Neville’s secret mission
GARY Neville is on an unexpected mission.
While most people probably think of football or – perhaps of late – property development when they hear his name, there is now another passion driving his relentless work schedule: turning around Manchester’s reputation for cuisine.
His stake in the city’s restaurant scene is big and growing fast. By next spring Neville’s firm GG Hospitality will have opened or have detailed plans for at least nine hotels, bars and restaurants in Manchester and Trafford, several of them offering fine dining.
In the space of less than three years he has quietly become one of Manchester’s biggest hospitality employers, with around 700 staff on his books.
The late restaurant critic AA Gill scathingly remarked that Manchester was ‘a city that drinks first and eats after, with its mouth open.’
And, and while Neville does not agree, he desperately wants to help the city shake off its patchy reputation when it comes to highclass dining.
“Manchester’s food scene has been battered for a long time,” he says.
“I ate in Australasia last night, I love it. I ate at El Gato Negro the night before, I loved it.
“I eat at San Carlo, Fumo, love those places. But the food scene has been battered, it’s got a terrible reputation.
“It’s probably the city in the country that’s got the worst reputation for food – Yorkshire, the north east, they’ve all got Michelin stars. Basically, we’ve got this reputation of being crap.”
That reputation isn’t fair, he says, pointing out that the offer in the city has radically improved in recent years. But he believes there is plenty of scope to improve, noting that the city’s food scene is yet young. Casting back to his early days playing for United, he points out Manchester had no real standout restaurants in the 1990s.
“I can’t think of a huge food scene, can’t think of many places to eat in the city centre 25 years ago.
“Also, there weren’t many people living in the city. You’re talking about a really immature scene that’s growing and has become far more advanced, but there’s a long way to go.
“I think my view would be service and consistency are always the challenge.”
GG Hospitality is now a substantial enterprise, but ask him about his restaurant and hotel empire and he looks momentarily surprised. “It’s not an empire, it’s a few outlets,” he insists, before reeling off – with genuine pride – Hotel Football in Trafford, Stock Exchange and its three restaurants, due to open next March, St Michael’s, the forthcoming cocktail bar Mahikis and the National Football Museum in Urbis, including Cafe Football and fusion restaurant Rabbit in the Moon. Plus a stake in Michelin-starred restaurant Man Behind the Curtain in Leeds.
Part of his aim is to inject some new experiences into Manchester’s dining circuit through his partnership with Michelin-starred chef Michael O’Hare.
O’Hare is behind the three highend restaurants that will open in the Stock Exchange when the hotel launches next spring, as well as Neville’s most recent venture, Rabbit in the Moon.
Like much of his business, he says that came about pretty spontaneously.
After taking on the contract for the National Football Museum – an obvious fit for him, he says – there was the opportunity to open up a restaurant upstairs.
He took O’Hare to see the space and within three or four months the restaurant was open.
“He just put a 22-year-old chef in it and we went for it. We didn’t put out any big PR, any big splash,