“Go on then”, people say, when I explain what I do for a living. “What’s the best restaurant in Manchester?” I hear this question on a near daily basis, from the mouths of everyone from builders to bankers, yet it’s something I never tire of.
Partly that’s because people only ask as they really want to know, and I appreciate their passion and curiosity. And partly it’s because, me being me, I really, really want to tell them.
“Sit down”, I say, patting the seat next to me. “And I’ll begin.”
Definitions are everything in this context, and the first is: what do we mean by ‘best’? Surely the best restaurant is the one that delivers the most complex, multi-faceted and technically demanding experience with as few errors as possible? A little like the weighting for difficulty in gymnastics scoring – a good execution of a complex routine would beat a great execution of an easy one.
But hospitality exists to take us away from the world and once you’re inside that bubble of indulgence, even the smallest jagged edge or jarring note can burst the illusion. Therefore, I would argue the highest achievement for any restaurant – and certainly the most pleasurable for a diner – is to deliver seamless perfection in line with their own aims and ambitions, regardless of the level of dining they are operating at.
In effect I’m judging flawlessness, whether in a simple neighbourhood bistro or a fine dining extravaganza which contains many more moving parts. And on this basis, I’d argue that a tiny restaurant serving bowls of glorious stodge in a railway arch beyond Victoria station could just be the best restaurant in Manchester.
The Spärrows is the brainchild of Kasia Hitchcock, who is Polish, and her partner Franco Concli, from Trentino in Northern Italy. By their own admission they specialise in ‘Mittel-European carbs’. Think gnocchi and pasta, as well as dumplings such as pierogi and pelmeni, and, of course, spätzle.
These ‘little sparrows’, from the German, are the Teutonic answer to pasta, and from where the name of the restaurant is derived. It comes from the fluid, almost avian movement these thin slivers of dumpling batter make when they hit a pot of boiling water.
It’s the sort of serious fodder which would help increase your terminal velocity in a luge, or maybe sustain you through a Winter hibernation.
The Spärrows is indeed housed in a railway arch on a sketchy road which snakes from Victoria station up to the industrial units of Cheetham Hill. The door is sheet steel, lacking only an eye-level peephole to make you feel like a character in a Guy Ritchie movie. Ring the buzzer, and as the door swings open you are greeted with warmth, light, and the pleasing hubbub of a restaurant packed to the rafters by 6pm on a Tuesday evening.
My dinner guest was artist and designer Liam Hopkins, who runs Lazarian, a remarkable multidisciplinary studio which produces everything from public art to custom furniture and interiors. We were there to chat about the interactive installation he has planned for Manchester Art Fair next month, but as a man who thinks deeply before producing works of understated clarity, I felt he would also appreciate the experience.
We took our seats in its dome of a room, curved as perfectly as an egg, bathed in neutral tones but alive with textures. The walls are delicately set with a carefully curated mix of artworks, and an almost sculptural array of lighting breaks the space up into intimate, social pockets. The clientele was unpretentious, effortlessly cool and wildly international, dotted with tables of young Japanese, Chinese, and Italians.
Hypnotic as it all was, we wrenched our eyes down as the densely packed menu was calling.
Liam’s special of pappardelle came with chanterelles, though it may have been more accurate to describe it as chanterelles that came with pappardelle. The pasta was in there, looped back and forth and glistening with butter, but it was lost below a tumbling landslide of tangerine-orange horns, crisped in the pan. With just a hint of garlic and marjoram, the delicate apricot notes of the mushrooms had room to sing.
A world class dish.
I sat opposite, quietly seething with food envy as I’d followed tradition and chosen the house dish of spätzle käse. It arrived in a beautifully-glazed blue bowl with a wodge of thick twists of pasta coiled in the bottom, peeping through the creamy sludge of Emmenthal cheese and braised onion like alligators. It was a concussively satisfying dish, causing my head to loll and eyes to de-focus as the carbs got to work on my body.
Next up, a shared bowl of generously filled pierogi, and again we went old school with a filling of cottage cheese and potato. The thin pastry wrappers were crisped in the pan to give a gentle chew, and the rich filling burst out at the slightest provocation. Should you feel in danger of floating from your seat with sheer pleasure at this point, then rest assured they come with a dipping pot of sour cream for ballast.
