15 good things I ate and drank in January

In Manchester, Bristol and London

Another January has come and gone again. You might have completed (or had a go at) Dry January. You might have made a good start at some healthy new habits. You might have caught one of the many hideous colds and other viruses that have been going around (I have had two this month) and not been as productive as there is so much pressure on us to be.

It’s been a cold one. The news has been as bleak as the midwinter. If you’ve sat on the couch eating reduced-price pigs-in-blankets crisps with a blanket and a hot water bottle all month, I feel you. I’ve had my fair share of those days.

I’ve been trying not to berate myself for being slow and unproductive. I’m one of those people who always has an overambitious to-do list and I spend a lot of time feeling guilty for not achieving more of the things I ‘should’. So I only gave myself a couple of tasks to tick off this month. Rather than trying to be an even more productive, polished, busy version of myself for 2025, I’m trying to allow myself to do less. I’ve been saying no to stuff because I want less time under pressure. More time to just sit. More freedom to be spontaneous. As a contrary result, I’ve actually achieved quite a bit.

Never mind all that though. What the hell have you been eating, Kel?

I’ve been in London and Bristol this month so it’s not all Manchester-related - although as always, there is plenty to recommend from my home city. I’ve paywalled this post halfway through again. For the price of a flat white a month, you can help me to be paid for the work I do on my completely independent, ad/affiliation-free food writing - and read the whole thing each month. Thanks a bazillion to everyone who already does this.

These are the best things I ate and drank in January 2025.

Smoked beetroot, radicchio, walnut butter, apple, dill at Root Bristol (£9.50)

The best place I ate in Bristol, of four or five different ones on my visit in January, was Root. It’s squirrelled away in a shipping container village of the Hatch/BoxPark variety but Bristol’s version Cargo at Wapping Wharf houses more interesting options than either of those places. It’s the most exciting food I have eaten in a shipping container and I have eaten and drunk a lot of things in them, all over the world, from a vegan Xmas dinner in Hulme to a ‘water bar’ in Wellington NZ.

For Northerner reference, this place hits somewhere between Erst and Maray. It’s small plates (though curiously I found portions much more generous everywhere in Bristol than they are up North). We followed guidelines to order 2-3 each sharing between three hungry people and the last few mouthfuls defeated us. The menu is veg heavy with a small section of, as someone who recommended it described them, ‘meaty sides’. We swooned over a chicken schnitzel bathing in intense buttery apple sauce alongside loads of different veg plates.

This beet dish was one of my faves. I love beetroot and I was really into the different textures and flavours here, smoked, roasted purple beets, bright magenta raw ribbons, a nutty puree base, crisp apple and crunchy candied walnuts. And it looked so pretty on the plate. Root this place out if you’re ever in Bristol.

Buratta with peperonata at Atomeca (£5.50 on the half price Jan deal)

I don’t pay enough attention to January deals and often miss out before the month is over. This was the only one I got involved with and probably the best one out there. Everything I have eaten from Chef Heath here has been excellent. My friend the wickedly funny food writer Emma Sturgess and I shared this burrata with a couple of soda bread flatbreads and a dish of sausage-sauced pasta. The burrata was the standout, contrasting perfectly with a lively peperonata sauce. Some well-needed sunshine on a plate under January’s dust-grey skies.

Crudo di Tonno at Lina Stores Marylebone, London (£12.50)

I was lucky to be invited on a press trip to London to visit several Lina Stores. I’d gazed into the window of the Soho deli before but that was more or less all I knew of the brand so the trip was educational for me. I learned about its 1970s roots and how things have developed nowadays. It’s clearly a well-loved brand, all the sites we visited were busy and buzzy in a way that seems unique to London.

I still get excited going to the big smoke (once a month if poss). I think it’s super important to see what’s going on down there to be a fully informed food writer. You can see how trends make their way up north, who truly is doing things differently up here, and who is following a London-centric mindset. Manchester is almost unrecognisable to even a decade ago but whenever I feel like Manchester has a bit of everything, London still goes ‘hold my drink’, every time I visit.

I was invited on this press trip because Lina Stores is opening here in Manchester in around April this year. I know there is some scepticism about ‘London brands’ coming here and lots of, to some extent understandable, hand-wringing about indies losing business. But as Ophira Gottlieb recently pointed out in a Mill article about Prestwich, we have always had chains in Manchester, and a lot of very uninspiring ones too. What’s different now is that more exciting restaurants want to be here. And they often choose us over every other city in the UK.

