A surrealist Brazilian-British tasting menu (in a pub basement)

Cassava, feijão tropeiro, chuchu, moqueca - and Lancashire cheese

I knew that Brazilian chef Caroline Martins was hosting the latest iteration of her ‘chef’s table’ tasting menu experience from an NQ pub. I knew it was a footy pub, yet it was still discombobulating arriving there for a posh dinner.

Waiting outside to meet my date, the door to the pub burst open, and a man forward rolled straight out onto the pavement. I attempted to help him up. He was fine, he slurred, but thanked me for my concern.

You would never know there is a tasting menu experience in this pub basement.

Once inside, we realised City were playing. Loud cheers and groans came from the punters sitting at tables, each with its own telly screen. The last time I experienced live sports in a fine dining setting was at The Bull and Bear, and I was not amused.

We didn’t have to soak up the atmosphere for long before Caroline’s husband, Tim, greeted us to show us to our table. He led us through a door at the back of the room, down the kind of stairs only pub staff frequent, past a well stocked wine rack and into a windowless basement with a concrete ceiling, mottled grey walls and a grey counter. Sort of nuclear bunker vibes, almost with a touch of Gilliam’s Brazil, which is apt in the current global political climate. My dark humour approved.

Pretty canapes including Brazil’s favourite bar snack, a quail’s egg

In stark contrast to this brutalist environment, soft tan leather stools, patterned cork placemats set with chic crockery, napkins and cutlery, and stylish amber drinking glasses reminded us that this was a chef’s table experience, albeit in the most incongruous of settings.

Caroline is nothing if not inventive. An honorary Mancunian (she has lived here for around five years now), she has that punk spirit. Her art finds its way no matter what.

Ethical foie gras and other toppings for Brazilian cheese bread at Sampa

She has a wild CV, leaving a career as a plasma physicist to go on Masterchef Brazil before heading to Le Cordon Bleu in London to study culinary arts. She worked in a few Michelin-star restaurants in Europe, including the two-stars Trenkerstube in Tyrol and Bubbledogs in London, and did a stint on Great British Menu before heading to Manchester.

Here, she worked as a private chef for footballers and the like before launching her first pop-up at Blossom Street Social in Ancoats. Since then, she has run kitchens at places like Exhibition, Hatch and Kargo, doing everything from tacos to steak. But her heart is in fine dining, and this chef’s table experience, Sampa (the colloquial name for São Paulo, where she went to uni) is her current creative baby.

Caroline talks moqueca at Sampa

Caroline and her small team greeted us with huge smiles as eight of us (a full house) took our seats. At least three of us had tried Caroline’s food before, but there is something about this basement and the intimacy of the experience that feels novel and thrilling.

I won’t spoil the whole menu for you (though dishes change regularly), but our twelve courses include Caroline’s signature canapes, scallop dish, and Disney-esque mushroom-shaped guava and chocolate dessert. I had this surrealist dessert years ago at her BSS pop-up, and it was good then, but it’s even better now. In fact, everything is more refined than ever, and I loved seeing the evolution of some dishes and tasting completely new ones.

Shout out to the stunning crockery at Sampa

Stand-out dishes for me, perhaps predictably, were ones involving seafood. I adored a deeply savoury ‘canape’ of prawn bisque with Brazilian arabica coffee inspired, says Caroline, by Eric Ripert’s lobster cappuccino. I also thoroughly enjoyed a strikingly pretty moqueca-inspired hake dish with the sweetness of purple sweet potato and golden beetroot balancing beautifully with a creamy sauce full of mussels.

Brazilian cava at Sampa

There are so many surprises in the drinks pairing. For a start, it includes multiple Brazilian wines. I can’t think of anywhere else in Manchester that sells that. There is cachaça too, served home-style along with tales from the charmingly down-to-earth Tim of their visits to Brazil to meet Caroline’s family.

I also fell in love with the kitsch toucan-shaped water jugs.

What’s really exciting, aside from the bonkers setting, is the combination of influences. Caroline’s Michelin experience brings the wow factor to dishes inspired by home-style Brazilian classics. These will be nostalgic for chef but largely unfamiliar to most Mancunians or non-Brazilian visitors to our city. Ingredients like cassava, chuchu, and biquinho chilli pepper don’t usually pop up in a fine dining setting.

Caroline Martins sauces a dish at her chef’s table at Sampa

But there is a keen eye for local sourcing, too. You’ll find Lancashire cheese served with Manchester honey, chocolate sourced with cocoa from Brazil but made by Mancunians at Dormouse Chocolates, and locally sourced mushrooms, meat and fish. Caroline sources from outside the local area if the finest produce is found there, like Orkney scallops and ethical foie gras (the same as is served at mana). She is effusive when talking about produce. She loves food, and the passion shines out of her.

THAT mushroom dessert at Sampa

As with most supper clubs, you get chatting with the other guests, all of whom were having a whale of a time. All of whom were clearly the type of people who seek out unusual dining experiences. Some local, and some who were visiting from further afield. The small all-female kitchen team deserves a mention for their calm composure as we all gawped at them doing their job.

It’s also incredibly affordable for something so special. The 12-course tasting menu is a remarkable £58 per head, with various drink pairings for £25-35. All this adds up to a unique dining experience that I would not hesitate to recommend.

You can book your place at the table for Sampa or subscribe to Caroline’s culinary updates via the Sampa website.

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Full disclosure: I was invited by Caroline to try this Sampa tasting menu. For anyone who is new here, as well as spending a lot of my own money in restaurants, I am lucky enough to be invited to various places every month, many of which I turn down, and I only take the time to write full articles when I think the experience warrants it.