My most memorable meals of 2023 (part two)

Grey mullet laap, two Xmas dinners and a flaming wheelbarrow steak

At the start of Jan, I published part one of my most memorable meals of 2023 which included lunch on a private jet (sorry), a Lunar New Year feast, and a deep-fried fish. There were ten meals in part one and there are thirteen here in part two, making for a poetic 23 in total. Most of these are great meals in Manchester but again, a couple have snuck in from further afield.

2024 is already looking like a good food year. If you missed it, I wrote about some of the food and drink stuff I’m looking forward to this year here.

In part one, I mentioned I would try to cover more cheap and humble places among the fancy ones in 2024 but I want to add that I will aim to go to all of Manchester’s 10 boroughs (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) to eat this year. I spend a lot of time in Manchester, Stockport and Trafford and a bit in Bury but I neglect some of the others. If anyone has any strong recommendations for good food in Oldham, Bolton, Wigan and Rochdale especially, I’m ready to follow your lead. Leave me a comment!

Without further ado, here are the rest of my most memorable meals of 2023:

Steak cooked in a wheelbarrow at Pedacos winery, Alijó, Douro, Portugal

Yeah, you’ve had steak, but have you had steak cooked in a flaming wheelbarrow by a lady in a pastel tabard? Standing in a dusty back street somewhere in the Douro Valley watching the flames of a wheelbarrow BBQ lick great hunks of meat will remain etched in my memory forever. This was on a wine press trip and I felt like the world’s luckiest person for the entire five days of visiting mind-boggling beautiful wineries and tasting our way around the world-class wine region. I am going to publish a full rundown of the wine trip on my wine blog very soon. It’s long overdue. But what I did write the second I arrived home was a paean to this wheelbarrow steak.

Family meal at Street Urchin

However great the food is, what makes a meal outstanding is often the company. My brother has lived in New Zealand for over 20 years so I was beside myself when he (Darryl) and his daughter Charlie came to visit. We went to lots of places to eat with them and our folks, all of them great (I picked them!) but this dinner at Street Urchin stays in my memory. I think because the upstairs dining room feels like you’re at home. It’s cosy, comfortable and full of interesting things to look at, chalkboards full of long dish descriptions lean against the walls reminding me of the pre-gastropub gastro pubs of my Lancashire youth. The portions are the kind you’d get at someone’s house too. We shared a few bottles of great wine (shout out to the Telianai Saperavi) and stuffed our faces with fat scallops, bouillabaisse (pictured) and more. If you’ve not been to Street Urchin, go. It’s a real IYKYK gem.

Tasting menu at Orme, Urmston

For me, the openings of 2023 are the very much talked about Higher Ground, and the slightly less talked about Orme. Orme, a tasting menu restaurant on a row of shops in suburban Urmston (complete with ‘outdoor’ loo) is charm personified. Its optional wine flights include an entirely English one. Strange really that nobody else has done this yet here. The wine is impeccably matched by Front Of House Manager and Sommelier Rachel Roberts to the ambitious £45 (!) tasting menu. The food is punching high but hits hard. It features carefully sourced local meat and fish with some of the fruit and veg coming from as close to home as chef Jack Fields’ uncle’s allotment. A standout dish was sticky beef rib with Old Winchester, dehydrated tomato and basil puree, posh but comfortable like a good mattress. The cheese course (pictured) of Buffalo Blue from Yorkshire dairy Shepherd’s Purse served with brown butter and hazelnut cake was incredible too. I visited to write it up for Finest but I will be back ASAP on my own dolla.

Birthday lunch at Climat

I had a week of celebrations for my birthday in 2023 because why not? Life is short and times can be tough so take the opportunities to enjoy yourself when they arise. On the actual day, we went for a wander in the morning and thought we’d take our chances on a walk-in lunch table at Climat. We got lucky. The lunch was impeccable with stand-out dishes being a sea bream escabeche with cucumber and smoked olive oil, a garnet-centred hogget leg with courgette and a wedge of cabbage. I always prefer lunch rather than dinner here to take in the city views in their full glory. In fact, lunch is becoming my favourite eating-out time full stop. Tucked up in bed by 10pm is the dream.