To leaven the doughy onslaught, we sought refuge in the sides. An unexpectedly light and delicious sauerkraut was pepped up with textural crunch from sunflower seeds. Alongside it, thick slabs of ‘raspberry’ tomatoes, the size of beef tomatoes but sweet and juicy rather than grainy and mealy. They came topped with a fan of sliced onion ‘feathers’, sharply pickled in elderflower vinegar to a flamingo pink.
Desserts filled any remaining gaps. Glorious Hungarian plums, marinated in plum vodka and dusted with muscovado sugar before grilling, were soft and yielding beneath the brûlée crust and served with a scooped ball of vanilla ice cream and a sprinkle of amaretti crumbs. And a tiramisu, served in a large tumbler, was dense with nuggets of sponge folded into the lightest of creams, and topped by a dusting of cocoa as thick as a manhole cover.
The entire evening had unfurled as effortlessly as a sail, with the confident team flitting back and forth like hummingbirds. Glasses were topped up – the excellent wine list leans into Central and Eastern Europe – and the myriad of plates from our over-ordering were deftly shuffled around the table like flatware Tetris. An elegant, jazzy soundtrack tinkled away as potent post-prandial shots of house coffee schnapps generously appeared and were gratefully disappeared.
We chatted and chatted and chatted some more, reliving the sense of discovery that started our evening – that edgy walk and the steel door eventually revealing this jewel of a restaurant. Like cracking open an unremarkable stone on the beach and finding the most brilliant agate within.
From that first, perfectly orchestrated bit of theatre, The Sparrows hadn’t put a foot wrong. In its raw space there are no rough edges.
Thom Hetherington and Liam Hopkins ate at The Spärrows, 16 Red Bank, Green Quarter, Manchester. M4 4HF
Petit Fours
- The area around The Sparrows is technically called Red Bank, though it sits at the heart of an underappreciated sweep of urban periphery from Cheetham Hill Road through Angel Meadows to Rochdale Road. It had always felt like a forgotten corner of the city, not least when I lived there around the turn of the millennium. The wonderful Marble Arch and The Angel are still going strong, and green shoots of hospitality have appeared with GRUB, Fairfield Social Club, The Sparrow’s own Suzume sake bar, and even a resurgent Derby Brewery Arms. In addition, 15,000 new homes and a whole new district is emerging as Victoria North takes shape on the derelict land just behind The Sparrows. The developers have grand plans to put hospitality at the heart of this new neighbourhood, and the additional footfall should also be revelatory for those existing businesses.
- If we’re talking ‘best’ restaurants then I simply must mention Moor Hall. It really does deliver a ‘full service’ restaurant experience, and it does so to exquisite levels. They have grounds, a lake with a fountain, accommodation in the historic hall or luxury pods, and a meal experience which starts and ends in the bar, and includes tours of the garden and the kitchen, as well as plenty of tableside theatre and an outstanding wine list. It has two Michelin stars and has been rightfully voted the UK’s best restaurant. I don’t think I’ve had a better or more complete restaurant experience anywhere in the world, and it’s a mere 45mins from Manchester. If you are a fanatical foodie with the finances to indulge your passions then you simply must go.
- Manchester is groaning under the weight of sushi, sashimi and pan-Asian menus. Arguably Australasia established the format here, and indeed has recently revamped its offer to keep pace with changing trends. In the meantime, Sexy Fish, Lucky Cat and Kitten are all mining a similar culinary seam, as will the incoming Chotto Matte. Amongst all this, MUSU on Bridge Street has carved out a reputation for serious Omakase dining and the quality of their dry-aged fish, and they have just been awarded 3 AA rosettes for their trouble. They’re not resting on their laurels though, with a new and less formal fire-cooking concept, Kaji, with chef Steven Smith at the helm, opening in the current MUSU site later this month, before MUSU itself will return with a few significant tweaks in a new basement space.
- Mentioning Manchester Airport can be a red rag to long-suffering Mancunians, but improvements are underway via £1.3bn of investment. In the meantime, they have also opened Aether, a private terminal which aims to bring a luxury hospitality vibe to those who can and will pay. The menus are courtesy of Adam Reid of The French, and the package includes plenty of Gusbourne, private check-in and security, and BMW i8s to ferry you out to your plane. You might still end up with the overhead locker lottery of Ryanair once on board, but a private jet-style experience on the ground sounds tempting to me.
