Chef’s Middle Eastern trip with new restaurant plan
THE owners of tapas restaurant El Gato Negro have revealed plans for a new Middle Eastern venue nearby.
Mill Hill Developments has taken out a lease on the former Panama Hatty’s unit on Brown Street in the city centre, in the basement of the Grade II-listed former Reform Club building at the top of King Street.
In it they will open a new, as-yet unnamed restaurant ‘designed and run on a similar basis [to El Gato Negro] but with an eastern Mediterranean style cuisine’, documents lodged with the council’s planning department reveal.
El Gato Negro chef patron and creative director Simon Shaw has previously told the M.E.N. of his ambition to open a restaurant blending North African and Middle Eastern influences.
“I love Syrian and Middle Eastern food. When I lived in London I used to eat in a lot of Persian places,” he said in a 2016 interview.
Reaffirming his plans yesterday, he told the M.E.N.: “We’re pleased to announce that we will be opening our long-awaited third restaurant on Brown Street, this summer. Drawing heavily on my travels through the Middle East, diners can expect authentic flavours inspired by the various regions.”
Shaw relocated El Gato Negro from Ripponden, West Yorkshire, to King Street in 2015, and went on to open Portuguese neighbourhood restaurant, Canto, in Ancoats last year.