Lunch on a cruise ship on the Thames

The lunch here wasn’t really the thing, pleasant as it was (see the image of fat scallops above, who could complain?). But this memorable meal was all about the context. Towards the end of my tenure as Editor at Confidentials, I joined the Guild Of Food Writers, an esteemed institution which includes Nigella Lawson, Chetna Makan, and Mary Berry among its members and whose patron is only bloody Delia Smith. I was pleased to be able to keep my membership when I was between jobs and they continue to be a supportive and positive force in my freelance life.

An invite to lunch on a Windstar Cruises ship on the River Thames dropped into my inbox just in time for my freelance leap from Finest and reader, what would you do? When you only have so much annual leave a year and your current boss doesn’t see things like press trips with the GFW as important for your professional development, you have to say no to a lot of invites. Being able to say yes and head to London to meet my fellow guild members because I’d recklessly quit a great job to go freelance, well it felt great. And I met some brilliant people who I am now in touch with more regularly. Up the GFW and up the spontaneity that comes with my newfound freedom.

Solo pie at Great North Pie Co

The pie is a perfect foodstuff, especially when the weather’s starting to nip, and I can’t think of many better than Great North Pie Co’s. After a long day of trying not to swallow wine at the epic SITT tasting, I needed some stodge in my belly. I went for a solo steaming pie at the newish Kampus pie cafe. These pies are always winning awards for their buttery Scotch-style double crust cases filled to the absolute brim with a variety of fillings. The one I had was chicken, ham and peas in a creamy sauce served over a bolster of buttery mash with hot, thick gravy poured over the top. You don’t need company to enjoy a meal like this. Just gaze into the eyes of your beloved pie and sigh.

Everything at Kiln London

I’ve wanted to go to Kiln for ages and finally got along after yet another Homerian wine tasting. The wine tasting in question was Hatch Mansfield’s portfolio one at the Institute of Directors and it’s not for the faint-hearted. I emerged bleary-eyed and ravenous to meet Giz after his own day of gallery hopping and we hot-footed to Soho. Kiln’s one of those places where you can’t book, you give your name and number and they text you when there’s a space for you. The system works well and we were soon tucked into high stools at the bar watching the Lord of the Rings-looking kitchen action, all battered and seasoned pans, woks and cauldrons sizzling away on flaming hobs. The food here is just incredible. Fiery Thai-influenced dishes you want to eat every one of but even if you go mad ordering, it’s still extremely reasonably priced. We hoovered up dish after dish including laap mee of grey mullet (pictured), clay pot baked glass noodles with Tamworth fat and crab meat, and fried curry of monkfish and its liver. If this place was in Manchester I’d be in at least once a month.

The Little Sri Lankan at Sureshot

I wrote about my visit to a Little Sri Lankan supper club at Sure Shot brewery last year so I’m going to try not to repeat myself. What’s so special about it? Well, supper clubs in general are great, aren’t they? Ones in breweries or other no-restaurant settings especially and Sureshot is a great taproom. But there’s something so adorable about Mal and Mike. The way they interact as a couple to create the food and atmosphere. The stories Mal tells about her Sri Lankan childhood and heritage. And of course, the food. There’s not much Sri Lankan food in Manchester so if you’ve not had much of it - as I haven’t - it’s an adventure. Close in style to South Indian cuisine, it’s full of coconut milk, fish, spice and sweet veggies, an acrobatic display of flavours. I loved my experience here and am keen to go to one of the supper clubs they host at home.

Tawny Stores at Yellowhammer

I’ve only been once but once was enough for me to fall head over heels with Tawny Stores’ Friday night dinners at Yellowhammer in Stockport. There’s something magical and unique about Beth’s approach to dish design that I want to get under the skin of - and hopefully will if I can get around to interviewing her properly as I have been intending to. The dish I still can’t get over featured slivers of skate wing draped over a heady garlic aioli. I don’t actually like skate all that much as it can so often be a bit, well, pissy tasting. This had not a whiff of the urinal to it, thankfully. It smelt and tasted extraordinary and I watched as other diners made the same ecstatic faces as me and my mate Tommy had as they took their first bite.

