase Fizz

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  • The Blue Pig (I like it)

    I have a friend. Let’s call him Beer (no I’m not metaphorically telling you I have a drinking problem, Beer is an actual man). Beer, I said (typed), give me three words to sum up your thoughts on The Blue Pig. I like it. Thanks, Beer, I said. Beer wanted to expand on this and

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  • Pen and Pencil – you don’t have to be Mad Men mad to go there…(you actually don’t)

    February 2015, around the same time I arrived fashionably late to the party that was the iconic television drama Mad Men, I arrived early to this bar. Very early. After aimlessly circling a building in pursuit of this exciting new establishment I’d been reading about, some more googling led me to realise I was about 3

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  • Foundation – their coffee casa is indeed your coffee casa

    It’s 2pm and I’m sat in a coffee shop, writing about the etiquette of working in a coffee shop. The more I worry, the more I write about the worry, the longer I spend here, the more I worry. The circle of strife. This wasn’t my original intention. I was going to blog about Foundation

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  • Hotel Football (bloody hell*)

    First job is to clarify I’m not a red. I’m not even a blue. I’m a blue and white halves. Declaring yourself as an honorary manc is one thing. Should this be extended to declaring yourself to be an honorary Manchester United fan is simply just… I was going to say ‘glory hunting’ but I

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