This will be the first UK branch of Lina Stores outside of London and I for one am thrilled. Especially now I have tasted things like this simple but special tuna dish dotted with salsa verde and drizzled with peppery olive oil, stunning with a slab of memory-foam-bouncy focaccia. This is something I could eat every day. The more raw fish on menus the better, if you ask me.

I (and you, no doubt) will still go to Manchester indies like Salvis, Onda and Companio - all places I visited this month. The population of Manchester City Centre has increased from around 1000 to 100,000 in the past twenty years or so (ref: Council Leader Bev Craig at a Manchester tourism event I visited this week). There is enough business to go around, we just need the VAT situation and wider economics to make more sense. (More Lina Stores recs below the paywall.)

Malai Kofta Bombay To Mumbai (£12.50)

“Whatever you are doing on New Year’s Day will dictate how you spend the next year.” This is something I read Patti Smith talk about years ago, a baseless superstition of course, but I like it so I always try and do a thing I want to do more of in the hopes it will ring true. Last year I went to another country (Wales) on NYD in the hope I would travel more that year yet I didn’t set foot on a plane or boat all year *shrug emoji*.

This year, when looking back over my best dishes of 2024, I realised with horror that I hadn’t eaten enough Indian food. You’ll have heard me say it’s my favourite cuisine. I cook Indian and Pakistani recipes at home most weeks. My favourite supermarket is Worldwide Foods in Rusholme. But somehow, my home-from-home Bundo aside, I neglected Indian restaurants more than I would have liked. So I have vowed to rectify that. I’ve been trying to make a New Year’s Day curry a thing with my mates for a while too, so coupled with what was supposed to be a lung-busting NYD walk (rained off), we booked a table at Bombay To Mumbai.

I have had a malai kofta habit ever since eating them on a life-changing trip to India ten years ago. These were beautiful lozenge-shaped lads, crisp outside, fluffy within and wallowing like overheated elephants in a creamy masala sauce. Sure I could have eaten four of them and rolled home but with naan and other nibbly bits, this was, as my favourite Jaipurean, Only Fools and Horses obsessed rickshaw driver repeatedly said with genuine gusto, “lovely jubbly”.

Haddock and chips from Skippers of Euxton (just under a tenner)

I don’t eat much fish and chips at all. I’m usually a bit grossed out by oily batter so I tend to go for a dodgy sausage or pudding instead. Can’t remember why I was so ravenous on a visit to see my folks in early Jan, but I was so glad I’d followed their lead and ordered fish and chips from this spectacular chippy in Euxton. I think this is the most perfectly crisp batter I have experienced from a chip shop. Zoom in and look at that frill. Great chips and spot-on curry sauce here too. The mushy peas needed a bit of salt but the posh sachet of ketchup ( have you ever?!) redeemed them. BTW please don’t judge me for this being served on actual crockery and on a tray. My parents clearly have delusions of grandeur.

Tomato, basil and mozarella pizetta from Onda (£8)

The world can never have enough little breads with big puffy, blackened collars. This was a perfect example and served as part of a final carb-loading session in a ridiculous week of eating. I went to Onda at both of its pop-ups but even though I had a crowdfunding voucher to cash in, I only just got around to visiting its standalone restaurant - mainly cos it’s been booked up to the hilt. The pasta was good and generous in portion, and I love that it’s quite visibly all made fresh on-site, but it was this little guy that stood out the most.

Chicken katsu curry arancini, aged parmesan, kewpie at Seven Lucky Gods Bristol (£4.50)

Another restaurant that kept coming up in Bristol recs online is Seven Lucky Gods. I really liked the name so I sought this place out. Also in Cargo Bristol’s waterfront shipping container village, this gaff is loosely Japanese/Korean-themed fast-ish food but done with cheffy pizzazz. Donburi bowls were good, but nothing to write home about. These little chaps were the thing that stuck in my memory. I don’t *think* I have ever seen curry sauce flavoured arancini before and it worked very well. Don’t skip these if you go here.

It’s paywall time folks. If you’re one of my paid subscribers, you can read all about the following, below:

• One of the best cocktails of my life in a secret bar in Soho

• A classic old-school dish at an ancient Chinese restaurant in Manchester

• A decent pub Sunday roast on the edge of town

• More incred food in Bristol and from Lina Stores

• Some stuff I wasn’t so keen on in Jan