One of the Northern Quarter’s most storied venues will be re-opening under a particularly ‘urban’ new guise, Onda will be unveiling their new forever home for its tiramisu drawer, and the famous Font bar will be transforming into an Irish-style bar with an eye on grassroots music.
Here’s the best of the new bar and restaurant openings this month…
Rat & Pigeon
Open 6 June
What was once the historic Mother Macs, at the back of Piccadilly Gardens, there will now be the charmingly-named Rat & Pigeon. It’s from the same people behind another Manchester institution, the Crown & Kettle on the corner of Great Ancoats Street and Oldham Road. So we would expect the same great beers, and hopefully some of the same atmosphere too.
33 Back Piccadilly, Manchester M1 1HP
Leo & Roobs
Open 10 June
This new neighbourhood cafe from the team behind Salford’s The Black Friar will be serving up classic brunch dishes, vibrant salads and toasties, along with a couple of signature showstoppers. Namely their home-made crumpets, which will be instrumental in the ‘Leo’s Stack’ sandwich, which boasts sausage patties with poached egg, american cheese and tomato chutney. With personnel from the excellent Pot Kettle Black, this will be an essential spot for sustenance on the other side of the water, open seven days a week.
2 Garden Lane, Salford, M3 7FJ
Onda
Open 12 June
At long last, Onda, the viral pasta bar set up by chef Sam Astley-Dean, will have its forever home on Circle Square, following its wildly popular pop-ups at The New Cross and Exhibition. Crowd-funders flooded the project with donations, in return for dinners, merch and all sorts of other treats, and thus dreams will soon be coming true for the team at Onda when they open their doors this month. May the pasta roll freely and the tiramisu ‘drawer’ the crowds (geddit?). Congrats to all involved.
Mother Mary’s
Open mid-June
The Font, known for its cut-price cocktails and general abandon, was a student hang-out for many, many years, before serving up its last stick tray of cut-price shots last year. It will now be reborn as Mother Mary’s, an independent, grass roots music venue and Irish bar split across two floors, with live bands, DJs and food, including all-day dining, roasts, breakfasts and comforting Irish classics. As a nod to its former incarnation, there will even be a regularly changing cocktail called The Font, costing a princely £2.
Tender
Open now
Chef Niall Keating is one of the rising stars of British cooking, having been executive chef at Whatley Manor he became the youngest British chef to win two Michelin stars, at the age of 30. He also received widespread acclaim for his restaurant Lunar in Stoke-On-Trent, earning a Michelin Green Star in 2021 for sustainability. Now he’s taken on the kitchen at Gary Neville’s Stock Exchange Hotel. With Tender, he’ll be turning out brasserie classics as well as a curated series of chef’s menus.
Defiance Distillery and Bar
Open now
Rochdale’s award-winning Defiance Spirits has now opened its own bar and distillery, open to the public every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You can expect their own gins, vodkas and rums, all blended and bottled on site, as well as a great selection of top flight IPAs and wines, all housed in the renovated Spotland Bridge Mills.
Mellor Street, Rochdale, OL11 5BU
Pho You
Open now
This new pan-Asian kitchen in the centre of Altrincham will be turning out all kinds of deliciousness with, as the name would suggest, a leaning towards steaming bowls of restorative broth. But there’s also Japanese udon, curry rice bowls, fried chicken, Korean desserts and three-part set menus. We can’t wait to dive in.
45 Railway Street, Altrincham WA14 2RQ
HM Pasties Oldham
Open now
The legendary HM Pasties has now moved to a new bakery in Oldham from its original home in Bolton. These are, as their motto goes, ‘pasties with purpose’, from a company that is really making a difference. Set up by ex-offender Lee Wakeham in 2018, HM Pasties not only sources its employees from those with convictions, but some of its produce from prison estates too, giving back as much as it possibly can. Go and support them at their new spot, and get a belting pie or pasty while you’re at it.
Unit 11-12 Pennant industrial estate, Oldham, United Kingdom OL1 3NP