Lunch at Erst, Manchester

Whenever people have asked me over the past few years what my favourite restaurant in Manchester is, I almost always said Erst. But I’d neglected it for almost a year until lunch with my pal Neil Sowerby called me back. The week before Chanel’s Manchester catwalk, the place was buzzing to be hosting a VIP dinner in the coming days. Stylish folks pulled up pews nearby as the sun streaked across the minimalist dining room. Cracking open a peppery bottle of Cab Franc from Bourgueil, we ordered most of the menu and, though both seasoned Erst-ers, neither of us could get over how great it all was. A lip-quivering Bagna Cauda with crisp chicory for dipping, a fat slice of stuffed and rolled porchetta, the crisp belly fat cut through with zippy green sauce, and a plate of coin-thick raw scallops in a citrussy dressing sprinkled with smoky paprika all had our eyes rolling back into our skulls in rapture. Even with some very strong new competition, Erst is still my favourite restaurant in Manchester.

Christmas dinner at Rogan & Co, Cartmel, Cumbria

I was disgustingly lucky to be invited to test drive the Xmas tasting menu at the one-star Rogan & Co in Cartmel, just down the road from the eponymous Rogan’s ‘other’ restaurant, the three-star L’Enclume. R&C is a more approachable option for the psyche and the wallet. L’Enclume’s $$$$ 3-hour+ menu of surreal and sensory kitchen wizardry is amazing, but not for everyone or every occasion. Even with a Northern Rail ordeal that extended my journey there and back by hours - props to Greg the PR who ended up rescuing me from Lancaster by car - I’d do the day again. The meal was enchanting from start to finish but still felt like a comfortingly familiar Xmas dinner. And I know I’m supposed to wax lyrical about more technical wows but the thing I keep flashing back to is the best roast spuds and gravy I have ever had in my life.

Xmas Dinner #2 at Henrock, Windermere, Cumbria

With a couple of exceptions, I’ve cooked Xmas dinner for family every year since I was 13. Lately, I’ve grinchily fallen out with it. This year, for a change, we were supposed to go and visit my brother and his family in NZ, a long overdue trip to our faraway fam. My mum’s illness meant she couldn’t fly so my dad treated us to a trip to the Lakes and Xmas lunch at the beautiful Linthwaite Hotel in Windermere.

Henrock, the restaurant at this hotel, is a Rogan spot the locals have been quietly enjoying while food tourists (understandably) flock to L’Enclume and its neighbouring Rogan & Co (see above). But Henrock is well worth your time too. It’s unusual in that Rogan allows ingredients from further afield to be used. Our Farm veg and local produce, yes, but also big Asian flavour hits like shiso, hoisin, teriyaki and miso. Xmas dinner here was an incredible, five-hour experience and I took few pictures preferring just to enjoy myself. This Jerusalem artichoke dish was an immense upgrade on the soup I often make as our Xmas day starter from the same knobbly tuber - one of my all-time favourite vegetables. Oh, and I have to give a shout-out to the team, especially star waiter Joel whose enthusiasm brightened up every meal a notch further.

Crispy duck at Happy Seasons, Chinatown, Manchester for New Year’s Eve

I don’t usually ‘do’ New Year’s Eve, having long believed it’s a night for amateurs. Restaurants roll out expensive tasting menus, weekend warriors roll out of Schloss looking for a scrap, and I (usually) roll myself up in a blanket burrito and watch shit TV. New Year’s Day is my bird, I like to be relatively hangover-free and go out and Do Something (usually involving nature then a pub or a curry). This year, I decided to buck my own tradition and go out out on NYE. I don’t know who can afford a tasting menu on the last day of the year. Instead, we went for pure affordable greed and ordered half a crispy duck, a big plate of Chinese spinach with garlic, Kung Po king prawns and salt and pepper chicken with curry sauce on the side from Happy Seasons. The most attentive service from the overworked team who managed the queue and the endless churn of revellers so well. I might do this every NYE now.

Thanks again for reading my words. More soon.